to take part of something away, so that less of it is left: to diminish, reduce, withdraw, or hold back
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
At its heart this verb is about subtraction. Something whole or complete has a piece removed from it, so that what remains is less than before. That single idea stretches across a surprising range of situations.
It can mean shrinking a set amount: the daily quota of bricks the Israelites had to make, a ration of food and clothing owed to a wife, or the exact wording of a command that must be kept whole. It can mean taking something away from a person for good, such as a family name or a share of land that would otherwise pass on. It can mean holding back what ought to be given or done, like withholding prayer or keeping wisdom to oneself. And in a couple of places it describes a beard cut short as a sign of grief.
Because the word covers so much ground, a close relative helps mark its edges: מָעַט is about something becoming few or small on its own, while this verb is the deliberate act of removing a portion. In the command to keep God's words intact, it stands as the exact opposite of adding to them (יָסַף).
Nuances
1ato reduce or subtract: to make a set amount smaller by removing part of it
Describes being few or small in number, where a group or supply is simply small.Exo 12:4Num 11:32
Names a people or store dwindling, growing smaller as a state over time.Psa 107:39Ecc 12:3
Describes making a nation small, God reducing a people in size or standing.Lev 26:22Ezk 29:15
Scales a share to the size of the group, giving the smaller group less.Num 26:54Num 35:8
חָסֵרdescribes the resulting lack, being short of something; this verb is the act of removing the part that causes the shortfall.
יָסַףis the opposite pole of the same fixed pairing, to add or increase; the two are set against each other in the command to add nothing to God's words and take nothing away.
gara in the other biblical languages
ἐλαττόωGreek“to make less”the Greek word for making less or lower that most closely matches the reduce sense.
ἀφαιρέωGreek“to remove”the Greek word for taking away or removing that matches the withdraw sense.
Covers plain reduction of a measured amount, with no one cheated: the daily brick quota is not to be "diminished," and a dedication price is "abated" by a fixed reckoning.Exo 5:8Lev 27:18
Warns against subtracting from a fixed body of words: nothing may be taken away from what God has commanded.Deu 4:2Jer 26:2
Extends to withdrawing or trimming in ordinary settings that carry no fraud: God does not "withdraw" his eyes from the righteous, and a mourner's beard is "cut off."Job 36:7Isa 15:2
Both
Both can name the withholding of what a person is rightly owed within a relationship. A husband is forbidden to "diminish" his wife's food, clothing, and marital rights, and spouses are told not to "defraud" one another of that same duty.Exo 21:101Co 7:5
Names a moral wrong with a victim: to cheat or rob a person of what belongs to them. "Do not defraud" stands among the commandments against sin, and wages held back by fraud cry out against the one who kept them.Mrk 10:19Jas 5:41Co 6:8
Reaches to being robbed of an intangible good, not only money or property: false teachers are "deprived of the truth," cut off from something they should have held.1Ti 6:5
What scholars say about gara
The standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, DCH) treat גרע as a single root meaning to diminish, withdraw, or restrain, active in the qal and niphal and once in the piel. Its uses fall into reducing a fixed quantity (Exodus 5:8, 5:11, 5:19; Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32 [Hebrew 13:1]; Jeremiah 26:2;Ecclesiastes 3:14;Exodus 21:10;Leviticus 27:18;Ezekiel 5:11; 16:27), removing something from a party (Numbers 27:4; 36:3, 4; Job 36:7), restraining or being kept back (Job 15:4, 8; Numbers 9:7), and the passive participle for a clipped beard (Isaiah 15:2;Jeremiah 48:37). The piel in Job 36:27 is contested: HALOT and many modern commentators (e.g. Clines, Job 21-37, WBC) read it as God drawing the water drops up into mist, while the older tradition reflected in the King James rendering takes it as making the drops small.
Sources
BDB, s.v. גָּרַעlexicon
HALOT, s.v. גרעlexicon
DCH, s.v. גרעlexicon
D. J. A. Clines, Job 21-37, Word Biblical Commentary 18Acommentary