רָבַץ
ra.vats (H7257)
to stretch
AI Word Study
# רָבַץ (Ravats): A Study in Bodily Positioning The Hebrew verb *ravats* carries the fundamental meaning "to stretch," specifically referring to the physical act of extending one's body in a reclined or prone position. With thirty occurrences throughout the biblical text, the word captures a concrete bodily action rather than an abstract concept. The verb appears with sufficient frequency to indicate it was a standard term for describing human and animal posture in everyday biblical contexts. The primary semantic range of *ravats* encompasses laying down, crouching, and reclining—actions involving the horizontal extension of the body. This positioning could describe both voluntary rest or repose and contextual states of readiness or vulnerability. The word functions as a practical descriptor of physical state, the kind of observable detail a narrator might include when describing how someone rested, how an animal lay in wait, or how a person positioned themselves in a particular moment or location. Given its thirty biblical occurrences, *ravats* represents one of the standard Hebrew vocabulary items for describing bodily posture and position. Its consistent usage across the biblical corpus suggests it was neither specialized nor poetic language, but rather the ordinary terminology ancient Hebrew speakers and writers employed when depicting physical states of rest, repose, or prone positioning in both human and animal subjects.
AI synthesis uses only provided lexicon data -- never training knowledge.
If you do well, won’t it be lifted up? If you don’t do well, sin crouches at the door. Its desire is for you, but you are to rule over it.”
He looked, and behold, a well in the field, and saw three flocks of sheep lying there by it. For out of that well they watered the flocks. The stone on the well’s mouth was large.
Judah is a lion’s cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion, as a lioness. Who will rouse him up?
“Issachar is a strong donkey, lying down between the saddlebags.
even by the God of your father, who will help you, by the Almighty, who will bless you, with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies below, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb.
If you see the donkey of him who hates you fallen down under his burden, don’t leave him. You shall surely help him with it.
The donkey saw Yahweh’s angel, and she lay down under Balaam. Balaam’s anger burned, and he struck the donkey with his staff.
If you come across a bird’s nest on the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the hen sitting on the young, or on the eggs, you shall not take the hen with the young.
Yahweh will not pardon him, but then Yahweh’s anger and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book will fall on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under the sky.
About Joseph he said, “His land is blessed by Yahweh, for the precious things of the heavens, for the dew, for the deep that couches beneath,
Also you will lie down, and no one will make you afraid. Yes, many will court your favor.
He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.
The sun rises, and they steal away, and lie down in their dens.
Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you graze your flock, where you rest them at noon; for why should I be as one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions?
The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, the calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf together; and a little child will lead them.
The cow and the bear will graze. Their young ones will lie down together. The lion will eat straw like the ox.
It will never be inhabited, neither will it be lived in from generation to generation. The Arabian will not pitch a tent there, neither will shepherds make their flocks lie down there.
But wild animals of the desert will lie there, and their houses will be full of jackals. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will frolic there.
The firstborn of the poor will eat, and the needy will lie down in safety; and I will kill your root with famine, and your remnant will be killed.
The cities of Aroer are forsaken. They will be for flocks, which shall lie down, and no one shall make them afraid.
For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness. The calf will feed there, and there he will lie down, and consume its branches.
“You afflicted, tossed with storms, and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in beautiful colors, and lay your foundations with sapphires.
Yahweh of Armies says: “Yet again there will be in this place, which is waste, without man and without animal, and in all its cities, a habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.
and say, ‘What was your mother? A lioness. She couched among lions, in the middle of the young lions she nourished her cubs.
Speak and say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lies in the middle of his rivers, that has said, ‘My river is my own, and I have made it for myself.’
I will feed them with good pasture; and their fold will be on the mountains of the height of Israel. There they will lie down in a good fold. They will feed on fat pasture on the mountains of Israel.
I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will cause them to lie down,” says the Lord Yahweh.
The coast will be for the remnant of the house of Judah. They will find pasture. In the houses of Ashkelon, they will lie down in the evening, for Yahweh, their God, will visit them, and restore them.
Herds will lie down in the middle of her, all the animals of the nations. Both the pelican and the porcupine will lodge in its capitals. Their calls will echo through the windows. Desolation will be in the thresholds, for he has laid bare the cedar beams.
The remnant of Israel will not do iniquity, nor speak lies, neither will a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth, for they will feed and lie down, and no one will make them afraid.”