Deuteronomy 32:24-25 speaks of "mezey ra'av u lechumey resheph - מְזֵי רָעָב וּלְחֻמֵי רֶשֶׁף - the wasting of hunger, and the devouring of the fiery bolt", the latter of which is actually meaningless without some contextual understanding, rooted in the culture of the time - and this we can only do by guesswork and limited evidence. The primary evidence is the surrounding text, a poem that was probably written by the Guild of Yesha-Yahu (see my commentaries on the Book of Isaiah), and which describes Yeshurun, a vision of a perfect Yisra-El which has several anachronistic references like this one somewhat hidden among the Mosheh legends. Here Yesha-Yahu is berating Yeshurun for moral complacency and the following of other gods and demons, and has YHVH respond with threats of extreme violence, amongst which come the two described here.
"The wasting of hunger, and the devouring of the fiery bolt, and bitter destruction; and the teeth of beasts will I send upon them, with the venom of crawling things of the dust.
"The sword shall cause bereavement outside, and terror inside your rooms; both the young man and the virgin, the suckling infant and the grey-haired old man."
Job 5:7 provides a second usage of the name, this time in a series of platitudes trying to present themselves as wisdom proverbs, through which Eli-Phaz the Temanite (see Job 4:1) tries to out-argue Iyov's (Job's) nihilistic misanthropy. "Ki Adam le amal yulad, u veney resheph yagbihu uph - כִּי אָדָם לְעָמָל יוּלָּד וּבְנֵי רֶשֶׁף יַגְבִּיהוּ עוּף - but Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward" - which once again is completely meaningless, and this time even with the context.
Perhaps Psalm 76:4 (76:3 in the version I am linking) will be more helpful. Opening with the statement that Elohim is known in Yehudah, that his name is great in Yisra-El, that his tabernacle is in Shalem and his dwelling-place in Tsi'on, it then tells us that "shamah shibar rishphey kashet, magen ve cherev u milchamah - שָׁמָּה שִׁבַּר רִשְׁפֵי קָשֶׁת מָגֵן וְחֶרֶב וּמִלְחָמָה - There he broke the fiery shafts of the bow; the shield, and the sword, and the war" - but alas no, we are no closer to understanding what this word resheph might mean, beyond yet another image of sparks and flames.
Psalm 78:48 then, another litany of divine destruction, which includes his tormenting of the cattle of the Beney Yisra-El by giving them over to בָּרָד - barad - hail, and to רְשָׁפִים - reshaphim - fiery bolts" - a hint, at last; are we dealing with the lightning?
Song of Songs 8:6 will get us closer. As the lady of the poem sings of her absent, fickle lover, she tells us that "love is strong as death", that "jealousy is as cruel as She'ol", and that "reshapheyha rishphey eysh shalhevet yah - רְשָׁפֶיהָ רִשְׁפֵּי אֵשׁ שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה - the flashes thereof are flashes of fire, a very flame of the Lord", which unfortunately is a very bad translation, because the Lord isn't in the Yehudit anywhere, but Yah the moon goddess is, suffixed to the shalhevet, but hidden by the Redactor in a rather too easy to notice grammatical anomaly; shalhevet-Yah becoming shalheveteyha, which is actually an equally legitimate reading, but feminine, not masculine, nonetheless. Those shalhevot are flames, from the root lahav (להב), though what kind of flames continues to elude us.
Which leaves Habakkuk 3:5, yet another description of the fiery deity, the great destructive power of the universe, which is also, of course, the great creative power of the universe (the uni-verse, not the dui-verse, the Christian one that has destructive-Satan in continuous conflict with creative-Jehovah). "Eloha," as Chavakuk names his deity, "comes from the east" (Teman in the Yehudit, meaning the Yemen, but east is the intention: the sunrise). "His glory covers the heavens" - as you would expect from a sun-god. "A brightness appears as the light, he has rays at his side... before him goes pestilence, VE YETS'E RESHEPH LE RAGLAV - וְיֵצֵא רֶשֶׁף לְרַגְלָיו - and fiery bolts go at his feet."
