Properly, to hie for refuge (but not so precipitately as 2620 ); figuratively, to trust , be confident or sure
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The Hebrew verb בָּטַח (bāṭaḥ) describes relying on someone or something, placing confidence there, or living with a sense of security because that support is judged dependable. English translations commonly use “trust,” “rely,” “be confident,” or related expressions.
Reader summary
Full entry for בָּטַח (H982) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew verb בָּטַח (bāṭaḥ) describes relying on someone or something, placing confidence there, or living with a sense of security because that support is judged dependable. English translations commonly use “trust,” “rely,” “be confident,” or related expressions.
The BSB source-word alignment has 120 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include trust (25), trusts (7), I trust (5), trusting (4), We trust (3).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Deuteronomy 28:52. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (46), Isaiah (20), Jeremiah (16), Proverbs (10).
The Hebrew verb בָּטַח (bāṭaḥ) describes relying on someone or something, placing confidence there, or living with a sense of security because that support is judged dependable. English translations commonly use “trust,” “rely,” “be confident,” or related expressions. The verb does not make every confidence wise. Its object matters. Scripture can commend trust in the Lord and expose confidence placed in military strength, wealth, human alliances, or personal judgment. A faithful reading therefore asks both what the person is doing and what is being treated as dependable.
The Psalms often use bāṭaḥ in settings of fear, opposition, lament, and remembered deliverance. Psalm 56:3 does not pretend fear is absent: “When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.” Psalm 62:8 joins trust with pouring out the heart before God, so reliance does not require emotional silence. Psalm 22:4 remembers earlier generations who trusted and were delivered, giving lament a history of God’s faithfulness without turning that history into a formula for immediate relief.
Wisdom and prophetic texts sharpen the word’s moral direction. Proverbs 3:5 commands trust in the Lord while warning against making one’s own understanding the final support. Isaiah 12:2 joins trust to God’s saving character. Jeremiah 17:7 blesses the person whose confidence rests in the Lord. These passages do not oppose planning, counsel, medicine, work, or ordinary responsibility. They challenge the deeper claim that created resources can bear the final weight of hope.
Pastorally, bāṭaḥ invites honest examination rather than a slogan. Trust can act, wait, seek help, lament, and obey. It is not a technique for controlling outcomes, a demand to ignore danger, or proof that suffering will end on the timetable a worshiper desires. Biblical trust is responsive confidence directed toward the God whose character remains faithful even when circumstances are unresolved.
Bāṭaḥ moves through royal history, lament, worship, wisdom, and prophecy as a verb of reliance. Each passage identifies or implies an object of confidence, allowing Scripture to commend dependence on the Lord while questioning supports that cannot carry ultimate hope.
Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. No king of Judah was like him, either before him or after him.
Hezekiah’s trust is directed toward the Lord and is evaluated within the narrator’s account of his covenant loyalty.
Offer the sacrifices of the righteous and trust in the Lord.
The imperative joins worship and reliance, refusing to separate outward devotion from confidence in the Lord.
But I have trusted in Your loving devotion; my heart will rejoice in Your salvation.
The lamenting speaker grounds trust in God’s loving devotion while anticipated joy remains future in the psalm.
In You our fathers trusted; they trusted and You delivered them.
Repeated use of the verb recalls communal testimony inside a lament that still voices present anguish.
When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.
Fear supplies the circumstance for trust rather than evidence that trust has failed or disappeared.
Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is our refuge. Selah
Continual trust includes candid prayer, since pouring out the heart belongs within reliance on God as refuge.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;
Wisdom contrasts wholehearted reliance on the Lord with treating personal understanding as an independent final authority.
Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. For the Lord God is my strength and my song, and He also has become my salvation.”
The confession identifies God’s saving identity and action as the stated ground for confidence over fear.
But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.
Jeremiah locates blessing in the object of trust and contrasts it with reliance on merely human strength.
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. Trust grounded in taking secure refuge; confidence born from finding safe shelter in God's protection.
Trust grounded in taking secure refuge; confidence born from finding safe shelter in God's protection.
properly, to hie for refuge (but not so precipitately as 2620); figuratively, to trust, be confident or sure BDB: trust Usage: be bold (confident, secure, sure), careless (one, woman), put confidence, (make to) hope, (put, make to) 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 8 selected witnesses from 120 lexical occurrence verses.
בָּטַח is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Prudent financial restraint leads to stability.Isaiah 20:1-6
The core command calls for relational reliance on the Lord rather than self-sufficiency.Isaiah 30:8-17
The passage confronts misplaced confidence in human power.Isaiah 31:1-9
Confidence in the Lord is contrasted with self-reliant escape.Isaiah 36:1-10
Highlights misplaced reliance on military strength instead of God.Isaiah 50:10-11
Central theme contrasting faith in the Lord with false security.Proverbs 11:15
Highlights dependence on the Lord rather than self.Proverbs 3:1-12
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Bāṭaḥ is best taught as directed reliance, not as a spiritual mood measured by emotional intensity. Psalm 56 places trust inside fear, Psalm 62 places it beside honest outpouring, and Proverbs places it against self-sufficient understanding. Royal and prophetic settings then ask whether the support chosen can truly bear the confidence given to it. This makes the verb both comforting and searching.
It comforts frightened people because trust may begin before fear has subsided. It searches confident people because courage aimed at the wrong object is not biblical trust. A sermon should therefore resist praising certainty for its own sake. The central question is whether the Lord, His character, and His word are being treated as dependable while the believer continues to pray, seek counsel, act responsibly, and leave the outcome with God.
Ps.56.3
Bāṭaḥ is a verb whose sense is clarified by its subject, object, complements, and literary setting. A perfect form may report established reliance, while an imperative calls for it and an imperfect may express ongoing or anticipated confidence; the form alone does not determine the theology.
The New Testament continues the canonical call to rely on God, cast anxieties upon Him, and refuse confidence in status or human achievement. Those parallels illuminate the posture bāṭaḥ often names, but they do not make one Greek term an exact lexical replacement for every Hebrew occurrence.