רָקַם râqam — to variegate color, i.e. embroider
Translated in the KJV as embroiderer, needlework, curiously work.
a primitive root; to variegate color, i.e. embroider; by implication, to fabricate.
râqam in each stem
Qal (Pa'al)
Participle (active) 8
And thou shalt make an hanging for the door of the tent, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, wrought with needlework.
And for the gate of the court shall be an hanging of twenty cubits, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, wrought with needlework: and their pillars shall be four, and their sockets four.
And thou shalt embroider the coat of fine linen, and thou shalt make the mitre of fine linen, and thou shalt make the girdle of needlework.
Pu'al
Perfect (qatal) 1
My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
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 ›