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The picture behind this word is pressure. It can be pressure felt from within, so that a person hurries, or pressure applied from outside, so that one person drives another to hurry. English usually splits these into two words, "hasten" and "urge," but Hebrew hears a single idea of being pressed.

The book of Proverbs keeps returning to this word, almost always as a warning:

• hurrying with the feet means missing the way (Proverbs 19:2)
• the hasty person ends only in want, unlike the one who plans (Proverbs 21:5)
• rushing to get rich will not go unpunished (Proverbs 28:20)
• being hasty with words leaves less hope than there is for a fool (Proverbs 29:20)

Elsewhere the pressure falls on someone else. The angels press Lot to flee the doomed city, the Egyptian slave-drivers press the Israelites to keep up an impossible brick quota, and a grieving voice in Isaiah begs others not to press him with comfort. One difficult verse in Joshua stretches the same idea from time into space, describing hill country that is too cramped for a growing tribe.

Hebrew has plainer verbs for speed, such as מָהַר, the everyday word for doing something quickly, and חוּשׁ, to make haste. This word adds the note of pressure that those lack. The Greek σπεύδω covers similar ground of eager, driven haste.