to abandon: to walk away from someone or something one is bound to keep
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is the word's heaviest and most common use, and it carries real weight because of who does the abandoning. Most often it is God who either threatens to forsake his people or, more reassuringly, promises that he never will. The same word also describes people walking out on what they owe: a child ignoring a parent's teaching, or a person turning away from God himself.
What ties these together is broken obligation. To do this is not simply to be somewhere else; it is to let go of a bond that should have held, leaving behind a person, a duty, or a relationship that had a claim on you. That is why the prophets reach for it when they describe Israel deserting the Lord, and why it is such comfort when the promise runs the other way: he will not abandon his people.
The edges of this meaning shade toward the word's other uses, since leaving something behind can be a faithless desertion or simply a setting down. Here the focus rests on the relationship that is dropped.
Nuances
1afor God to forsake, or to promise never to forsake, his people
1bfor a person to desert someone or something they are obligated to: a parent, a teaching, or God
Gen 31:28Deu 32:15Pro 1:8Pro 6:20Jer 15:6
1cfor a person to leave an animal, one's belongings, or an unfinished task with someone else, told as a plain fact rather than as a moral failing
1Sa 10:21Sa 17:201Sa 17:221Sa 17:28
2
to let lie: to release a field or a matter and leave it alone
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
Here the word loses its accusing tone and becomes almost gentle. A farmer is told to let his land lie unworked through the seventh year, so that the poor and even wild animals can eat what grows on its own. The community later pledges to do the same, leaving the ground to rest.
The shared idea is deliberate release. Rather than deserting something one is bound to, a person lets go of a hold he could have kept: he stops working the field, or stops pressing a fight before it breaks open. It is the calm cousin of abandonment, a choosing to leave alone.
Nuances
2ato let farmland lie fallow and unworked
Exo 23:11Neh 10:31(32)
2bto let go of a quarrel before it erupts
Pro 17:14
3
to spread out: to scatter, deploy, or let loose over an area
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
In this use the word turns physical and outward. A wind drives a great flock of quail and lets them fall all around the camp. Raiders are spread out across the countryside, eating and drinking after a victory. An enemy army deploys itself across a valley, fanning out for battle. Vines straggle and reach across the ground, and a ship's ropes hang slack and loose.
The common thread is loosening and spreading: something is let go so that it stretches, scatters, or sprawls across a wide space. This is the same basic gesture as letting go in the other meanings, but here what is released spreads out rather than being deserted or set to rest.
Nuances
3afor an army or raiding party to spread out and deploy across an area
Jdg 15:91Sa 4:21Sa 30:162Sa 5:182Sa 5:22
3bto let loose or scatter something so it falls across a wide space
Num 11:31Ezk 29:5Ezk 31:12 (2×)Ezk 32:4
3cfor branches or ropes to straggle, spread, or hang loose
in this word the act usually has a relationship behind it, most often God and his people, so it carries the weight of a bond either kept or broken1Sa 12:22Psa 94:14
Both
both name the act of deserting a person or duty one was bound toJer 12:7
Only forsake
the English word forsake is fairly narrow and always sounds grave, so it cannot also carry this word's neutral senses of spreading out or letting a field rest
the original verb is more pointed than the bland English leave: it implies releasing or relinquishing a hold, whether deserting a bond or letting a field lieExo 23:11
Both
both can describe letting something go and walking away from itGen 31:28
Only leave
English leave is so general it can mean simply departing or handing on an inheritance, neither of which this word carries
“spread”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“deploy”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How natash differs from similar Hebrew words
עָזַבthe ordinary, very common word for leaving or forsaking; this word is rarer and leans either toward solemn divine abandonment or toward the physical sense of spreading out
