roa · ugliness; evil

What it means

roa (רֹעַ) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “ugliness; evil”.

Bad appearance, ugliness. Elsewhere, wickedness.

How to say it

Approximate pronunciation. Vowels sound as in Spanish (a as in father, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in note, u as in rule); the syllable in bold is stressed. The voice is your device's.

Its senses in the Bible

1. The wickedness of deeds or the heart.
2. Poor quality, unpleasant look.
3. A sad face, weighed down by grief.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

How it is translated

The words this translation uses for it, most frequent first.

• evil ×12
• badness ×4
• sadness ×2
• ugliness ×1

Related words

Words of the same family, by Strong’s numbering.

Where it appears

• Genesis×1
• Deuteronomy×1
• 1 Samuel×1
• Nehemiah×1
• Psalms×1
• Ecclesiastes×1
• Isaiah×1
• Jeremiah×11
• Hosea×1

• Genesis 41:19

  And look, seven other cows came up after them, poor and very ugly in form and lean in flesh; I have never seen any like them in all the land of Egypt for ugliness.

• Deuteronomy 28:20

  YHWH will send on you the curse, the confusion, and the rebuke in all that you undertake with your hand that you do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the evil of your deeds, in that you have forsaken me.

• 1 Samuel 17:28

  Eliab his oldest brother heard when he spoke to the men, and the anger of Eliab burned against David, and he said, “Why have you come down? And with whom have you left that little flock in the wilderness? I know your arrogance and the evil of your heart: for in order to see the war you have come down.”

• Nehemiah 2:2

  And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of heart.” And I was afraid very greatly.

• Psalms 28:4

  Give them according to their work and according to the evil of their deeds; according to the work of their hands give them; return their recompense to them.

• Ecclesiastes 7:3

  Better is grief than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made better.

• Isaiah 1:16

  Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; stop doing evil.

• Jeremiah 4:4

  Circumcise yourselves to YHWH, and remove the foreskins of your heart, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or my fury will go out like fire and burn with no one to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.

• Jeremiah 21:12

  house of David! Thus says YHWH: Judge justly in the morning, and rescue the one who is robbed from the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go out like fire and burn with no one to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.

• Jeremiah 23:2

  Therefore, thus says YHWH, the Elohim of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them away, and you have not visited them; look, I am visiting upon you the evil of your deeds, declares YHWH.

• Jeremiah 23:22

  But if they had stood in my council, then they would have made my people hear my words, and they would have turned them back from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds.

• Jeremiah 24:2

  One basket had very good figs, like the figs of the first ripening; and the other basket very bad figs, which could not be eaten for badness.

• Jeremiah 24:3

  And YHWH said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said, “Figs; the good figs, very good; and the bad, very bad, which cannot be eaten for badness.”

• Jeremiah 24:8

  And like the figs that are bad, which cannot be eaten for badness —for thus says YHWH— so will I give up Zedekiah king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who live in the land of Egypt.

• Jeremiah 25:5

  saying, ‘Turn back, please, each one from his evil way and from the evil of your deeds, and dwell on the ground that YHWH gave to you and to your fathers from of old and forever.

• Jeremiah 26:3

  Perhaps they will listen and turn back, each one from his evil way, and I will relent concerning the evil that I am planning to do to them because of the evil of their deeds.

• Jeremiah 29:17

  thus says YHWH Tsevaot: Look, I am sending against them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and I will make them like the repulsive figs that cannot be eaten for badness.

• Jeremiah 44:22

  And YHWH could no longer bear it because of the evil of your deeds, because of the abominations that you committed; so your land has become a ruin and a horror and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is this day.

• Hosea 9:15

  All their evil is in Gilgal; for there I came to hate them; because of the evil of their deeds I will drive them out of my house; I will no longer love them; all their princes are rebels.