deliverance: the rescue, victory, or safety that God brings to people in danger or distress
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
This word names the help itself, the actual rescue, rather than the act of rescuing (that is the closely related verb). It lives almost entirely in poetry, above all the Psalms and the book of Isaiah, and it nearly always has God as its source. Familiar phrases such as "the God of my salvation," "the rock of my salvation," and "the horn of my salvation" all use this word to point to God as the one from whom rescue comes.
The rescue in view is concrete and this-worldly:
winning a battle
being cleared when falsely accused
being pulled out of deadly danger
simply being brought to a place of safety
In its Old Testament setting it does not primarily mean being saved from sin; that fuller meaning grows up later, chiefly in the period between the Testaments and in the New Testament.
The senses shade into one another around this one core:
Most often the word means the deliverance God gives, with God himself named as its source.
Sometimes it narrows to victory won in battle.
A few times it widens to the settled state of being safe and well, with no rescuer in view at all, as in Job, where a foolish man's children are crushed in court and left "far from safety."
Nuances
1adeliverance from danger or distress that comes from God; also God named as the source of rescue, as in "the God of my salvation"
Names a rescue actually carried out, especially a victory won in battle, the accomplished act of delivering rather than the safety that follows.Jdg 15:181Sa 19:52Sa 23:101Ch 11:142Ki 5:1
Turns up where people count on armies, horses, or good advice to secure a win, and is then denied to those means and credited to God.Psa 33:17Pro 11:14Pro 21:31Pro 24:6
yesah in the other biblical languages
σωτηρίαGreek“salvation”The main Greek word for salvation in the New Testament. It broadens toward rescue from sin and eternal life, while yeshaʿ names concrete rescue, victory, or safety in this present life.
Names concrete rescue from bodily enemies and danger in the language of battle: God is the shield of salvation who goes out to win the victory for his people.2Sa 22:36Psa 18:2Hab 3:13
Pictures salvation springing up within history alongside righteousness, poured out on the land like rain and worn like a garment.Isa 45:8Isa 61:10Isa 51:5
Voices the cry of an individual worshiper to the God of his salvation, pleading for restored joy and confessing him as light and rescue.Psa 25:5Psa 51:12Psa 27:1
Both
Both are the standard word for the deliverance God accomplishes, the rescue a worshiper trusts him to bring; the Greek term is the word the Greek Bible uses to carry this Hebrew idea over into the New Testament.Psa 27:1Rom 1:16
Both are proclaimed as the horn of salvation raised up in the house of David: the Hebrew hymn calls God the horn of my salvation, and Zechariah's song announces that God has raised up a horn of salvation in David's house.2Sa 22:3Luk 1:69
Frames salvation chiefly as rescue from sin and its guilt: the deliverance is defined as the forgiveness of sins, not rescue from bodily enemies, and it is found in no name but Christ's.Luk 1:77Act 4:12
Points forward to a still-future, final deliverance to be revealed at the last day, a rescue that draws nearer as the present age closes.Rom 13:111Pe 1:5Heb 9:28
Is bound to one person as its source: Christ is called the leader and the author of this salvation, so the word names what he alone secures.Heb 2:10Heb 5:9
What scholars say about yesah
The noun יֵשַׁע (about 36 occurrences) is one of several derivatives of the root ישע, alongside the verb (attested chiefly in the Hiphil הוֹשִׁיעַ and Niphal נוֹשַׁע) and the nouns יְשׁוּעָה and תְּשׁוּעָה. It occurs almost entirely in poetry, weighted toward the Psalms and Isaiah, and characteristically stands in construct with divine epithets (צוּר־יִשְׁעִי "rock of my salvation"; קֶרֶן יִשְׁעִי "horn of my salvation"; מָגֵן יִשְׁעֶךָ "shield of your salvation"). Sawyer (TDOT 6) and Stolz (TLOT) take the root's basic sense as bringing help or assistance to someone in danger, distress, or legal jeopardy, deployed in military, forensic, and royal registers; the Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database concurs and, with the eighteenth edition of Gesenius, regards the older derivation from Arabic wasiʿa "be spacious" (retained in BDB, TWOT, and Hubbard's NIDOTTE) as disproven on both phonological and semantic grounds. The narrowing toward "save from sin" is widely held to be a post-Old-Testament development (so Sawyer, Stolz, Westermann); Goldingay presses the point in his Isaiah commentary, while Oswalt argues for a genuine spiritual dimension already in later Isaiah.
Where scholars disagree about yesah
What the root behind this word originally pictured, and therefore how its meaning is best explained to readers.
majorityThe root means bringing help or assistance to someone in danger, distress, or legal trouble, with no reliable underlying image of "wideness"; the older derivation from an Arabic word meaning "be spacious" is set aside on phonological and semantic grounds.; J.F.A. Sawyer, "ישׁע yāšaʿ," TDOT 6 (1990); F. Stolz, "ישׁע yšʿ to help," TLOT 2; Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database, s.v. ישׁע
minorityThe root's underlying idea is spaciousness, being brought into a broad and open place, from which deliverance follows as a derived sense.; BDB, s.v. יֵשַׁע; J.E. Hartley, "ישׁע," TWOT; R.L. Hubbard, "ישׁע," NIDOTTE 2
In-depth research
This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.