to grasp: to close the hand on something and hold it fast
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
At its heart this is the verb of the gripping hand. Someone reaches out, closes the fingers, and does not let go. From that one physical picture the word spreads in every direction the grip itself suggests.
The hand can grip a friendly thing (Jacob holding his brother's heel, the bride holding the one she loves) or a hostile one (soldiers seizing an enemy, a trap catching a bird). The grip can be turned on a person from the outside, which is how the Bible pictures terror: dread, pain, and trembling are said to take hold of people the way a hand clamps onto prey, and they cannot shake it off.
The same idea of getting a firm hold runs into two settled uses. When people get a grip on a stretch of land, they settle there and it becomes their holding. And when builders lock one part of a structure into another so it holds together, the beams or the gold are said to take hold of the building. In every case the core is the same: a firm grip that does not slip.
Nuances
1ato take hold of something with the hand and keep hold of it
the same verb also pictures fear or pain gripping a person from outside, an image English "seize" only partly carriesExo 15:14Psa 48:6
Both
both can name catching and holding a captive or preyJdg 1:6
Only seize
English "seize" suggests sudden, often violent or legal taking; the Hebrew is broader and can be gentle or steady
“possess”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“fasten”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How aḥaz differs from similar Hebrew words
חָזַקto be or grow strong, and so to grip firmly or hold fast; it stresses the strength of the hold, while this word stresses simply closing the hand on something
Pictures the moment a hand closes on something and catches it: the ram caught in the thicket, the newborn gripping his brother's heel, taking the cloth in hand.Gen 22:13Gen 25:26Rut 3:15
Extends from gripping with the hand to taking lasting possession of land: holding property and settling in it.Gen 34:10Gen 47:27Num 32:30
Both
Both can mean to lay hold of and keep a firm grip, so that a verse may pair them: take the serpent by the tail, the snare that seizes the heel, pangs that grip a person fast.Exo 4:4Job 18:9Jer 49:24
Its core is not gripping but force or firmness: to be or grow strong, and to make strong, as when one is urged to be strong and courageous.Deu 31:6Jos 1:6Psa 27:14
Used of a power that prevails over someone or something: the famine that grew severe, and the repeated hardening of Pharaoh's heart.Gen 41:56Exo 7:13Exo 14:4
Means to make firm again by repair, used throughout the rebuilding of Jerusalem's wall.Neh 3:42Ki 12:5
תָּפַשׂto seize, catch, or capture, often by surprise or force; it leans toward laying hold of a person or thing to take it, while this word covers the plain act of gripping as well
Reaches past the moment of grabbing to settled holding: taking lasting possession of land and settling in it.Gen 34:10Gen 47:27Num 32:30
Used of inward and bodily seizing: trembling and pangs that grip a person, and sleep or dread that takes hold.Exo 15:14Job 21:6Psa 48:6
Both
Both name the act of physically laying hold of a person or object and gripping it firmly, whether catching a ram, grabbing a garment, or seizing a man.Gen 22:13Rut 3:15Gen 39:12
Pictures the hand closing on something to grip it: the ram caught in the thicket, gripping the heel, taking the cloth in hand.Gen 22:13Gen 25:26Rut 3:15
Extends to settled possession of land, and to inward seizing by trembling, pangs, or dread.Gen 47:27Exo 15:14Job 21:6
Both
Both name taking firm hold of something so it cannot get away, whether a hand catching its prey or an attacker seizing what he is after.Gen 22:13Jdg 16:3Jdg 8:14
It is the grip that keeps holding. The point is not that something changed hands but that the hand will not open again, so it fits a woman who holds the man she found and refuses to let him go, a foot that stays fixed on a path, and God holding a man by the right hand.Sng 3:4Job 23:11Psa 73:23
What does the seizing need not be a person at all. Fear, trembling and pain are regularly the ones that take hold, gripping whole nations or the guilty so they cannot shake it off.Exo 15:14Isa 33:14
It describes being caught and held fast, unable to get free: fish held in a net and birds in a snare, or a ram stuck in a thicket by its horns.Ecc 9:12Gen 22:13
It stretches to a settled hold on land and even to one thing fixed into another, so a family gets holdings in a region and beams rest on a ledge without being fastened into the wall.Gen 47:271Ki 6:6
Both
Both describe a hand closing on a physical object: a snake caught by the tail, fire and a knife picked up and carried.Exo 4:4Gen 22:6
Both can be used of laying hold of what belongs to an enemy, and one battlefield order uses them back to back: get hold of the young man, then take what he is carrying.2Sa 2:21
Both work together in the rules for dividing captured goods, where one item in every fifty is picked out and then taken for the Levites.Num 31:30Num 31:47
It is the ordinary way the Bible says a man marries: he "takes" a wife, and a wife can be given to him the same way.Gen 4:19Gen 16:3
It covers fetching something and bringing it to someone, which is why it opens so many scenes of hospitality and preparation: bread brought out for guests, provisions handed to a traveler, wood and fire carried up a mountain.Gen 18:5Gen 21:14Gen 22:6
It carries a person or thing away from where it was, so it is the word when a woman is taken into a king's house, when raiders take a man captive, and even when God takes a man so that he is no longer there.Gen 12:15Gen 14:12Gen 5:24
