To withdraw (both literally and figuratively, whether intransitive or transitive)
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מוּשׁ means to depart, to withdraw, to move away. The verb describes the physical or figurative cessation of presence: something that was there is no longer there, something that was constant has removed itself, something that was a settled fixture has gone.
Reader summary
Full entry for מוּשׁ (H4185) · Open the biblical lexicon
מוּשׁ means to depart, to withdraw, to move away. The verb describes the physical or figurative cessation of presence: something that was there is no longer there, something that was constant has removed itself, something that was a settled fixture has gone.
The BSB source-word alignment has 20 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include depart (3), leave (3), departed (2), [nor] does it cease (1), and I will remove (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Exodus 13:22. Its strongest book concentrations include Isaiah (5), Exodus (2), Jeremiah (2), Micah (2).
מוּשׁ means to depart, to withdraw, to move away. The verb describes the physical or figurative cessation of presence: something that was there is no longer there, something that was constant has removed itself, something that was a settled fixture has gone. Used of objects, persons, and divine realities, it most often appears in Scripture at the exact point where the departure it names is being denied — most theologically, in a divine promise that something will not depart.
The word's most significant theological deployments are in divine covenant promises where מוּשׁ appears as the thing that will NOT happen. Joshua 1:8: 'This Book of the Law shall not depart (לֹא-יָמוּשׁ) from your mouth.' Isaiah 54:10: 'For the mountains may depart (יָמוּשׁוּ) and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart (לֹא-יָמוּשׁ) from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed.' Isaiah 59:21: 'My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart (לֹא-יָמוּשׁוּ) from your mouth.' In each case, the verb is placed in a negative construction to name the stability of what God has promised to sustain. The word does not describe departure; it defines permanence by naming the departure that will not happen.
In Exodus 13:22, during the wilderness journey, the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire 'did not depart (לֹא-יָמִישׁ)' from before the people. The divine guidance was constant, uninterrupted, never withdrawn. This usage establishes the paradigm: מוּשׁ, when negated and attached to divine presence or promise, becomes the language of faithful, unbreaking covenant constancy.
Exodus 13:22 — the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night 'did not depart (לֹא-יָמִישׁ)' from before the people. Divine guidance in the wilderness is described by its non-departure — a continuous, unremoved presence through every stage of the journey.
מוּשׁ is a quiet word with an enormous theological career in its negative form. In itself it simply means to depart, to remove, to withdraw. But the texts that most want to use it are the texts that most want to deny its application to God's promise and presence. The result is that the word becomes, paradoxically, the language of divine permanence: what will not depart defines what is permanent.
The Exodus pattern is foundational. The pillar of cloud by day and fire by night 'did not depart' from before the people throughout the wilderness. Not in the fearful passages, not in the victories, not through the forty years of discipline and provision. The divine guidance was there continuously, and its non-departure is specifically noted by the text. This is not merely historical description. It establishes a paradigm that prophets and psalmists will invoke: when God's presence accompanies his people, it does not leave.
Joshua 1:8 transfers this language to the Torah. As Israel is about to enter the land without Moses and without the pillar of fire, the commandment given to Joshua's personal piety is this: the Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth. The same word used of the divine pillar is now used of the divine instruction. The Word of God takes the place of the visible pillar as the constant, non-departing guide for the leader who must now lead without Moses. The implication is that the Word has the same quality of faithful constancy as the wilderness guidance — it will not remove itself if Joshua meditates on it.
Isaiah 54:10 is the theological pinnacle. The mountains may depart — the great geologic permanencies of the created order, the things that look most like forever from a human vantage point — but my steadfast love (חֶסֶד) shall not depart from you. The logic is calibration by extreme comparison. Isaiah has already said that God's faithfulness is like Noah's covenant (v. 9): as God swore never to flood the earth again, so he swears in this moment. The mountains provide the second calibration point: even they are more likely to go than the divine חֶסֶד. The word מוּשׁ in this verse is doing the heaviest theological lifting it ever does in the OT. It names the impossibility: the departure of God's covenant love from his people is in the same category as the departure of the mountains. Both can be named as departures, but both are so improbable as to be practically unthinkable.
Isaiah 59:21 extends the same promise to the Spirit and the Word across all generations. 'From this time forth and forevermore' — מוּשׁ will not happen to these gifts. This is the covenant of the Spirit and the Word as permanent, trans-generational realities. The NT fulfillment involves both the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost (permanent in the community of the new covenant) and the completion and preservation of the written Word of God.
מוּשׁ's theological arc runs from the wilderness to the eschatological covenant. Exodus establishes the pattern: divine presence does not depart. Joshua and Psalms extend it to the Word. Isaiah 54:10 reaches its theological apex: even the mountains' permanence is surpassed by the permanence of divine חֶסֶד. Isaiah 59:21 prophesies the Spirit and Word as non-departing gifts across all generations — language that the NT fulfillment of Pentecost and the written Word of God begins to fill.
Jeremiah 31:36 uses the same logic to ground the permanence of Israel's covenant relationship in the reliability of creation order. Together, these texts build a theology of divine constancy in which מוּשׁ (in its negated form) becomes the word for 'this will never be withdrawn.'
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. to withdraw (both literally and figuratively, whether intransitive or transitive)
to withdraw (both literally and figuratively, whether intransitive or transitive) BDB: depart Usage: cease, depart, go back, remove, take away.
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.
מוּשׁ is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
מוּשׁ opens the theology of divine permanence in covenant — specifically, the permanence of divine presence (Exodus 13:22), divine instruction (Joshua 1:8), and divine חֶסֶד (Isaiah 54:10). It allows a pastor to preach covenant faithfulness not as an abstract attribute of God but as a specific claim about what will not depart: the love of God to his people, even when everything else is shaking.
It corrects the fear that God's steadfast love is conditional on performance or revocable under affliction. Isaiah 54:10 places the permanence of divine חֶסֶד on the same plane as the permanence of the mountains — and then asserts that it is more permanent. The preacher can address the congregation member who fears that God's love will 'depart' from them when they fail, directly from this word.
Frame מוּשׁ by its negations: what will NOT depart. Start with the thing that looks most permanent in your congregants' world — whatever seems most fixed and stable — and then say: my steadfast love is more stable than that. Isaiah 54 gives the preacher permission to name the most extreme permanence in creation (mountains, created order, natural law) and say that God's חֶסֶד surpasses it.
The pastoral application is assurance to those in affliction, and accountability to Joshua 1:8 for those who lead: let the Word not depart from your mouth.
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