To guard , in a good sense (to protect , maintain , obey , etc.) or a bad one (to conceal , etc.)
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H5341, natsar, is a Hebrew verb for guarding, keeping, preserving, maintaining, watching over, or carefully observing what has been entrusted. Its uses can describe God's protection, a person's obedient keeping of covenant instruction, wisdom guarding a disciple, disciplined custody of the heart and mouth, and faithful attention to another person or responsibility.
Reader summary
Full entry for נָצַר (H5341) · Open the biblical lexicon
H5341, natsar, is a Hebrew verb for guarding, keeping, preserving, maintaining, watching over, or carefully observing what has been entrusted. Its uses can describe God's protection, a person's obedient keeping of covenant instruction, wisdom guarding a disciple, disciplined custody of the heart and mouth, and faithful attention to another person or.
The BSB source-word alignment has 61 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include Keep (4), preserve (3), . . . (2), Guard (2), He who guards (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Exodus 34:7. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (24), Proverbs (18), Isaiah (8), 2 Kings (2).
H5341, natsar, is a Hebrew verb for guarding, keeping, preserving, maintaining, watching over, or carefully observing what has been entrusted. Its uses can describe God's protection, a person's obedient keeping of covenant instruction, wisdom guarding a disciple, disciplined custody of the heart and mouth, and faithful attention to another person or responsibility. Deuteronomy 32 pictures the Lord guarding His people in the wilderness. Isaiah 49 speaks of the Lord keeping His servant for a covenant purpose. Proverbs repeatedly turns the verb toward instruction, the heart, speech, and one's way, while the Psalms use it both for God's preserving care and for the worshiper's keeping of God's testimonies.
The word joins protection and obedience without making them identical. To keep a command is to hold it faithfully in practice; to guard a person is to preserve life or well-being; to watch the mouth is to restrain speech before harm escapes. Some rarer contexts can use guarding language for concealment, hostile watching, or siege, so H5341 is not automatically virtuous apart from its subject, object, and purpose.
H5341 does not teach emotional isolation, suspicion of everyone outside a protected circle, or control over another person's conscience. Guarding the heart in Proverbs means diligently preserving the moral and spiritual source of one's life under wisdom, not refusing love, counsel, lament, or truthful vulnerability. Likewise, God's keeping does not promise that faithful people will avoid every wound or loss. The verb invites active stewardship: receive what God gives, protect what is vulnerable, obey what He commands, and refuse speech or conduct that destroys the good placed in one's care.
H5341 moves between God's preserving action and human responsibility to keep covenant teaching, guard the inner life, restrain speech, and maintain faithful trust. Its protective force depends on what is guarded and why.
He found him in a desert land, in a barren, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, He instructed him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye.
The song remembers the Lord's wilderness care through finding, surrounding, instructing, and guarding Jacob. Protection belongs to God's covenant action, not Israel's self-sufficiency.
All the Lord’s ways are loving and faithful to those who keep His covenant and His decrees.
Keeping the covenant describes responsive fidelity within the Lord's loving and faithful ways. The verse does not turn obedience into leverage that purchases divine love.
Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch at the door of my lips.
The psalmist asks God to guard the threshold of speech. Restraint is sought through prayer before words cross from the heart into public harm.
My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments;
The heart is told to retain and practice received instruction rather than letting wisdom become forgotten information. Keeping involves durable allegiance expressed in life.
Guard your heart with all diligence, for from it flow springs of life.
The command protects the inner source from which conduct and direction flow. It calls for moral vigilance under wisdom, not emotional barricades or refusal of relationship.
He who guards his mouth protects his life, but the one who opens his lips invites his own ruin.
Guarding speech preserves life by resisting reckless release, while an unrestrained mouth invites destruction. The contrast concerns disciplined words, not concealment of abuse or injustice.
You will keep in perfect peace the steadfast of mind, because he trusts in You.
The Lord's keeping is joined to a mind stayed on Him in trust. Peace is covenant confidence in God's rule, not a promise of uninterrupted calm or painless circumstances.
This is what the Lord says: “In the time of favor I will answer You, and in the day of salvation I will help You; I will keep You and appoint You to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land, to apportion its desolate inheritances,
The Lord keeps His servant for an appointed covenant mission involving restoration and inheritance. Preservation serves God's redemptive purpose rather than private safety alone.
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. Protective vigilance that ranges from righteous obedience to God's law to concealment and deception
Protective vigilance that ranges from righteous obedience to God's law to concealment and deception
to guard, in a good sense (to protect, maintain, obey, etc.) or a bad one (to conceal, etc.) BDB: watch Usage: besieged, hidden thing, keep(-er, -ing), monument, observe, preserve(-r), subtil, watcher(-man).
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 1 selected witness from 63 lexical occurrence verses.
נָצַר is a primitive root - no further derivation.
The command emphasizes vigilant protection of one's inner life.Proverbs 4:20-27
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H5341 portrays guarding as purposeful custody rather than fear-driven withdrawal. The Lord guards Jacob in the wilderness and keeps His servant for covenant work, so divine preservation is active care directed toward God's promises and mission. Human keeping answers that care. Psalm 25 describes people who keep covenant and decrees; Proverbs calls the heart to retain instruction, tells the disciple to guard the source of life, and connects guarded speech with protection from ruin.
Psalm 141 turns that responsibility into prayer: the worshiper asks God to stand watch at the door of his lips. These passages do not support a sealed-off life. A guarded heart still receives wisdom, seeks God, loves neighbors, tells the truth, and allows correction. A guarded mouth does not conceal abuse or injustice; it refuses reckless, deceitful, and destructive speech.
Nor should preservation be preached as immunity from hardship. Isaiah's kept servant remains appointed to costly covenant service. H5341 therefore asks what has been entrusted, what threatens it, and what faithful keeping requires. The church should preserve truth without becoming defensive, protect vulnerable people without possessing them, practice obedience without bargaining for grace, and guard speech without silencing necessary testimony.
Prov.4.23
H5341 is a Qal verb used with people, covenant words, instruction, the heart, mouth, path, and other entrusted objects. English renderings vary among guard, keep, preserve, obey, watch, and maintain because the object and purpose specify the kind of custody.
The New Testament continues the call to keep Christ's word, guard entrusted truth, watch one's speech, and trust God's preserving power. Those themes extend the canonical pattern, but they should not collapse H5341 into every Greek verb for keeping, guarding, or watching.