רָעָה râʻâh — to tend a flock
Translated in the KJV as × break, companion, keep company with, devour, eat up, evil entreat, feed, use as a friend, make friendship with, herdman, keep, pastor.
a primitive root; to tend a flock; i.e. pasture it; intransitively, to graze (literally or figuratively); generally to rule; by extension, to associate with (as a friend).
râʻâh in each stem
Qal (Pa'al)
Participle (active) 94Imperfect (yiqtol) 32Sequential perfect (weqatal) 10Infinitive construct 8Wayyiqtol 7Imperative 6Jussive 2Perfect (qatal) 2
And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
And he said, Lo, it is yet high day, neither is it time that the cattle should be gathered together: water ye the sheep, and go and feed them.
And while he yet spake with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep: for she kept them.
Pi'el
Perfect (qatal) 1
But Samson’s wife was given to his companion, whom he had used as his friend.
Hitpa'el
Jussive 1
Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go:
What the stems mean
A Hebrew verb is its root letters set into a pattern. The pattern — the binyan — is the grammar's way of saying three things at once: whether the action is simple, intensive or causative, and whether its subject is active, passive or reflexive. That is why one Hebrew word can need six English ones. All seven binyanim, explained ›