Often describes a physical scattering: things strewn, spread out, or left lying across the ground rather than a person walking away.Num 11:311Sa 30:16Ezk 29:5
Carries the farming sense of letting land lie idle, releasing a field so it rests untended for a season.Exo 23:11
Can mean to drop or let go of something in motion, such as setting down a load or breaking off a quarrel before it erupts.1Sa 17:22Pro 17:14
Both
Both name God abandoning his people, and both appear in the plea that he will never do so.Psa 27:9Psa 94:141Ki 8:57
The ordinary everyday word for one person leaving another: walking away, parting from family, or quitting a place.Gen 2:24Rut 1:16
Can mean to leave something in another's care or to leave it behind, not always a hostile desertion.Gen 39:6Gen 50:8
The standard covenant word for forsaking the LORD or abandoning his law, turning away to serve other gods.Jdg 2:12Jer 2:13
נָטָהto stretch out or extend something held in the hand; close in sound and in the idea of spreading, but it keeps hold of what it extends rather than letting it loose
Lets the ground lie unworked, releasing it from cultivation for a season.Exo 23:11
Drops or leaves things lying where they fall: baggage set down, the slain strewn on a field, a body cast out.1Sa 17:221Sa 17:28Ezk 29:5
Walks away from people or a place for good, deserting and giving up on them.Gen 31:281Sa 12:22Jer 12:7
Both
Both describe God's bearing toward his people in prayer and judgment, and both turn up in the same plea: do not turn me away, do not forsake me.Psa 27:9Jer 15:6
Reaches out or extends something the actor still holds and controls: a hand, a staff, the heavens. The thing stays connected to the one stretching it.Exo 7:19Exo 9:22Exo 14:16
Pitches a tent: spreads it out and sets it up, an act of arriving and settling in a place.Gen 12:8Gen 26:25Gen 35:21
Turns a path or bends a judgment aside, swerving something off its straight course while still steering it.Num 20:17Num 22:23Exo 23:6
Carries a concrete spatial sense of spreading out or being spread abroad, with no notion of rejection at all. Troops fan out for battle and a raiding party is scattered across the countryside.1Sa 4:21Sa 30:16
Means simply to let go, leave be, or let something lie, a neutral release with no hostility. A father is denied the chance to let his grandchildren go with a kiss, and the land is left to lie fallow in the seventh year.Gen 31:28Exo 23:11
Both
Both describe God turning away from his own covenant people, whether in the fearful cry that he has done so or in the promise that he never will.Psa 44:9Jer 12:7
Names an active spurning driven by anger. It is the anguished cry of lament that God has cast off his people and turned his wrath on them, so the rejection is charged with hot displeasure rather than mere departure.Psa 89:38Psa 74:1
Repudiates someone or something out of an accepted standing, stripping it of its former place. The Levites are thrown out of the priesthood, the sacred vessels are discarded, the altar is spurned.2Ch 11:14Lam 2:7
Most of its occurrences have God as the one who forsakes, or who promises he never will, so the word carries the weight of a covenant bond either kept or broken.1Sa 12:22Psa 94:14Psa 78:60
Names a person walking out on someone with a claim on them: a father who is not even allowed to kiss his grandchildren goodbye, a mother's teaching ignored, the God who made a nation deserted by it.Gen 31:28Pro 1:8Deu 32:15
Turns outward and spatial for troops and raiders fanning out across open country, so what is let go spreads over an area instead of falling from a hand.2Sa 5:18Jdg 15:91Sa 30:16
Describes what is left sprawling or slack where nobody tends it: vine branches straggling over the ground, a ship's ropes hanging loose, a busy citadel standing deserted.Isa 16:8Isa 33:23Isa 32:14
Both
The one law about fallow ground uses both verbs side by side in a single command, letting the field drop and then leaving it lying, which shows how close they run.Exo 23:11
Each covers the seventh-year letting go in both of its directions, the ground a farmer stops working and the claim a lender stops pressing.Neh 10:31Deu 15:2
Both are used of an inheritance slipping away: God lets go of the remnant of what belongs to him, and the people lose their hold on the land he had given them.2Ki 21:14Jer 17:4
