Seek refuge describes turning toward protection or placing confidence in the named source. Boaz speaks of Ruth taking refuge under the Lord's wings while also offering concrete food and protective directions.
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Full entry for חָסָה (H2620) · Open the biblical lexicon
Seek refuge describes turning toward protection or placing confidence in the named source. Boaz speaks of Ruth taking refuge under the Lord's wings while also offering concrete food and protective directions.
The BSB source-word alignment has 37 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include who take refuge (5), I take refuge (4), and take refuge (3), in whom I take refuge (3), I have taken refuge (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Deuteronomy 32:37. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (25), Isaiah (3), 2 Samuel (2), Proverbs (2).
Seek refuge describes turning toward protection or placing confidence in the named source. Boaz speaks of Ruth taking refuge under the Lord's wings while also offering concrete food and protective directions. Psalm 57 asks for mercy and shelter amid continuing danger, and Nahum calls the Lord good and a stronghold in distress. Yet Judges places an offer of shade in a thornbush's speech within Jotham's story, while Isaiah rebukes a specifically described reliance on Egypt formed against the Lord's counsel.
These differences keep the claimed refuge open to the passage's actual evaluation. Trust in the Lord does not require ignoring danger or refusing responsible human help. Read who seeks shelter, what protection is claimed and whether the speaker is praising, praying or exposing a false assurance. Encourage safety and dependence without making a modern leader's institution the guaranteed equivalent of divine shelter.
Ruth's received care, troubled prayer, divine stronghold, a thornbush's claim, a rebuked alliance and comparison with human trust supply different contexts. The refuge's object and speaker establish its evaluation.
May the Lord repay your work, and may you receive a rich reward from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have taken refuge.”
Boaz names refuge under the Lord's wings while the surrounding scene includes food and practical protection, preserving trust beside tangible care.
Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy, for in You my soul takes refuge. In the shadow of Your wings I will take shelter until the danger has passed.
The speaker asks for mercy and shelter until danger passes, so refuge language retains prayer and real threat rather than pretending no danger exists.
But the thornbush replied, ‘If you really are anointing me as king over you, come and find refuge in my shade. But if not, may fire come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon.’
The thornbush offers its shade and threatens fire within Jotham's attributed story, exposing a claimed refuge rather than issuing a divine command to trust that ruler.
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. Seeking physical refuge naturally extends to trusting or confiding in a protective authority
Seeking physical refuge naturally extends to trusting or confiding in a protective authority
to flee for protection; figuratively, to confide in BDB: seek refuge Usage: have hope, make refuge, (put) trust.
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 4 selected witnesses from 37 lexical occurrence verses.
חָסָה is built from this root:
True safety is found in seeking protection in the Lord’s dwelling.Isaiah 14:28-32
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Claimed refuge must be read with its source and the passage's evaluation. Boaz's words about the Lord's wings belong to a scene where Ruth also receives food and protection; spiritual confidence does not erase practical care. Psalm 57's plea keeps danger visible while asking for shelter. Nahum praises the Lord's goodness amid distress, whereas Jotham's thornbush story contains a ruler's dangerous claim that must remain attributed rather than endorsed.
Isaiah rebukes a particular alliance undertaken against the Lord's counsel, not every act of seeking assistance. Psalm 118's comparison locates ultimate trust in the Lord without declaring all human help forbidden. Teach dependence and discernment together, preserve threats and actual safeguards, and refuse the claim that one present institution is automatically the Lord's shelter or that leaving a dangerous place proves unfaithfulness.
Ruth.2.12
The licensed Hebrew verb includes seeking refuge and placing trust. Its named object matters: a protective image, the Lord or an exposed political claim receives meaning from the surrounding speech. The same verb does not certify every offered shelter as safe or turn confidence into a command to ignore actual danger.
Matthew 23:37 records Jesus' longing to gather Jerusalem's children as a hen gathers chicks under wings, together with the stated unwillingness in that addressed lament. Read the explicit Greek comparison beside Ruth's and the Psalm's wings language without assigning collective guilt to all Jewish people or making any modern leader the sheltering figure. The named speaker and audience remain necessary, and practical protection is not negated by the image.