The Hebrew adjective rachab means wide, broad, or spacious. Related to the noun rochav (width) and the verb rachav (to make wide), it appears about 21 times. It describes literal spatial breadth but also the spiritual experience of divine deliverance and freedom.
In Hebrew poetic thought, wideness and spaciousness represent freedom and flourishing, while narrowness represents oppression and distress. The root verb rachav underlies the name 'Rehoboth' — 'spacious place' — the well Isaac dug where there was finally room (Genesis 26:22). Psalm 18:19 uses the related noun: 'He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.' God's commands are described as wide in Psalm 119:96 — broader than any human system of ethics. The opposite of rachab is tsar (narrow, distressed), and the contrast between narrow affliction and the wide place of divine rescue is a recurring Psalmic theme. The messianic 'broad place' promises rest for the weary — a motif Jesus invokes: 'Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction' (Matthew 7:13).