to abandon someone: to walk away and leave a person stranded in the very trouble they needed you for
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This word is built on the ordinary Greek verb for leaving, with two prefixes stacked on the front. They push it in one direction: not simply going away, but leaving someone behind in the place or the plight they are in. That is why English Bibles almost always reach for "forsake", "abandon", or "desert" here, and save the plain "leave" for the neutral word (καταλείπω).
In the New Testament the setting is nearly always pressure. The pattern is easy to see once you line the verses up:
Jesus cries from the cross that God has forsaken him
Paul reports that at his first hearing every friend walked out on him
Demas leaves for Thessalonica because he loved this present age
Some believers are quietly giving up on the gatherings altogether
The force of the word comes from what it takes for granted. You can only abandon someone who was counting on you, and only at the moment they were counting. That is also why the promise in Hebrews 13:5, "I will never leave you nor forsake you", lands as hard as it does: it picks the harshest word available for being left alone and then denies it twice over.
Nuances
1aGod abandoning a person, or promising never to do so
Mat 27:46Mrk 15:34Act 2:27Act 2:312Co 4:9*Heb 13:5
1bone person deserting another at the moment of need
2Ti 4:102Ti 4:16
1cgiving up on something you had been part of, such as a shared practice or a gathering
Heb 10:25*
2
to leave someone or something remaining: to let a survivor or a remainder be left when the rest is gone
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
The same verb turns almost inside out when what is left behind is a survivor. Paul quotes Isaiah in its Greek form: if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have become like Sodom. Here the leaving is mercy, not desertion. Something was spared, and that is the whole point of the sentence.
This use comes straight out of the Greek Old Testament, where the word regularly stands for the Hebrew vocabulary of leaving a remnant (יָתַר). The picture behind it is a field after the harvesters, or a city after an army: what still stands is what was left. Because being left is the good outcome, the word carries no reproach at all.
Only one New Testament verse uses the word this way, and it is a quotation rather than everyday speech. But it is the older and wider sense, and knowing it is there keeps a reader from hearing desertion in a line where Paul means rescue.
the stronger word for deserting a person at the exact moment they most need support, leaving them alone in a crisis rather than merely parting ways2Ti 4:162Ti 4:10
names the feeling and the reality of being abandoned by God, the verb behind the cry from the cross and the promise that God will never do this to his peopleMat 27:46Heb 13:5
used of not being abandoned even in death, the assurance that a soul was not left to the graveAct 2:31
Both
both can describe God leaving a surviving remnant rather than wiping out his people entirely, one word in Paul quoting Isaiah and the other two chapters later in the same letterRom 9:29Rom 11:4
both warn against neglecting a shared duty to God, one urging believers not to give up meeting together and the other recording the apostles' refusal to give up preaching for other tasksHeb 10:25Act 6:2
covers the ordinary, often neutral act of leaving a place as someone travels on, with no note of desertionMat 4:13Act 21:3
the marriage saying's word for a man leaving his father and mother to join his wife, a leaving that is expected and good, not a betrayalMat 19:5Eph 5:31
used for leaving behind children or heirs when a person diesMrk 12:19Luk 20:31
ἀνίημιto loosen a grip or let something go slack, so it pictures a hold weakening rather than a person being left in the lurch; the two stand side by side in the promise of Hebrews 13:5
Only this word carries the cry of being deserted by someone who should have stood by you: Jesus asking why God has forsaken him, Paul reporting that Demas walked out on him and that everyone deserted him at his first hearing, and the boast that believers are hunted down yet never left alone.Mat 27:46Mrk 15:342Ti 4:102Ti 4:162Co 4:9
It also means leaving someone or something behind in a place or condition, so it can be used with no note of betrayal at all: God did not leave the Holy One among the dead, and he left Israel survivors when judgment fell.Act 2:27Act 2:31Rom 9:29
Both
Both can describe failing to stand by someone you are committed to, which is why Hebrews 13:5 stacks them in one promise: God will never let go of his people and never abandon them.Heb 13:5
