to set apart by going without: to consecrate oneself to God by giving something up, or to hold clear of what one must not touch
This verb never describes an ordinary parting of two things. Every time it appears, something sacred is at stake: the LORD, his sanctuary, or a rival god. What it names is a boundary a person accepts for religious reasons, and the boundary is drawn by giving something up. The going without is not a side effect of the dedication; it is how the dedication is carried out.
That is why one word covers what English splits into opposite-sounding ideas. A boundary has two sides, so the same act can be described from either end. Say which side the person is standing on and you get "set apart to"; say what is on the far side and you get "keep away from." The Nazirite of Numbers 6 does both at once: refusing wine, the razor, and any contact with the dead simply is the way he belongs to the LORD for the length of his vow. Leviticus works the other end of the same boundary, keeping people clear of what defiles so that holy things stay holy, and Zechariah 7:3 uses the word for going without food in a season of mourning.
The unsettling part of this word is that the machinery runs just as well with the wrong object at the end of it. Hosea 9:10 says Israel at Baal-peor gave itself over to "the shame" using the very verb of consecration, and in Ezekiel 14:7 a man holds himself apart from the LORD while keeping idols in his heart. The word that names Israel's most visible act of devotion is also the word the prophets reach for to describe desertion, and nothing in the word itself decides which one is happening. Only the object does.
The verb belongs to a small family. The person under this consecration is the Nazirite (נָזִיר), and the consecration itself, along with the signs that make it visible (the unshorn hair, and the headband of a king or priest), is a third word from the same root (נֵזֶר). Numbers 6:2 sets this verb beside the ordinary word for making a vow (נָדַר), which is the wider category the Nazirite promise falls under.
Nuances
Disputed
Whether the semantic center of the root נזר is consecration by vow or separation, and therefore how the verb should be defined.
- majorityThe root fundamentally means to consecrate by vow. The zayin/daleth alternation between נזר and נדר is phonological, the Arabic cognate نذر "to vow" supplies the etymological backbone, and the verb never carries a merely secular sense of separation in Biblical Hebrew.; G. Mayer, "נָזַר / נָזִיר / נֵזֶר," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, ed. Botterweck, Ringgren, and Fabry, vol. IX (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), 301ff.; HALOT, s.v. נזר I; J. Kühlewein, "נזר," in Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament, ed. Jenni and Westermann (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1997)
- minoritySeparation, holding aloof, is the basic sense, and consecration is derived from it. The metaphorical use of the related noun for the unpruned vine in Leviticus 25:5, 11 shows a separation sense that does not depend on any vow context.; T. E. McComiskey, "נזר," in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, ed. Harris, Archer, and Waltke, entry 1340 (Chicago: Moody, 1980); BDB, 634-35, s.v. נָזַר