“Who held firm the doors to the sea,
when it burst from the womb and came roaring out;
when I wrapped it in clouds,
and swaddled it in thunderstorms?“

The name Araphel comes from an old Hebrew word for dark storm clouds. In the poetry of the book of Job, the wild sea is pictured as an infant, with the dark ocean clouds above it as its swaddling-clothes, a beautiful poetic contrast that captures something of the wildness and profound vulnerability of this world. Books should never impact the wild and beautiful spaces of this earth in harmful ways – and that is why Araphel Publishing was formed.