Both can name the deliberate dropping of something you have been keeping up: masters are to quit making threats, and believers are warned not to quit meeting together.Eph 6:9Heb 10:25
Only this word is used for physically slackening or releasing something that was held tight: the prison chains that fell off at Philippi, and the ropes lashing a ship's steering oars that were let loose in the storm.Act 16:26Act 27:40
Its picture is of easing the pressure you are applying rather than walking away from someone, which is why masters are told to "give up" their threatening: they stop bearing down on the people under them.Eph 6:9
ἀφίστημιto withdraw or fall away, with the spotlight on the one leaving and the ground he is leaving, not on the person left behind
It is the cry of someone left helpless at the worst possible moment, when the person who should have stood by them is gone.Mat 27:46Mrk 15:342Ti 4:16
It can also mean leaving something behind in a place, whether a body left to the grave or survivors left alive after a disaster.Act 2:27Act 2:31Rom 9:29
Because it names the deepest kind of letting go, God's promise never to do it carries enormous weight.Heb 13:5
Both
Both describe one person walking out on companions who were counting on them, so both are used of a fellow worker who quit.Act 15:382Ti 4:10
Both are turned around and denied to show that someone stayed put, the loyalty being measured by the leaving that never happened.Luk 2:372Co 4:9Heb 10:25
It often means nothing more than moving away, with no fault on anyone's side: the one who leaves is simply no longer there.Luk 4:13Act 12:10Act 22:292Co 12:8
It can name a leaving that is right, and is even commanded: keep clear of these people, have nothing more to do with this.Luk 13:27Act 5:381Ti 6:52Ti 2:19
It is the New Testament's word for falling away from faith, and for pulling other people away into revolt.Luk 8:13Act 5:371Ti 4:1Heb 3:12
μονόωto be left all alone, describing the bare state of having nobody left rather than an act of desertion anyone can be blamed for
Points to someone who does the leaving, so it can carry the sting of desertion: Paul says every supporter walked out on him when he had to answer for himself, and that Demas went off after this world.2Ti 4:162Ti 4:10
Is the word used for the fear that God himself has withdrawn, and for his promise that he never will.Mat 27:46Mrk 15:34Heb 13:5
Can mean simply to leave something or someone behind with no hint of betrayal at all, whether that is leaving survivors alive or dropping the habit of meeting together.Rom 9:29Heb 10:25
Reaches beyond people to a place a person is left in, as in the promise that God would not leave the dead one lying in the grave.Act 2:27Act 2:31
Both
Both describe a person stripped of human company whose only remaining support is God, whether that is a prisoner whose friends all stayed away or a widow with no family left.2Ti 4:161Ti 5:5
English Bibles reach for the same phrasing for both, "forsaken" or "left alone", which hides the difference between being deserted by someone and being left with no one.2Co 4:91Ti 5:5
Names the bare condition of having nobody left rather than an act anyone commits: the widow who is "left alone" simply has no family remaining to look after her, and no one is being blamed for walking away.1Ti 5:5
Works as a settled description of a person's situation, marking out which widows the church takes responsibility for supporting.1Ti 5:5
ἀφίημιthe wide-ranging word for letting go, which can mean releasing, permitting, or forgiving, whereas this word only ever means leaving someone in the lurch
It names desertion as a wrong: walking out on someone at the exact moment they were counting on you, so that blame attaches to the one who left.2Ti 4:102Ti 4:16
It is the word for being forsaken by God, both in the cry from the cross and in the assurance that God did not do it after all.Mat 27:46Mrk 15:34Act 2:27
It keeps the spotlight on the person left rather than on what the leaver let go of, so the pain of being abandoned is part of the word: Paul says believers are struck down but not left lying there.2Co 4:9
It stretches to quitting a commitment you had been part of, such as dropping out of the gathering of fellow believers.Heb 10:25
Both
Both describe people walking away and leaving someone behind, so that the person is left with nobody: the disciples leaving Jesus at his arrest, and everyone leaving Paul at his first defence.Mat 26:56Mrk 14:502Ti 4:16
Both stand in a promise that someone will NOT be left: Jesus tells his disciples he will not leave them like orphans, and God's word to his people is that he will never forsake them.Jhn 14:18Heb 13:5
Only this word means forgiving: cancelling a sin or a debt so it is no longer charged against the person. That is its most familiar use, and the other word never carries it.Mat 6:12Mrk 2:51Jn 1:9
