gadal

This is the plain, physical sense of the word: something gets bigger, or someone gets older. It is what a child does over time and what a plant or a flock does as it thrives.

The two senses here are not really separate ideas, only the same growth seen in different things. A boy grows until he is weaned or old enough to act on his own; a tree or a herd grows until it is full and abundant. In every case the word simply tracks the steady increase from small to large.

Here the increase is not in body but in stature. A person, a family, or a nation rises until it is wealthy, powerful, or widely respected. The growth that meaning one described in a child is now applied to a whole life or a whole people.

The word does not by itself say whether this rise is good or bad. Often it simply reports a blessing, as when a man God favors keeps prospering until he is very great. The same word can also describe a swelling pride, when someone trusts their own greatness rather than the God who gave it.

This is the word turned outward: instead of growing, someone causes another to grow or to be honored. It covers raising children to adulthood, lifting a person into high rank, and declaring God to be great.

The three senses share one motion, making someone or something larger in the eyes of others, but the object decides the flavor. Parents and caretakers bring a child up. A king or God himself promotes a servant to greatness. And worshipers magnify God, not by adding to him but by openly proclaiming and honoring the greatness he already has.

This is the dark counterpart to praising God. Instead of declaring God great, a person makes themselves great, talking big or acting proud, usually at someone else's expense.

Most often the word here carries a charge of arrogance. Enemies boast over the fallen, a tyrant lifts himself up even against heaven, and a tool imagines it is greater than the hand that wields it. The same word that worship uses to honor God is the word the proud use to honor themselves.