to hold back: to keep a thing from being handed over, a person from acting, or a blow from falling
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
This verb pictures one plain action: holding something back instead of letting it go. What gets held back changes from verse to verse, and English reaches for a different word each time, but the gesture underneath is always the same.
Sometimes what is held back is a thing you could give, so we say withhold. Sometimes it is a person about to act, so we say restrain. Sometimes it is a blow about to land, so we say spare. Sometimes it is your own tongue or feet or effort, so we say refrain. Sometimes the thing is set aside for a later day, so we say reserve, and in one place holding back a sufferer's pain means easing it.
The most famous use is the near sacrifice of Isaac, where God commends Abraham because he did not hold back his son. The New Testament deliberately echoes that scene when it says that God did not hold back his own Son.
Nuances
1ato keep back something you could give or that is owed, rather than handing it over
Gen 22:12Gen 22:16Gen 39:9Ezr 9:13Pro 11:24Pro 13:24Pro 21:26
1bto hold a person or group back from doing something, especially from wrongdoing
Gen 20:61Sa 25:392Sa 18:16Psa 19:13(14)Isa 14:6
1cto hold back from striking, destroying, or taking the full toll on someone; to spare
2Ki 5:20Job 33:18Psa 78:50
1dto hold oneself back: to keep in one's own words, voice, steps, or effort, or to refrain from an act
1eto hold something back and keep it in store for a later time, or (in the passive) to be kept in reserve
Job 21:30Job 38:23
1fto hold back someone's pain, that is, to ease or relieve their grief
Job 16:5Job 16:6
1gto hold back light, so that the day grows dark
Ezk 30:18*
Ezk 30:18
Whether the verb at Ezekiel 30:18 belongs to this root, so that the day holds back its light, or to the near-identical root meaning to be dark, so that the line simply says the day grows dark.
contestedThe form belongs to this verb, hold back or withdraw, so the daylight is withheld at Tehaphnehes.; BDB, s.v. חשׂך
contestedThe form is the near-identical verb meaning to be dark, so the line describes the day growing dark, and many read or emend it that way.; HALOT, s.v. חשׂך
in Hebrew this is simply holding back the blow or the gift, with no feeling of mercy requiredPro 13:24
Both
both can describe holding back from striking down or destroying someonePsa 78:50
Only spare
the English word suggests kindness or leniency, and can also mean extra or left over, senses the Hebrew verb never carries
“keep back”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“refrain”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“reserve”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“restrain”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How ḥasakh differs from similar Hebrew words
מנעWithhold points to refusing or denying what someone asks or needs; this word is the wider act of holding back, which also covers sparing a life, reserving something for later, and restraining a person from acting.
Names the bare act of holding something back or restraining it, with no feeling implied: a person kept from sin, troops reined in, the tongue curbed.Gen 20:62Sa 18:16Job 7:11
Often governs a thing given or refused: a son not kept back, discipline withheld, goods stinted. It is the language of holding a resource in reserve, not of clemency.Gen 22:12Pro 13:24Pro 11:24
Both
Negated, both converge on "do not hold back": stop refraining and let the action go through, which is why English renders each with "spare not." The difference is only what is being checked, pity for one, plain restraint for the other.1Sa 15:3Isa 58:1
The sparing springs from felt pity or compassion; the tender feeling is the very reason the blow is held off.Exo 2:6Mal 3:17Jol 2:18
Used of mercy toward the condemned in war or judgment, so its negation names the deliberate withdrawal of pity: God's eye that will not feel for the guilty.1Sa 15:9Ezk 7:4Ezk 9:10
עצרRestrain here means to shut in or stop a flow, as of rain or a crowd; this word keeps back a thing or holds a person back from an act.
Names a decision not to give or keep back something one could have given. The held-back thing is often the self, a possession, or a person, and the choice can be praised as restraint or blamed as stinginess.Gen 22:12Pro 11:24
Used of sparing a person from harm or punishment: holding back the blow or the penalty that was due.Psa 78:50Job 33:18
Applied to speech, it means keeping one's words back, staying silent rather than pouring out what one could say.Job 7:11Pro 17:27
Both
Both can describe keeping something from happening, so English often renders either one as restrain or hold back. The difference is the cause: choosing not to give versus physically stopping a force or shutting something up.Gen 20:6Gen 20:18
Names a physical stopping or shutting up: the womb closed so no child comes, or rain held back from the land.Gen 16:2Deu 11:17
Used of halting a deadly force in its tracks, as when a plague is stopped from spreading.Num 16:48Psa 106:30
Carries the sense of confinement or being shut in, kept back from moving freely.Jer 33:1Jer 36:5
Can mean having the power to hold or contain at all, as in whether anyone has the strength to retain a thing.1Ch 29:14Dan 10:8
אפקThis near-synonym is used for forcing down a strong emotion so it does not burst out; this word is the outward act of holding something or someone back.
Names the inward struggle to master a feeling that is surging up, forcing one's own emotion down so it does not break out.Gen 43:31Gen 45:1Est 5:10
Used of God holding in his own long pent-up feeling, keeping himself silent and still when he might have acted.Isa 42:14Isa 64:12
ḥasakh in the other biblical languages
φείδομαιGreek“to spare”The main Greek verb for sparing or holding back. Paul reaches for it in saying God did not spare his own Son, a deliberate echo of the near sacrifice of Isaac, where God commends Abraham for not withholding his son.
Reaches the plain sense of holding something back that one could give: keeping back a possession, refusing to hand it over, or storing a thing up in reserve.Gen 39:9Pro 11:24Job 38:23
Also means to restrain or rein in speech and impulse, curbing the mouth, the lips, or one's own steps, an inward self-control the Greek word does not carry.Job 7:11Pro 10:19Pro 17:27
Both
Both name the sparing of a beloved son, refusing to give him up. The scene where Abraham has not withheld Isaac is the very moment Paul echoes when God did not spare his own Son, and the Greek Old Testament uses this Greek word to render the Hebrew there.Gen 22:12Rom 8:32
Both describe the withdrawal of mercy in judgment, refusing to spare a life from death when a people is given over to ruin.Psa 78:502Pe 2:5
Leans toward forbearing: holding oneself back from an action out of consideration for others, as Paul refrains from coming, or from boasting, so as to go easy on people.1Co 7:282Co 1:232Co 12:6
What scholars say about ḥasakh
The standard lexica treat חשׂך as a single verb with a unified core, "hold back, keep back," spread across contextual shades: withhold a thing (Gen 22:12; 39:9), restrain a person from acting (Gen 20:6;1 Sam 25:39), spare from death (Ps 78:50;Job 33:18), refrain one's own speech or effort (Job 7:11;Prov 10:19;Isa 58:1), reserve or store up (Job 38:23), and assuage grief (Job 16:5). The niphal is passive, "be held back / be reserved" (Job 16:6; 21:30). Ezekiel 30:18 is a recognized crux: the consonantal form is ambiguous between חשׂך and the homograph חשׁך "be dark," and translators and commentators divide accordingly. BDB and HALOT both organize the qal senses this way; DCH and TWOT concur on the unified sense.