to roll: to move something heavy by turning it over, or to be turned over and over
The basic picture is physical: taking something heavy, above all a stone, and moving it by turning it over. Shepherds roll the stone off the mouth of a well so the flocks can drink (Genesis 29), soldiers roll great stones across the mouth of a cave, and a big stone is rolled over to serve as a butchering block. From that plain action every other use grows.
The same verb stretches in several directions:
- rolling something shameful out of the way, so a disgrace is removed
- rolling about in something, as a fallen man wallows in his own blood
- rolling one's burden onto the LORD, a vivid picture of trust
- rolling on a vast scale, when justice pours down like water or the sky is rolled up like a scroll
The best loved of these is the picture of trust. "Commit your way to the LORD" (Psalm 37:5) is literally "roll your way onto him": you take the heavy load you cannot carry and roll it off yourself onto God. The Greek New Testament keeps the physical side of the image alive when it rolls the stone away from Jesus' tomb (ἀποκυλίω).
The action even names a place. At Gilgal the LORD says he has "rolled away" the reproach of Egypt (Joshua 5:9), the place-name itself echoing the verb.