It also means permitting: letting something go ahead, or letting a person be, instead of stopping or hindering them.Mat 3:15Mat 19:14Mrk 14:6
It covers ordinary, blameless leaving, where walking away costs the leaver something and wrongs nobody: fishermen leaving their nets and their boat to follow Jesus, or a worshipper leaving his gift at the altar to go make peace first.Mat 4:20Mrk 1:18Mat 5:24
It can take a thing rather than a person as the one letting go: a fever loosens its grip on the sick woman, and Jesus gives up his last breath.Mat 8:15Mrk 1:31Mat 27:50
Carries the sting of being forsaken by the one who was bound to stay, which is why it is the verb of the cry from the cross and of the promise that God will never walk out on his people.Mat 27:46Mrk 15:342Co 4:9Heb 13:5
Describes leaving someone stranded in the place of the dead, so that the only question left is whether God will pull him out again.Act 2:27Act 2:31
Names desertion by friends at the exact moment their support was owed, when the people who should have stood with someone withdraw and leave him alone.2Ti 4:102Ti 4:16
Can also be turned to mercy, describing God leaving survivors behind so that a people is not wiped out completely.Rom 9:29
Both
Both can be used of a person leaving other people behind, so only the setting tells you whether the leaving is faithful work or a walking out.Tit 1:52Ti 4:10
Both can name the failure to stay at the post or the gathering someone was meant to keep, whether angels quitting the place given to them or believers dropping the habit of meeting.Jud 1:6Heb 10:25
Points to what is still left over and standing open, with no person doing the leaving at all: a rest that remains for God's people, or a sacrifice that no longer remains for someone who keeps sinning on purpose.Heb 4:6Heb 4:9Heb 10:26
Covers the plain, blameless act of leaving a thing or a person at a place, such as a cloak left with a host, a sick companion left where he could recover, or a coworker left behind on purpose to finish the job.2Ti 4:132Ti 4:20Tit 1:5
egkataleipō in the other biblical languages
עָזַבHebrew“to leave: forsake”the everyday Hebrew word for leaving or forsaking, covering neutral departure as well as betrayal; it is the word behind the cry Jesus quotes from Psalm 22
In the New Testament this word is never a neutral "stepped out for a moment": every appearance is a desertion that costs somebody something, or a pledge that no such desertion will happen. Paul names Demas as a man who walked out on him because he loved the comfortable life more, and he can say he is hunted down yet never left lying there.2Ti 4:102Co 4:9
It stretches past abandoning a person to abandoning a shared practice: the warning is against dropping the habit of gathering with other believers, treating a community routine as the thing being walked out on.Heb 10:25
It can also mean simply to leave something over, to spare a remainder, with no note of betrayal at all. Paul quotes the promise that if the Lord had not left survivors behind, the nation would have ended like Sodom.Rom 9:29
Both
Both words carry the sufferer's protest that God has walked away. The Hebrew asks "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", and that is the sentence Jesus cries from the cross, where the Greek word stands in its place.Psa 22:1Mat 27:46Mrk 15:34
Both carry the opposite promise just as strongly: God will not abandon his own. The Hebrew pledge to Israel that he will not leave them is quoted in Greek with this word, and the Hebrew hope that God will not abandon a life to the grave is quoted the same way.Deu 31:6Psa 16:10Heb 13:5Act 2:27
Both describe one person walking out on another at the worst possible moment. A sick slave is dumped by his master in the wilderness, and Paul stands trial with every friend gone.1Sa 30:132Ti 4:16
The Hebrew word covers plain, blameless leaving, where nothing at all has gone wrong. A man leaves his father and mother to be joined to his wife; Joseph leaves his cloak behind and runs; his master leaves everything he owns in Joseph's hands.Gen 2:24Gen 39:12Gen 39:6
It is also the word for letting go on purpose as an act of generosity: the harvester is commanded to leave the edges and the fallen grain for the poor and the foreigner, and Boaz tells his men to leave extra stalks lying where Ruth will find them.Lev 19:10Lev 23:22Rut 2:16
It carries the standing charge of the Old Testament: that Israel walked out on the LORD to serve other gods. That accusation runs from the judges through the kings to the prophets, and the Greek word never once describes people forsaking God this way.Jdg 2:121Sa 8:8Jer 2:13