It is the receiving end of a transaction, the natural partner of giving: goods offered and accepted, a price a seller presses on a buyer, or payment a man refuses down to a single thread.Gen 14:21Gen 23:13Gen 14:23
aḥaz in the other biblical languages
κρατέωGreek“to grasp/seize”the Greek verb for taking firm hold of and holding fast, which covers both gripping a person and holding to a teaching
Reaches past gripping into settled possession of land: taking hold of territory and settling in it.Gen 34:10Gen 47:27Num 32:30
Used of inward and bodily seizing: trembling, pangs, and dread that grip a person fast.Exo 15:14Job 21:6Psa 48:6
Both
Both name the act of taking firm physical hold of a person or thing by the hand, the Greek word being the natural New Testament counterpart to the Hebrew word's grip: taking someone by the hand to raise them, or catching and gripping what one is after.Mrk 1:31Mat 9:25Gen 22:13Rut 3:15
Frequently means to arrest or take into custody by force: the repeated seizing of Jesus, John, and the apostles.Mat 26:50Mrk 14:46Act 24:6
Used figuratively for holding fast to and keeping a teaching, tradition, or confession, refusing to let it go.2Th 2:15Heb 4:14Rev 2:25
Used of retaining or keeping back, as when sins are held against someone rather than forgiven.Jhn 20:23
πιάζωGreek“to arrest/catch”the Greek verb for catching or arresting, used of catching fish and seizing a person, close to this word's sense of catching prey or a captive
It often means simply to take and keep possession of land or property, settling into it as your own.Gen 34:10Gen 47:27Jos 22:9
It describes grasping or clutching an object in the hand, taking firm hold of a physical thing.Exo 4:4Rut 3:15Sng 3:8
It is used for an inner state seizing a person, when fear, trembling, or pain grips someone.Exo 15:14Job 21:6Isa 13:8
Both
Both name the forceful capture of a person, laying hold of someone to seize them. The Hebrew word does this when a man is caught and taken; the Greek word does it when Jesus or an apostle is arrested.Jdg 16:21Jhn 7:32
In the New Testament it almost always means to seize a person in order to arrest them, the move to capture an enemy or take a prisoner.Jhn 7:30Act 12:42Co 11:32
It can name the simple act of catching what you are hunting or fishing for, hauling in a catch.Jhn 21:3Jhn 21:10
Covers the quick grab of a hand closing on a creature or a person, the physical action itself: Moses catching the snake by its tail, the Philistines laying hands on Samson, and the call to catch the little foxes in the vineyard.Exo 4:4Jdg 16:21Sng 2:15
Runs the other way round, with fear or pain as the thing doing the grabbing and a person as its victim, so terror "takes hold of" whole nations and labor pains grip a woman.Exo 15:14Isa 13:8
Is the ordinary word for settling into land and coming to hold it as property, so it is rendered "get possessions" or "be possessed of" when a family or tribe takes up its territory.Gen 34:10Jos 22:9
Describes lifeless things gripping each other in building work, where beams and side rooms are "fastened" into a wall so the structure holds together.1Ki 6:6Ezk 41:6
Both
Both can name a hold that lasts rather than a single grab: staying with the good course and refusing to let it go. English Bibles render both of these with "hold fast" or "hold to".Ecc 7:18Job 17:9Luk 16:13
Both are used of a stronger hand closing on someone weaker in order to keep that person upright, God taking hold of the psalmist's right hand and the church told to keep hold of those who are struggling.Psa 73:23Psa 139:101Th 5:14
Names an exclusive allegiance to a person as master: the servant who holds on to the one is in that same act turning his back on the other, so the hold shuts out any rival claim on him.Mat 6:24
What is held can be a body of trustworthy teaching handed on to a leader, who keeps hold of it so that he is able to teach it and answer those who argue against it. The Hebrew word never takes a message as the thing held.Tit 1:9
Means to take and hold as one's own: to settle in a land and possess it as a permanent holding, a sense of legal ownership the Greek word never carries.Gen 34:10Gen 47:27Num 32:30
Is the plain act of catching or grasping a thing with the hand and holding it fast: a ram caught in a thicket, an animal seized by the tail, a hand clutching the horns of the altar or a garment.Gen 22:13Exo 4:41Ki 1:51
Both
Both use the language of physical seizing for a feeling or affliction that grips a person: fear, dread, or sickness takes hold of someone as if with a hand. The Greek word carries the same idiom the Hebrew word uses across the Old Testament.Exo 15:14Psa 48:6Luk 8:37Mat 4:24
Both can mean laying hold of a person to restrain or overpower them by force. The Greek word matches the Hebrew word's use for physically seizing someone.Jdg 16:212Sa 2:21Luk 22:63
Presses in from every side and shuts something up, rather than gripping it at one point: a crowd hemming a person in, siege walls closing around a city, ears held tightly shut.Luk 8:45Luk 19:43Act 7:57
Names an inner pressure that leaves no room to move: a compulsion that drives a person, or the tight spot of being hemmed in between two choices.2Co 5:14Act 18:5Php 1:23
What scholars say about aḥaz
The standard lexica treat אָחַז as a single verb meaning "to grasp, take hold, seize," with related shades that flow from that core: catching prey or a captive, fear or pain gripping a person, and (especially in the niphal) getting a holding in land and so settling there, the use tied to the noun אֲחֻזָּה "possession." A small group of building texts use it for one part of a structure being fastened to or holding another. HALOT, BDB, and DCH all keep these together under one root rather than positing homonyms.