to seize suddenly and by force: to snatch, grab, or carry someone or something off
This one verb names a single, sharply defined action: a sudden, forceful taking that the person or thing taken cannot resist. Three features hold steady wherever it appears. The taking is forceful, it is sudden, and the one taken has no say in it. What the verb never tells you on its own is whether the force is good or bad. That depends entirely on who does the seizing and why.
Because the core is so stable, the New Testament writers stretch it across opposite situations without ever changing its meaning. The same verb describes:
- a wolf snatching a sheep
- God catching a believer up to himself
- an enemy stealing the planted word from a heart
- a rescuer dragging someone clear of a fire
In every case the picture is identical: a swift, irresistible grab. Only the outcome differs, and the outcome comes from the setting, not from the word.
It helps to read the verb in shades that share this one core. In some places the seizing harms its object: a predator, a thief, or a hostile crowd takes by force what is not theirs. In others the seizing rescues, or carries a person off to safety, often by God's own hand, so that the very verb used for the predator becomes a promise. The senses below sort the occurrences this way, but they are angles on one action, not different words.