It describes places emptied of the people who lived in them, cities and countryside left standing with nobody in them.Isa 17:2Isa 32:14Jer 4:29
נָטַשׁHebrew“to leave”another Hebrew word for abandoning, with the flavor of casting something off or letting it lie where it falls
Carries the sharp emotional weight of being forsaken by someone you trusted, above all the cry of one abandoned by God in the hour of need.Mat 27:46Mrk 15:34
Used for a person deserting another in a moment of trial, walking out on a friend or duty when loyalty was owed.2Ti 4:102Ti 4:16
Frames the promise that God will never desert his own, the negative side stressing steadfast presence rather than separation.Heb 13:52Co 4:9
Both
Both name abandoning a person or people, leaving them helpless, and both are used of God either forsaking or refusing to forsake those who are his.Psa 94:14Act 2:27
Both describe casting off or deserting people as an act of judgment or betrayal, the Greek word standing for the Hebrew idea of being left and given up.Jer 12:72Ti 4:16
Reaches beyond people to things and practices: letting farmland lie unworked and untended through the sabbath year.Exo 23:11
Can mean to let go physically, to loosen, drop, or let something fall slack, with no sense of betrayal at all.Isa 33:23Pro 17:14
Describes a crowd or army spread out and scattered loose across the ground, simply strewn about rather than deserted.1Sa 30:16Num 11:31
יָתַרHebrew“to remain”the Hebrew for leaving something over, the remnant vocabulary that lies behind the surviving-offspring line Paul quotes from Isaiah
Accuses someone of walking out on a person who was counting on them, so the pain sits with the one left behind.Mat 27:462Ti 4:162Co 4:9
Describes deserting a shared commitment: giving up on the gathered church, or loving the present world more than a friend in prison.Heb 10:252Ti 4:10
Can mean leaving a person stranded in a place he cannot get out of, which is why the promise that God would not do this to the Holy One is the heart of the resurrection argument.Act 2:27Act 2:31
Both
Both can mean leaving a remainder alive, and Paul's quotation of Isaiah is the place they meet: the Greek verb carries the Hebrew promise that the LORD "left us" a few survivors, without which Israel would have gone the way of Sodom.Isa 1:9Rom 9:29
Each is used with God as the one who does the leaving, so what survives depends on his decision: he keeps a remnant back from the sword, and he pledges never to walk away from his people.Ezk 6:8Heb 13:5
Is the ordinary word for the leftovers of a thing once it has been used: food not eaten by morning, the part of an offering the priests still have, grain still in the bowl after everyone is full.Exo 12:10Lev 2:3Rut 2:142Ki 4:43
Counts who is still standing after a killing or a disaster has run its course, whether that is nobody, one man, or a handful of survivors.Num 26:65Jos 11:221Ki 19:10Ezk 14:22
Can mark being left alone as the only one there, with no charge against anyone for leaving.Gen 32:241Ki 18:22
Turns positive when there is more than enough: a harvest that overflows, or supplies so far beyond the need that the workers are told to stop bringing them.Deu 28:11Deu 30:9Exo 36:7
What scholars say about egkataleipō
The standard lexicons treat the verb as a double compound of λείπω by way of καταλείπω, the ἐν prefix specifying the situation or place in which a person is left. BDAG divides the entry into a leave-behind sense (Rom 9:29) and a forsake, abandon, desert sense covering the remaining nine New Testament occurrences; LSJ records the same two poles in classical usage, including the military idiom of leaving a comrade in the lurch. Seven of the ten New Testament occurrences stand within or immediately beside Septuagint citations: Ps 21:2 LXX at Matt 27:46 and Mark 15:34,Ps 15:10 LXX at Acts 2:27 and 2:31, Isa 1:9 at Rom 9:29, and Deut 31:6, 8 with Josh 1:5 behind Heb 13:5. In the abandonment passages the Greek renders עזב; at Rom 9:29 it stands where the Hebrew of Isa 1:9 uses remnant vocabulary (הותיר). Commentators on Hebrews (Attridge, Lane, Koester) debate whether ἐγκαταλείποντες τὴν ἐπισυναγωγήν at Heb 10:25 describes casual absenteeism or incipient apostasy, a question settled by the letter's surrounding warnings rather than by the lexeme itself; commentators on the passion narrative (Marcus, Luz) discuss how far the citation of Ps 22:1 carries that psalm's turn toward vindication.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. ἐγκαταλείπωlexicon
LSJ, s.v. ἐγκαταλείπωlexicon
Harold W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia)commentary
William L. Lane, Hebrews 9-13 (Word Biblical Commentary 47B)commentary
Craig R. Koester, Hebrews (Anchor Bible 36)commentary
Joel Marcus, Mark 8-16 (Anchor Yale Bible 27A)commentary