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•RAPHU healed, a Benjamite, whose son Palti was one of the twelve spies (Numbers 13:9).
•RAVEN Hebrews ‘orebh, from a root meaning “to be black” (comp. Cant. 5:11); first mentioned as “sent forth” by Noah from the ark (Genesis 8:7). “Every raven after his kind” was forbidden as food (Leviticus 11:15; Deuteronomy 14:14). Ravens feed mostly on carrion, and hence their food is procured with difficulty (Job 38:41; Psalm 147:9). When they attack kids or lambs or weak animals, it is said that they first pick out the eyes of their victims (Proverbs 30:17). When Elijah was concealed by the brook Cherith, God commanded the ravens to bring him “bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening” (1 Kings 17:3-6). (See ELIJAH.)
There are eight species of ravens in Palestine, and they are everywhere very numerous in that land.
•RAZOR The Nazarites were forbidden to make use of the razor (Numbers 6:5; Judges 13:5). At their consecration the Levites were shaved all over with a razor (Numbers 8:7; comp. Psalm 52:2; Ezekiel 5:1).
•REBA fourth, one of the Midianite chiefs slain by the Israelites in the wilderness (Numbers 31:8; Joshua 13:21).
•REBEKAH a noose, the daughter of Bethuel, and the wife of Isaac (Genesis 22:23; 24:67). The circumstances under which Abraham’s “steward” found her at the “city of Nahor,” in Padan-aram, are narrated in Genesis 24-27. “She can hardly be regarded as an amiable woman. When we first see her she is ready to leave her father’s house for ever at an hour’s notice; and her future life showed not only a full share of her brother Laban’s duplicity, but the grave fault of partiality in her relations to her children, and a strong will, which soon controlled the gentler nature