StrongerBible

nasag

נָסַג

HebrewH5253“remove, turn back, ...”

Appears 9 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Deu 19:14Deu 27:17Pro 22:28Pro 23:10Isa 59:13Isa 59:14Hos 5:10Mic 2:6Mic 6:14
Word studynah-SAHGverb

What nasag means

to push something back out of the place where it belongs; most often, to shift a boundary marker and quietly take over a neighbor's land.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

Almost every time this verb turns up, someone is moving a stone. In ancient Israel a family's fields were marked off by boundary stones set along the edges. Shift one a little at night and you have taken part of your neighbor's inheritance, with nothing left to show that a theft happened at all. That is the crime this word names, and the Bible treats it seriously: the law forbids it outright, and one of the curses read out at Mount Ebal falls on the person who does it.

The verb itself is wider than that one crime. Its plain idea is pushing something back from where it stood, so it also covers:

  • moving goods out of the way to keep them out of reach
  • being shoved backwards and forced to give ground
  • turning your back on someone you had been walking with

Isaiah 59 sets two of those uses side by side on purpose. The people confess that they have turned back from following God, and a breath later the prophet says that justice has been driven back. The same motion runs through both lines: what belonged in its place has been pushed out of it.

A close relative, סוּג, carries the turning-away idea on its own but is never used of boundary markers, while the ordinary word for taking something away or turning it aside is סוּר.

Nuances

1ato shift a boundary marker in order to take over land that belongs to someone else
TranslatabilityDirect
Deu 19:14Deu 27:17Pro 22:28Pro 23:10Hos 5:10
1bto move goods out of the way, carrying them off or putting them aside for safekeeping
CertaintyContested
Mic 6:14
1cto be pushed back, driven off, or forced to give ground
Isa 59:14Mic 2:6
Mic 2:6

Which verb stands in Micah 2:6, where the speakers say that shame or disgrace will not do something to them.

  • contestedThe consonants are read as this verb, with its niphal sense of being turned back or pushed away, giving a boast that reproaches will not be turned back on the speakers.; BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. סוג / נסג; HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. נסג
  • contestedThe form is better taken as a spelling of נשׂג "to overtake," giving the opponents' boast "disgrace will not overtake us." This reading lies behind most modern English versions.; Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Micah (Anchor Bible 24E, 2000); Hans Walter Wolff, Micah: A Commentary (Continental Commentaries, 1990)
1dto turn back away from someone, withdrawing from a loyalty you had kept
Isa 59:13

What scholars say about nasag

The critical lexicons agree on the core sense. HALOT and DCH give נסג its own entry, with the hiphil "to move back, displace" (of a boundary) and the hophal "to be driven back"; BDB treats the forms as a by-form of סוג "to turn back, backslide," which is why the two Strong's numbers carry nearly identical glosses in Strong's-derived word lists. The dominant use is the fixed legal formula הסיג גבול, "to move back a boundary," set out in Deuteronomy 19:14 and in the Shechem curse liturgy of Deuteronomy 27:17, then taken up by the wisdom tradition (Proverbs 22:28; 23:10) and by Hosea 5:10. Commentators regularly compare the Mesopotamian boundary-stone (kudurru) curses and the closely parallel admonition in the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope, chapter 6, which stands behind the Proverbs sayings. Two verses remain difficult. In Micah 6:14 the hiphil has no expressed object, and versions divide between "you shall store away" and "you shall carry off." In Micah 2:6 the niphal יִסַּג with כלמות as subject is widely reparsed or emended to a form of נשׂג "to overtake," yielding the opponents' boast "disgrace will not overtake us," the reading behind most modern versions; the received consonants can still be read with this verb's own sense of being turned back.

Sources

  • HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. נסגlexicon
  • BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. סוג / נסגlexicon
  • DCH (Clines, ed.), s.v. נסגlexicon
  • "גְּבוּל," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), vol. 2dictionary
  • Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS Torah Commentary (1996)commentary
  • Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31 (Anchor Yale Bible 18B, 2009)commentary
  • Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Micah (Anchor Bible 24E, 2000)commentary
  • Hans Walter Wolff, Micah: A Commentary (Continental Commentaries, 1990)commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of נָסַג

hiphil jussive 2ms

תַּסֵּג

Pro 22:28, Pro 23:10, Mic 6:14

hiphil imperfect 2ms

תַסִּיג

Deu 19:14

hiphil participle m p construct

מַסִּיגֵי

Hos 5:10

hiphil participle m s absolute

מַסִּיג

Deu 27:17

hophal consecutive-perfect 3ms

וְהֻסַּג

Isa 59:14

niphal imperfect 3ms

יִסַּג

Mic 2:6

niphal infinitive-absolute absolute

נָסוֹג

Isa 59:13