Freezes the instant a hold gives way, as when the oxen drawing the sacred chest let it slip and Uzzah reaches out to catch it.2Sa 6:61Ch 13:9
Can turn violent, used for flinging a person down from a height rather than for merely leaving them behind.2Ki 9:33Psa 141:6
Is the legal term of the seventh-year release, so much so that the name of that year is built on this verb, and the command falls on the lender's own hand letting a neighbor's debt go.Deu 15:2Deu 15:3
natash in the other biblical languages
ἐγκαταλείπωGreek“to leave behind”the main Greek word for forsaking or leaving someone in the lurch, matching this word's abandonment sense but not its physical spreading sense
Reaches beyond people to things and practices: letting farmland lie unworked and untended through the sabbath year.Exo 23:11
Can mean to let go physically, to loosen, drop, or let something fall slack, with no sense of betrayal at all.Isa 33:23Pro 17:14
Describes a crowd or army spread out and scattered loose across the ground, simply strewn about rather than deserted.1Sa 30:16Num 11:31
Both
Both name abandoning a person or people, leaving them helpless, and both are used of God either forsaking or refusing to forsake those who are his.Psa 94:14Act 2:27
Both describe casting off or deserting people as an act of judgment or betrayal, the Greek word standing for the Hebrew idea of being left and given up.Jer 12:72Ti 4:16
Carries the sharp emotional weight of being forsaken by someone you trusted, above all the cry of one abandoned by God in the hour of need.Mat 27:46Mrk 15:34
Used for a person deserting another in a moment of trial, walking out on a friend or duty when loyalty was owed.2Ti 4:102Ti 4:16
Frames the promise that God will never desert his own, the negative side stressing steadfast presence rather than separation.Heb 13:52Co 4:9
It covers simply letting something lie untouched, with nobody rejected and nothing shoved: a field left unworked through a whole year, or an argument dropped before it turns into a fight.Exo 23:11Pro 17:14
It carries a whole physical range the Greek word does not have, where something loosens and sprawls across open ground: raiders scattered over the countryside, an army fanning out in a valley, vine branches straggling into the desert, ship rigging hanging slack.1Sa 30:162Sa 5:18Isa 16:8Isa 33:23
It can report an ordinary, blameless leaving: a shepherd handing his flock to a keeper before running an errand, or a father who has stopped worrying about the lost donkeys. Nothing is being turned down or cast off.1Sa 17:201Sa 10:2
Both
Both stand behind the promise that God will not cast off the people he chose. The Hebrew word carries that promise in the Old Testament, and the Greek word carries Paul's twice repeated denial that God has done any such thing to Israel, which reaches back to those same lines.1Sa 12:22Psa 94:14Rom 11:1Rom 11:2
Both describe a person throwing off something they were bound to keep, whether a teaching handed down, the God who made them, or a conscience they were still holding on to.Pro 1:8Deu 32:151Ti 1:19
It can be a literal shove given to a person standing in front of you, hands against a body in the moment of confrontation. The Hebrew word never pushes anyone; what it lets go of, it lets go of by walking away or by loosening its grip.Act 7:27Act 7:39
It is the word for refusing something that is being held out to you right now, so the refusal is aimed back at the giver. The Hebrew word has no sense of turning down an offer.Act 13:46
What scholars say about natash
The standard lexica (HALOT, BDB, DCH) treat נטשׁ as a single root with a spread of senses rather than as homonyms. A core idea of letting go or releasing develops into the abandon/forsake sense (frequent with God as subject or object), the leave-lying/let-rest sense (the fallow-field legislation of Exod 23:11 and Neh 10:31), and the spread-out/be-spread-abroad sense (the niphal of military deployment in 2 Sam 5:18, 22 and Judg 15:9, and the quail of Num 11:31). The niphal and pual carry the passive notion of being spread out or loosened. TDOT discusses the theological weight of the forsaking sense, especially the recurring assurance that the LORD will not abandon his people. A number of attestations (e.g. Hos 12:14,Isa 2:6,Amos 5:2) are assigned variously across these senses and are best left open.