To gather for any purpose; hence, to receive , take away , i.e. remove (destroy, leave behind, put up, restore, etc.)
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H622, ʾāsap̄, is a Hebrew verb whose central movement is bringing together, but its contexts extend from assembling people and collecting things to receiving someone, drawing something in, or taking it away. Laban gathers local men for a feast, families shelter people and livestock from hail, and Israel is repeatedly assembled for worship, decision, battle, or repentance.
Reader summary
Full entry for אָסַף (H622) · Open the biblical lexicon
H622, ʾāsap̄, is a Hebrew verb whose central movement is bringing together, but its contexts extend from assembling people and collecting things to receiving someone, drawing something in, or taking it away. Laban gathers local men for a feast, families shelter people and livestock from hail, and Israel is repeatedly assembled for worship, decision, battle.
The BSB source-word alignment has 200 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include gathered (17), Gather (9), assembled (8), . . . (6), and gather (4).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 6:21. Its strongest book concentrations include Numbers (18), Isaiah (17), Genesis (15), Jeremiah (14).
H622, ʾāsap̄, is a Hebrew verb whose central movement is bringing together, but its contexts extend from assembling people and collecting things to receiving someone, drawing something in, or taking it away. Laban gathers local men for a feast, families shelter people and livestock from hail, and Israel is repeatedly assembled for worship, decision, battle, or repentance. The same verb can describe a person being gathered to his people in death or breath being taken away. Translation must therefore follow the object, direction, and setting rather than assign one emotional tone to every occurrence.
Several passages turn gathering into protective care. Deuteronomy requires an Israelite to take a lost animal home until its owner seeks it. Psalm 27 trusts that the Lord will receive the worshiper even if father and mother forsake him. Isaiah announces that God will gather Israel's exiles, and Micah pictures the remnant collected like sheep in a pen. These texts do not authorize possessiveness. Biblical gathering serves preservation, restoration, covenant faithfulness, and the good of those gathered. A person received by God is not thereby placed under another person's unrestricted control.
Other uses keep the verb sober. Miriam is brought back into the camp after a period of exclusion, while Jacob is gathered to his people at death and asks for burial with his ancestors. H622 can also name hostile armies assembling or life being taken away. The word itself does not declare every crowd safe, every exclusion just, or every death scene a complete map of the afterlife. It asks who gathers, what is gathered, where it is brought, and why. Pastoral use should celebrate God's regathering, practice restorative welcome, protect those at risk, and resist coercive efforts to gather people for a leader's control.
H622 moves through burial, protective shelter, restored inclusion, care for lost property, reception of the forsaken, return from exile, and shepherd-like regathering of a remnant.
Then Jacob instructed them, “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite.
Jacob uses gathering language while arranging burial among his ancestors. The phrase holds death, family belonging, and concrete burial together without supplying a detailed geography of the afterlife.
So give orders now to shelter your livestock and everything you have in the field. Every man or beast that remains in the field and is not brought inside will die when the hail comes down upon them.’”
Before the plague of hail, gathering indoors is an act of urgent protection for people and animals. Heeding the warning creates a real refuge rather than a merely symbolic response.
So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on until she was brought in again.
The community waits until Miriam is restored to the camp. The narrative includes accountability and reintegration, but it does not make every imposed exclusion righteous or authorize leaders to shame people.
If your brother does not live near you, or if you do not know who he is, you are to take the animal home to remain with you until your brother comes seeking it; then you can return it to him.
Gathering a lost animal into one's care is temporary stewardship ordered toward restoration to its owner. The command joins neighbor love to patient custody without turning care into possession.
Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.
The psalmist places divine reception against the deepest imaginable human abandonment. The promise grounds hope in the Lord's faithful welcome without minimizing family rejection or requiring unsafe reunion.
He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; He will collect the scattered of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
God's gathering answers exile and scattering with public restoration. The surrounding vision belongs to the righteous rule of Jesse's shoot and the Lord's initiative, not to ethnic boasting or human domination.
I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob; I will collect the remnant of Israel. I will bring them together like sheep in a pen, like a flock in the midst of its pasture—a noisy throng.
After exposing predatory leaders, the Lord promises to gather the remnant as a protected flock. The shepherd image centers divine rescue and abundant life rather than passive submission to exploitative rulers.
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. Gather and remove are semantic poles; death/destruction often means God's gathering away of life.
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 2 selected witnesses from 202 lexical occurrence verses.
אָסַף is a primitive root - no further derivation.
It underscores divine initiative in regathering scattered people into covenant community.Micah 2:12-13
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H622 is a movement word whose moral weight comes from the scene. A household gathers people and animals under shelter before hail. A neighbor gathers a lost animal only to preserve and return it. Israel waits while Miriam is restored to the camp. A forsaken worshiper trusts the Lord to receive him. Isaiah and Micah look toward God's regathering of scattered people under righteous rule.
Yet Jacob is also gathered to his people in death, hostile forces assemble, and breath can be taken away. The verb therefore refuses a simplistic message that gathering is always pleasant or that separation is always evil. Faithful ministry asks what kind of gathering is taking place and whose good it serves. God's pattern makes room for refuge, truth, repentance, restoration, and belonging.
It does not validate a leader who demands access, hides danger inside community language, or makes return contingent on silence. Communities shaped by H622 should become places where vulnerable people can be brought to safety, the displaced are welcomed without exploitation, and discipline aims at truthful restoration rather than permanent stigma.
Isa.11.12
H622 is a verb with Qal, Niphal, Piel, Hiphil, and Pual forms in the governed morphology. Its active forms often gather or collect, while passive or reflexive forms can describe being assembled, brought in, or gathered to one's people. Context can move the English rendering toward receive, shelter, restore, remove, withdraw, or take away. The selected artifact's 202 count and the governed BSB table's 200 tokens reflect a source boundary difference, not a license to merge compound lexical records into this single-ID study.
The prophets promise that God will gather a scattered remnant, and the Psalms praise His reception of the forsaken. The New Testament gathers these themes around Jesus, who has compassion on sheep without a shepherd, gathers God's children into one, and forms a people from every nation. Those connections deepen the canonical pattern without making every H622 occurrence a direct prediction of the church. Its local uses still include ordinary collecting, military assembly, death, removal, and restoration.