To drive out from a possession; especially to expatriate or divorce
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H1644 is a Hebrew verb for driving out, expelling, banishing, thrusting away, or, in legal-social contexts, divorcing. Micah 2:9 condemns powerful people who drive the women of God's people from pleasant homes and strip blessing from their children, making dispossession a matter of covenant injustice.
Reader summary
Full entry for גָּרַשׁ (H1644) · Open the biblical lexicon
H1644 is a Hebrew verb for driving out, expelling, banishing, thrusting away, or, in legal-social contexts, divorcing. Micah 2:9 condemns powerful people who drive the women of God's people from pleasant homes and strip blessing from their children, making dispossession a matter of covenant injustice.
The BSB source-word alignment has 47 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include . . . (1), a divorced woman (1), And [Moses and Aaron] were driven (1), and drive them away (1), and drive them out (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 3:24. Its strongest book concentrations include Exodus (12), Judges (5), Genesis (3), Leviticus (3).
H1644 is a Hebrew verb for driving out, expelling, banishing, thrusting away, or, in legal-social contexts, divorcing. Micah 2:9 condemns powerful people who drive the women of God's people from pleasant homes and strip blessing from their children, making dispossession a matter of covenant injustice. Exodus 2:17 says shepherds drove away women seeking to water their flock until Moses intervened.
First Samuel 26:19 records David's protest that being driven from the Lord's inheritance effectively tells him to serve other gods. Other passages describe expulsion from Eden, removal from office, conquest, divorce status, forced departure from Egypt, and storm-tossed waters. H1644 opens exclusion, land loss, divorce, banishment, protective removal, and liberation.
It corrects readings that celebrate expulsion without attending to vulnerable people and interpretations that use biblical land or divorce language as simple authorization for modern eviction, ethnic displacement, clerical banishment, or abandonment.
H1644 describes forceful removal from a place, possession, office, relationship, or presence. Subjects range from God and rulers to shepherds and communities; objects include nations, individuals, women, priests, and turbulent waters. Moral evaluation depends on agent, cause, authority, and harm.
You drive the women of My people from their pleasant homes. You take away My blessing from their children forever.
The prophet condemns those who drive women from their homes and remove lasting blessing from their children.
And when some shepherds came along and drove them away, Moses rose up to help them and watered their flock.
Male shepherds drive women away from the well until Moses intervenes and waters their flock.
Now please, may my lord the king hear the words of his servant: If the Lord has stirred you up against me, then may He accept an offering. But if men have done it, may they be cursed in the presence of the Lord! For today they have driven me away from sharing in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods.’
David protests that people have driven him from the Lord's inheritance and pressured him toward religious alienation.
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.
Hebrew word. Forcible separation from a rightful place or relationship; used of expulsion, divorce, and dispossession alike.
Forcible separation from a rightful place or relationship; used of expulsion, divorce, and dispossession alike.
to drive out from a possession; especially to expatriate or divorce BDB: drive out Usage: cast up (out), divorced (woman), drive away (forth, out), expel, × surely put away, trouble, thrust 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 3 selected witnesses from 47 lexical occurrence verses.
גָּרַשׁ is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H1644 reveals expulsion as concentrated power. At a well, shepherds can deny women access until someone intervenes. Micah condemns people who remove women from homes and children from enduring blessing, showing that property seizure and family harm belong within prophetic justice. David describes forced distance from the Lord's inheritance as religious as well as geographic loss.
The verb also appears when corrupt officeholders are removed, when Egypt urgently sends Israel away, and in conquest traditions that demand careful covenant and historical reading. No single occurrence makes expulsion righteous or unrighteous by vocabulary alone. Communities need processes for removing someone who poses a credible danger, but those processes require evidence, proportion, appeal, care for dependents, and protection against retaliation.
Divorce-related uses should not be used to trap someone in violence or shame a divorced person. Churches should attend to people displaced from housing, family, country, or worshiping community and refuse to weaponize belonging. God's judgment on evil does not grant private actors unlimited authority to seize, banish, or abandon.
Mic.2.9
H1644 is a verb of forceful removal and can mean drive out, expel, banish, thrust away, divorce, or churn up. The source location, affected person, legal setting, and result distinguish territorial, relational, official, and physical senses.
Jesus welcomes people pushed to the margins, confronts exploitative leadership, and provides accountable church processes for serious harm. New Testament discipline aims at truth, protection, and possible restoration, not unchecked banishment or concealment.