to keep something or someone back: to withhold, deny, or restrain
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
At its heart this word means to keep back something that another person wants or expects. Most often what is kept back is a good thing: rain, grain, a blessing, a request, even a person promised in marriage. God withholds rain as judgment, or promises to withhold no good thing from those who walk uprightly; a person is warned not to withhold help from the poor or correction from a child.
The same word also describes holding a person or thing back from doing something. Abigail praises the LORD for keeping David back from shedding blood; a grieving mother is told to keep her voice from weeping; a soldier is cursed for holding his sword back from its work. Here the word leans toward restraint and prevention rather than denial.
Both uses share one simple idea: a barrier standing between what could be given or done and its actually happening. That is why English needs several words for it, from withhold and deny to keep back and restrain, depending on whether a good is being refused or an action is being stopped.
Nuances
1ato keep a needed or deserved good from someone: to deny it or refuse to give it
The Hebrew word can describe a gracious holding back, keeping someone from harm or wrongdoing, which the English word withhold does not naturally suggest.1Sa 25:341Sa 25:26
Both
Both describe keeping back something a person might reasonably expect to receive.Psa 84:11Gen 30:2
Only withhold
In everyday English, withhold hints at stinginess or deliberate denial, while the Hebrew word is often neutral or even merciful.
“keep back”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“restrain”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“deny”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“hold back”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How mana differs from similar Hebrew words
חָשַׂךְalso means to withhold or hold back, but leans toward sparing, keeping something in reserve, or being spared harm, where this word leans toward denying a recipient what they seek
Withholds a good, gift, or benefit that someone wants or is owed; the giver simply does not hand it over.Psa 84:11Pro 3:27Job 22:7Gen 30:2
Refuses or denies something that is asked for.Psa 21:2Pro 30:7
Both
Both can hold a person back from an action about to be taken. The same restraint of David from shedding blood is told with each word.1Sa 25:331Sa 25:26
Both describe God stopping the flow of water.Ezk 31:15Amo 4:7
Shuts a person or animal into an enclosed space; the word behind being imprisoned or penned in, which מנע never means.Jer 32:2Jer 32:3Psa 88:81Sa 6:10
Stops something already in motion or holds it closed so it cannot get out, acting on the thing itself rather than on a recipient.Exo 36:6Gen 8:2Psa 40:9
What gets kept back is usually a good thing somebody wants, needs, or has a claim on: rain, grain, bread, a blessing, a request. The picture is a giver who does not hand it over.Psa 84:11Job 22:7Pro 11:26Pro 3:27Psa 21:2
It reaches the natural world and the ordinary supply of life, holding back rain, showers, rivers, or light. No decision of anyone's is being overruled; the flow simply stops.Amo 4:7Jer 3:3Ezk 31:15Job 38:15
It can hold a person back from an act they were about to commit, and the text often counts that as a kindness rather than a loss.1Sa 25:261Sa 25:34Pro 1:15Jer 31:16
Both
Both describe someone with the standing to interfere stepping in, so that what was headed for a certain outcome does not reach it.Num 24:111Sa 25:26Num 32:7
Both are used of God stopping what people had counted on, so that human expectation and human planning alike run into a wall.Gen 30:2Amo 4:7Psa 33:10
Neither word passes judgment on the blocking itself. The same verb covers an act the text praises and an act it condemns, and only the surrounding story tells you which one you are reading.1Sa 25:34Job 31:16Num 32:9Psa 33:10
Its object is something already set in motion, a promise spoken, a march begun, a scheme laid, and the word keeps that thing from ever arriving. Nothing is being kept in someone's hands; a commitment is being cancelled out.Num 30:5Num 32:9Psa 33:10
In the law of vows it is the act of a man with the standing to do it, and the result is that the woman's promise simply never counts and she carries no guilt for it.Num 30:5Num 30:8Num 30:11
It can work on people's willingness rather than their circumstances: the scouts drained the nerve of the whole nation so that it would not go up, though nothing physically stood in Israel's way.Num 32:7Num 32:9
mana in the other biblical languages
κωλύωGreek“to prevent”the Greek verb for hindering, forbidding, or preventing someone from doing something, overlapping the restraining side of this word
Withholds a good that is owed or longed for: rain, bread, grain, children, an answered request. The thing kept back is a benefit, and often God is the one who gives or refuses it.Psa 84:11Gen 30:2Pro 11:26
Restrains from harm or wrongdoing: holding a foot back from an evil path, keeping a hand from bloodshed, not sparing needed discipline.1Sa 25:34Pro 1:15Pro 23:13
Both
Both keep someone back from something they would otherwise reach or do. English renders each as prevent, keep back, or forbid, so the Hebrew withholding and the Greek hindering meet at the point of blocked access.Num 24:11Act 8:36
Forbids a person from an action by standing in the way of it: children coming, an adult marrying, a believer speaking. The focus is a blocked deed, not a gift kept back.Mat 19:141Ti 4:31Co 14:39
Hinders the progress or movement of a work or a journey, so that something under way is held up or shut off.Rom 1:131Th 2:16Act 16:6
ἀποστερέωGreek“to defraud”the Greek verb for defrauding or depriving someone of what is owed, close to withholding a good that is due
often means to restrain or hold a person back from an action rather than to cheat them, as when one is kept from shedding blood or told to keep their feet off a wrong path.1Sa 25:26Pro 1:15
is regularly used of God withholding or granting natural gifts that are his to give, such as rain, harvest, or children.Gen 30:2Amo 4:7Jer 3:3
can be neutral or even good, as when a king grants rather than denies a request, or a person holds nothing back from doing what is asked.Psa 21:2Jer 42:4
Both
both describe keeping back from a person what is rightly due to them, wages held from a worker or good withheld from a neighbor who has a claim to it.Jas 5:4Pro 3:27
both treat such withholding as a wrong that provokes an outcry for justice: the wages kept back cry out to the Lord, and the people curse the one who holds grain from the hungry.Jas 5:4Pro 11:26
always carries the charge of fraud: to cheat a person out of what is legally theirs, listed alongside stealing and bearing false witness.Mrk 10:191Co 6:8
names an injury the wronged party may choose to accept rather than fight back, letting themselves be cheated instead of taking a fellow believer to court.1Co 6:7
covers depriving a husband or wife of the intimacy the two owe each other in marriage.1Co 7:5
can describe being robbed of the truth itself, a corrupt mind cut off from what is real.1Ti 6:5
What scholars say about mana
The verb is well attested (29 occurrences) and semantically stable across the Hebrew Bible, consistently denoting the withholding or holding back of something from a recipient. Standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, DCH) treat it as a single root without homonymy. In the qal the thing withheld is the object, with the person or the action from which it is kept introduced by min; the niphal functions as the passive ("be withheld"). The two nuances distinguished here, denying a good and restraining from an action, are contextual shadings of one sense rather than separate lexical entries, and the lexica present them under one heading.