To snatch away, whether in a good or a bad sense
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The Hebrew verb נָצַל (nāṣal) often describes rescuing or extracting someone from danger, oppression, an enemy’s hand, a trap, or another controlling power. Rescue is concrete and relational: a threatened person or possession is removed from a named danger by an agent able to intervene.
Reader summary
Full entry for נָצַל (H5337) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew verb נָצַל (nāṣal) often describes rescuing or extracting someone from danger, oppression, an enemy’s hand, a trap, or another controlling power. Rescue is concrete and relational: a threatened person or possession is removed from a named danger by an agent able to intervene.
The BSB source-word alignment has 213 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include deliver (16), deliver me (9), . . . (5), to deliver (5), and deliver (4).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 31:9. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (45), Isaiah (22), 1 Samuel (17), Ezekiel (17).
This entry includes 2 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
The Hebrew verb נָצַל (nāṣal) often describes rescuing or extracting someone from danger, oppression, an enemy’s hand, a trap, or another controlling power. Rescue is concrete and relational: a threatened person or possession is removed from a named danger by an agent able to intervene. Jacob asks God to deliver his household from Esau’s hand. God announces that He has come down to rescue Israel from the Egyptians and deliver the people from bondage. David remembers being delivered from the lion and bear as he faces Goliath.
The exodus gives nāṣal a major canonical setting. God sees Israel’s affliction, comes down, brings the people out, and leads them toward the land He promised. Exodus 6:6 places deliverance beside redemption and acts of judgment. This rescue is neither an inward feeling nor a vague synonym for every aspect of salvation. It is God’s historical action against oppressive bondage, and later biblical theology can develop its pattern while respecting its covenant setting.
Stem and context prevent a uniformly devotional gloss. Exodus 12:36 uses the verb when Israel plunders the Egyptians. Proverbs 6:5 commands a person to free himself urgently from a dangerous pledge. Ezekiel 14:14 limits the effect of exemplary righteousness during announced judgment: Noah, Daniel, and Job could deliver only themselves. These passages require readers to identify the agent, endangered party, controlling hand, means, and extent of the release.
Pastorally, nāṣal supports prayer for rescue and gratitude for God’s intervention, but it must not be used to guarantee immediate physical escape in every crisis. Psalm 91 is poetry of refuge, not permission to ignore danger or promise immunity from violence, illness, or death. Trust in God’s deliverance can include reporting abuse, leaving an unsafe place, contacting civil authorities, receiving medical treatment, accepting shelter, and asking others to intervene. Delayed rescue does not prove weak faith. The canon finally directs hope toward God’s complete defeat of sin, judgment, and death, while particular texts continue to name the real dangers from which rescue is sought.
Nāṣal commonly marks extraction from an enemy, oppressive hand, fear, trap, or judgment, while some forms describe freeing oneself or taking possessions. Its theological force grows from concrete rescue narratives, especially the exodus, rather than from an invariant spiritual definition.
Please deliver me from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid that he may come and attack me and the mothers and children with me.
Jacob names both the feared aggressor and the family members at risk, making his plea an appeal for concrete protection.
I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
God identifies Egyptian power as the controlling hand and joins rescue to bringing Israel toward the promised land.
Therefore tell the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.
Deliverance from bondage appears beside bringing out, redemption, divine self-identification, and judgment in God’s covenant announcement.
And the Lord gave the people such favor in the sight of the Egyptians that they granted their request. In this way they plundered the Egyptians.
The Piel form receives the contextual sense of plundering, demonstrating that nāṣal does not always describe rescue.
David added, “The Lord, who delivered me from the claws of the lion and the bear, will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” “Go,” said Saul, “and may the Lord be with you.”
David relates remembered deliverance from animals to his present confidence regarding Goliath within the immediate narrative.
I sought the Lord, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears.
The psalmist gives personal testimony that seeking the Lord received an answer expressed as deliverance from fears.
Surely He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly plague.
The poetic confession names traps and plague within Psalm 91’s larger language of refuge, terror, danger, and divine care.
Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler.
Wisdom commands urgent self-extrication from the pledge, using hunted animals to communicate immediate practical action.
Then even if these three men—Noah, Daniel, and Job—were in it, their righteousness could deliver only themselves, declares the Lord God.
The judgment oracle sharply limits borrowed deliverance and refuses confidence in the righteousness of revered figures.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Hebrew word. Forceful removal from danger or possession; God's primary rescue verb emphasizing sudden, decisive intervention.
Forceful removal from danger or possession; God's primary rescue verb emphasizing sudden, decisive intervention.
to snatch away, whether in a good or a bad sense BDB: strip Usage: × at all, defend, deliver (self), escape, × without fail, part, pluck, preserve, recover, rescue, rid, save, spoil, strip, × surely, take (out).
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 5 selected witnesses from 213 lexical occurrence verses.
נָצַל is a primitive root - no further derivation.
The verb emphasizes the rescuing power associated with righteousness.Isaiah 36:11-22
The verb highlights the rescuing power associated with righteousness.Proverbs 11:4
Wisdom protects the righteous from destructive influence.Proverbs 11:6
The command emphasizes the urgency of escaping harmful obligations.Proverbs 11:9
Central to the debate over the Lord’s saving power.Proverbs 6:1-5
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Nāṣal gives rescue a direction: someone is brought out from under a named threat or power. Jacob fears Esau’s attack, Israel is under Egyptian bondage, David remembers the lion and bear, and wisdom urges immediate release from a dangerous pledge. That concreteness protects teaching from two errors. First, rescue must not be reduced to an inward metaphor when a text concerns oppression, violence, debt, or physical danger.
Second, one testimony of deliverance must not become a guarantee that every crisis ends in the same way or time. Exodus establishes God as the deliverer of His covenant people, while Ezekiel 14 restricts claims that admired righteousness shields others from announced judgment. Faithful application prays, acts, reports harm, receives help, and hopes in God without blaming sufferers whose rescue is delayed.
Exod.3.8
The Hiphil commonly expresses causing escape or extracting someone from a hand or danger, while the Niphal can call for freeing oneself and the Piel can carry other contextual senses such as plundering. Agent, object, source of danger, and stem guide translation.
The New Testament announces rescue from the dominion of darkness, coming wrath, sin, death, and particular dangers, while also honoring martyrs whose faithfulness did not produce temporal escape. These connections develop the exodus pattern and final hope without making every nāṣal occurrence a complete doctrine of salvation.