R-D-P is a chase. The glossary's curated sense keeps both halves: to pursue, to persecute, to chase after, to hound and harry; the driving after one to harm. Before it is a word about religious oppression it is a word about running: someone has your scent and is closing the distance. That is why the Qala gold renders it hunt ("when they hunt you," "those who hunt you") instead of the worn-smooth "persecute." A hunted person doesn't experience a concept; they experience footsteps.
This root closes the Beatitude tier because the last Beatitude lives inside it: the reign of heaven is declared to belong to people who are, right now, being run down for the sake of what is right.
| Form | Pattern | Transliteration | Script | Standard | Qala rendering |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Verb (Peal) | simple stem | rdap | רדף ܪܕܦ | to pursue, persecute | to hunt |
| Active participle, pl. | peal participle | radpin (wradpin) | ורדפין ܘܪܳܕ݂ܦ݁ܺܝܢ | they persecute | they hunt (you) |
| Passive (Ethpeel) | et- prefix | etrdep (detrdepw) | — | be persecuted | those hunted (Matthew 5:10) |
| Noun | -ya abstract | rdupya | — | persecution | the hunting (lexicon form, not in this corpus) |
| Stem | Force | This root | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peal | simple | rdap | to pursue, hunt (Matthew 5:44; 10:23; John 5:16) |
| Ethpeel | simple passive | etrdep | to be hunted (Matthew 5:10) |
| Pael | intensive | not attested | — |
| Ethpaal | intensive passive | not attested | — |
| Aphel | causative | not attested | — |
| Ettaphal | causative passive | not attested | — |
| Shaphel | rare causative | not attested | — |
The root shadows the whole story: "they revile you and hunt you" (Matthew 5:11), "They hunted the prophets before you the very same way" (Matthew 5:12), and in John 5:16 the leaders "began to hunt Yeshua" himself.
Your body already knows this root. Recall a time you were pursued (by a person, a deadline, a debt, a reputation closing in) and notice what returns: shoulders tightening, breath going shallow, the urge to look behind you. The teaching of Matthew 5:44 is spoken into exactly that state. Stand inside the tightness for a moment and try the sentence there: pray for the one whose footsteps you hear. Notice that it does not ask you to feel safe first.
The Hebrew cognate is radaf (רָדַף), the identical root, most famously turned kind in Psalm 23:6, where goodness and mercy pursue the psalmist all the days of his life: the hunter's verb with love in its mouth. Within the 75, this root binds to K-ʾ-N (day 39): the hunted of Matthew 5:10 are hunted "for the sake of what is right," kinuta, and to Ṭ-W-B (day 31), the "flourishing" that opens every Beatitude line. No genuine English descendants.
Take two or three minutes and explain to a friend why "those hunted for the sake of what is right" hits differently than "those who are persecuted for righteousness." Use rdap and its passive etrdep, and end with the strange mercy of Psalm 23: the same verb, chasing you with goodness.