So, yes, we are speaking of the lightning, the great lazer-gun of the deity with which he plays Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker from the sky, zapping the oak trees, paintballing humans, Ba'al Chadad in the Kena'ani (Canaanite) and Phoenician, Zeus, Wotan with his Wanderer's Staff. But also, in the Kena'ani world, Resheph the god of war and of the underworld, which is why those passages were so confusing - they have managed to amalgamate all three facets of Resheph, which would not have been a problem to readers and listeners back then, because they would have known that context.
Perhaps Psalm 76:4 (76:3 in the version I am linking) will be more helpful. Opening with the statement that Elohim is known in Yehudah, that his name is great in Yisra-El, that his tabernacle is in Shalem and his dwelling-place in Tsi'on, it then tells us that "shamah shibar rishphey kashet, magen ve cherev u milchamah - שָׁמָּה שִׁבַּר רִשְׁפֵי קָשֶׁת מָגֵן וְחֶרֶב וּמִלְחָמָה - There he broke the fiery shafts of the bow; the shield, and the sword, and the war" - but alas no, we are no closer to understanding what this word resheph might mean, beyond yet another image of sparks and flames.
Psalm 78:48 then, another litany of divine destruction, which includes his tormenting of the cattle of the Beney Yisra-El by giving them over to בָּרָד - barad - hail, and to רְשָׁפִים - reshaphim - fiery bolts" - a hint, at last; are we dealing with the lightning?
Song of Songs 8:6 will get us closer. As the lady of the poem sings of her absent, fickle lover, she tells us that "love is strong as death", that "jealousy is as cruel as She'ol", and that "reshapheyha rishphey eysh shalhevet yah - רְשָׁפֶיהָ רִשְׁפֵּי אֵשׁ שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה - the flashes thereof are flashes of fire, a very flame of the Lord", which unfortunately is a very bad translation, because the Lord isn't in the Yehudit anywhere, but Yah the moon goddess is, suffixed to the shalhevet, but hidden by the Redactor in a rather too easy to notice grammatical anomaly; shalhevet-Yah becoming shalheveteyha, which is actually an equally legitimate reading, but feminine, not masculine, nonetheless. Those shalhevot are flames, from the root lahav (להב), though what kind of flames continues to elude us.
Which leaves Habakkuk 3:5, yet another description of the fiery deity, the great destructive power of the universe, which is also, of course, the great creative power of the universe (the uni-verse, not the dui-verse, the Christian one that has destructive-Satan in continuous conflict with creative-Jehovah). "Eloha," as Chavakuk names his deity, "comes from the east" (Teman in the Yehudit, meaning the Yemen, but east is the intention: the sunrise). "His glory covers the heavens" - as you would expect from a sun-god. "A brightness appears as the light, he has rays at his side... before him goes pestilence, VE YETS'E RESHEPH LE RAGLAV - וְיֵצֵא רֶשֶׁף לְרַגְלָיו - and fiery bolts go at his feet."
So, yes, we are speaking of the lightning, the great lazer-gun of the deity with which he plays Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker from the sky, zapping the oak trees, paintballing humans, Ba'al Chadad in the Kena'ani (Canaanite) and Phoenician, Zeus, Wotan with his Wanderer's Staff. But also, in the Kena'ani world, Resheph the god of war and of the underworld, which is why those passages were so confusing - they have managed to amalgamate all three facets of Resheph, which would not have been a problem to readers and listeners back then, because they would have known that context.
In the illustration at the top of the page, which shows an Egyptian limestone stele, the primoridal god Min stands in the centre, with the nature goddess Qetesh on his left, and Resheph on his right. Qetesh is particularly interesting, because she is also pronounced Qedesh, and her name "holy", which gives Yehudit the word "kadosh - קדש", a traditional epithet of the deity.
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