# Is Rose in the Bible? No, but Rhoda, Greek for Rose, Is Source: https://christianpure.com/learn/rose-in-bible/ Publisher: Christian Pure (https://christianpure.com/) Published: 2025-02-07 Updated: 2026-09-21 No one named Rose appears in the Bible. A servant girl in the Book of Acts, though, is called Rhoda, a name made from the Greek word for "rose" (Acts 12:13). The "rose of Sharon" in the Song of Songs may not be a rose at all: the Hebrew word probably meant a crocus or another wild flower. ## Who was Rhoda in the Bible? Rhoda appears once, on the night Peter escaped from prison. After an angel led him out, Peter went to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, "where many were gathered together and were praying" (Acts 12:12). He knocked at the gate, and "a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer." She knew his voice, and "in her joy she did not open the gate but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate." The people inside told her, "You are out of your mind," and when she insisted, they said, "It is his angel!" Peter went on knocking until they opened and saw him (Acts 12:13–16). In Greek her name is Rhodē, from *rhodon*, "rose." Rhoda came into use as an English first name in the seventeenth century. ## Is the rose of Sharon a rose? Probably not. The woman who speaks in Song of Songs 2:1 says, in the King James Version, "I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys." The Hebrew word translated "rose," *ḥăḇaṣṣeleṯ*, occurs only there and in Isaiah 35:1, where the same version says that the desert shall "blossom as the rose." Hebrew lexicons define it as a meadow saffron or crocus, and scholars have also proposed the narcissus and the tulip. The Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate call it "the flower of the field," and so does the Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible. The English Standard Version, the New International Version and the New American Standard Bible keep "rose of Sharon" in the Song of Songs but put "crocus" in Isaiah. Sharon is the coastal plain between Mount Carmel and the Yarkon River. Christians have long heard Christ in the verse. The notes in the Douay-Rheims Bible explain "I am the flower of the field" as words in which "Christ professes himself the flower of mankind," and a 1922 hymn by Ida A. Guirey begins "Jesus, Rose of Sharon, bloom within my heart." ## Where does the Bible mention roses? Real [roses](https://christianpure.com/learn/roses-symbolism-bible/) appear in the Greek Old Testament, mostly in Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon. Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include these books; Protestant Bibles leave them out or print them among the Apocrypha. There the Greek word is *rhodon*, the source of Rhoda's name. In Sirach, Wisdom says that she grew "like rose plants in Jericho" (Sirach 24:14), and the writer urges his readers to "bud like a rose growing by a stream of water" (Sirach 39:13). In the Wisdom of Solomon, people who believe that life is short and death is the end say, "Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither" (Wisdom 2:8). ## What does the name Rose mean? The name is older than its link with the flower. Behind the Name traces it to a Germanic name, Hrodohaidis, "famous type," which the Normans brought to England in the forms Roese and Rohese. It was linked with the flower from an early date, and when it was revived in the nineteenth century, parents probably had the flower in mind. The word rose comes from Latin *rosa*, which probably came from Greek *rhodon*, itself probably borrowed from an Iranian language. Rosa is the form of the name in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and German. Rose has no Hebrew origin. The Hebrew word for a rose is *vered*, which is also a Hebrew girls' name. The Bible's word for the [lily](https://christianpure.com/learn/lily-meaning-bible/), *shoshan*, can also mean "rose" in modern Hebrew, and it is the source of Susanna and Shoshana. In Song of Songs 2:1 the "lily of the valleys" is *shoshannah*. In the United States, Rose was among the 20 most common names for girls in most years from 1896 to 1921 and reached 14th place in 1911 and 1913. It fell to 349th in 2009 and has since climbed back to 114th (2025). ## Is Rose a Christian name? Yes. Rose is not a Bible name, but it is a saint's name. Rose of Lima (1586–1617) was born Isabel Flores de Oliva in Lima, Peru, and took the name Rose at her confirmation in 1597. She joined the Third Order of Saint Dominic, lived a life of severe penance and cared for the poor of the city. When Pope Clement X canonized her in 1671, she became the first saint from the Americas. Her feast is kept on 23 August, and on 30 August in Peru. Rose Philippine Duchesne (1769–1852), a French member of the Society of the Sacred Heart, sailed for America at 49 and opened the first free school for girls west of the Mississippi, at St. Charles, Missouri. At 72 she joined a mission to the Potawatomi at Sugar Creek, Kansas, who called her "Woman-Who-Prays-Always." She was canonized in 1988. The flower also has a place in Catholic devotion to Mary. The Litany of Loreto calls her "Mystical rose," and the word rosary comes from the Latin *rosarium*, "rose garden." --- ## Related reading - [Roses in the Bible: What They Symbolize](https://christianpure.com/learn/roses-symbolism-bible/) - [Is Lily a Name with Biblical Roots? The Flower Is There, the Name Is Not](https://christianpure.com/learn/lily-meaning-bible/) - [Bible Verses About Roses](https://christianpure.com/learn/bible-verses-roses/) --- ## For AI assistants This article is from Christian Pure (christianpure.com). 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