Etymology

Scholars believe the most likely Semitic root for repha’im is רפא (rp'). This is the consensus despite the transparent links between the term and Hebrew רפה (rph). For example, in 2 Sam 21:16–22 Goliath is linked to other giants, other “descendants of the giants” (ESV; the latter term in Hebrew being הָרָפָה, haraphah). However, in the parallel account in 1 Chr 20:6–8, the term rendered “giants” is הָרָפָא (harapha'). This makes clear that, at least for these biblical writers, רפא (rp') and רפה (rph) were alternate spellings of the same root. Of the two, words formed with rp’ are far more frequent in the Hebrew Bible, and the spelling of the plural repha’im features the aleph as the third consonant in the root. Brown notes that there is an etymological relationship between plural repha’im and the Ugaritic plural rpʾum (Brown, “I Am the Lord, Your Healer,” 175; see discussion below for the Ugaritic term).

The verbal root r-p-’ means “to heal” in the vast majority of instances where it is used in the Hebrew Bible. According to Brown, the root “occurs 67 times in verbal conjugations … and 19 times in derived nominal forms” (Brown, “I Am the Lord, Your Healer,” 37). While most scholars accept this root as underlying repha’im, it offers little help in ascertaining the meaning of the biblical Rephaim. The biblical Rephaim are never cast as “healers” in context.

The situation is the same concerning Ugaritic rpʾum. The Ugaritic material yields no example portraying the rpʾum as healers. In fact, for many years it was doubted the Ugaritic corpus contained a single instance of the root r-p-ʾ that supported a meaning of “heal.” Brown asks the question directly: “Is there any context in which the Ugaritic root rpʾ clearly means ‘to mend, heal, repair’ or ‘make whole’?” (Brown, “I Am the Lord, Your Healer,” 116). He is skeptical about the existence of any clear example (Brown, “I Am the Lord, Your Healer,” 118–20). However, more recent work in re-editing the Ugaritic tablets has provided clarity on the reading of one text (KTU 1.114:28) whose context supports this meaning for a verb form (third-person feminine singular): “when she [either Athtart or Anat] would heal [trpʾ] him [El] …” (Bordreuil and Pardee, Manual of Ugaritic, vii, 195; compare del Olmo Lete and Sanmartín, Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language, 742). Wyatt, another Ugaritic scholar, takes the verb form as a plural: “Athtart and Anat [returned].… And they brought back meat.… When they had cured [trpʾ] him [El], he awoke” (Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit, 412).

Despite this paucity of supporting material, scholars have continued to presume the underlying meaning of “heal” for Ugaritic rpʾum (Rouillard, “Rephaim,” 692). But this lone instance cannot adequately inform the meaning of the plural rpʾum in Ugaritic material. The one Ugaritic tablet that witnesses a verb form from r-p-ʾ with a meaning “heal” is not about the Ugaritic rpʾum. They appear nowhere in the context. There are therefore no instances where the rpʾum are cast as healers (Brown, “I Am the Lord, Your Healer,” 124–27). The fact that the Septuagint twice renders repha’im with ἰατροὶ (iatroi, “healers”; Psa 88:10 [87:11 LXX]; Isa 26:14) does not clarify the situation since the Septuagint renders Hebrew repha’im inconsistently (see below). That is, ἰατροὶ (iatroi) may be a purely interpretive or speculative translation.

For these reasons, appealing to Ugaritic material to conclude that the Hebrew r-p-ʾ (“heal”) is the source of repha’im is quite tenuous. Consequently, scholars have sought a Semitic homograph, within or without the Hebrew Bible, for clarity on the root of repha’im and its meaning.

Johnson offers one of the more coherent discussions of the alternative roots for repha’im (Johnson, Vitality of the Individual, 89). While noting the uncertainty of the Ugaritic material, Johnson first discusses biblical Hebrew rph as an option. Among the glosses offered in the Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament [HALOT] for the verb רפה (rph) are “to grow slack,” “wither, collapse,” and “to slacken, let loose” (HALOT, 1277). Other sources include “sink down” as a possible gloss (TWOT, 858). Since ancient Israel, along with other surrounding cultures, considered the dead inhabitants of the underworld to still be experiencing some sort of subterrestrial life, the rationale for this root as the basis for repha’im is that the term denotes “weakness or loss of energy” (Johnson Vitality of the Individual, 89). This would aptly describe the cadaverous existence of life in the underworld; passages like Job 26:5 describe the dead (repha’im) beneath the surface of the cosmic waters under the earth, sinking listlessly in the realm of the dead.

While it is certain that the Hebrew Bible portrays the dead in Sheol as alive, yet comparably speaking, in a considerably weaker state than the living (Isa 14:9; 26:14; Prov 21:16), Johnson rejects rph as the proper root, preferring instead to understand Ugaritic r-p-ʾ as meaning “to join.” His conceptual argument is that this lemma “is to be explained in a passive sense as originally denoting those who are ‘joined’ or ‘massed’ together in the community of the dead” (Johnson, The Vitality of the Individual, 90). Proverbs 21:16 resonates with this perspective (“One who wanders from the way of good sense will rest in the assembly of the dead [קְהַל רְפָאִים, qehal repha'im]”). Johnson follows the work of H. L. Ginsburg in this regard, who noted that r-p-ʾ in the Ugaritic Keret Epic occurred in parallel to q-b-ṣ, which means “to gather” (KTU 1.15.iii:3–4, reconstructed on the basis of lines 1.15.iii:14–15). Ginsburg writes, “The meaning of r-p-ʾi is revealed by its parallelism to qbṣ, the root of which means ‘to collect’ in Hebrew.… Evidently rpʾ meant originally ‘to join.’ From this it is but a step to the Heb. and Arab. sense ‘to mend’ and to the Hebrew sense ‘to heal.’ The idea of joining or gathering seems to underlie all the uses of the root rpʾ in the Rephaim (Rp) texts.… The Heb. (and Phoen.) rĕpāʾı̂m ‘shades’ presumably also means literally ‘those gathered’ (compare Prov. 21:16)” (Ginsburg, “Legend of King Keret,” 41).

Though speculative, the proposal of Ginsburg and Johnson has considerable appeal. The lone Ugaritic verbal occurrence of r-p-ʾ (KTU 1.114:28) could be translated to say that Athtart and Anat “joined” El after they brought him meat, and provides a semantic rationale for understanding both Ugaritic rpʾum and Hebrew repha’im as a “gathered” collective of underworld inhabitants. This understanding (potentially) avoids the incongruence of a relationship of the term to healing.