to bolt a door: to fasten a closed door with its bar so it cannot be opened from outside
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
Hebrew already has an ordinary verb for closing something (סָגַר). This word names the step after that: throwing the bar across so the closed door stays closed. Judges 3:23 puts the two actions in a row. Ehud pulls the doors of the upper room shut behind him and then bolts them, which is why the servants outside stand around waiting instead of walking in.
The same pairing carries the cruelty of 2 Samuel 13. Amnon tells his servant to put Tamar outside and bolt the door after her, and the servant does exactly that. The bolt is what turns a closed door into a shut-out person.
From there the word moves easily into poetry. In Song of Songs 4:12 the beloved is called a garden bolted shut and a spring bolted shut, set beside a fountain that is sealed (חָתַם). Nothing is being hidden away in shame. The picture is of something precious that only one person has the right to open.
Nuances
1ato bolt or lock a literal door
Jdg 3:23Jdg 3:242Sa 13:172Sa 13:18
1bshut fast and reserved: said in a love poem of a garden and a spring that stand for the bride
Sng 4:12 (2×)
2
to put sandals on someone: to fit another person's feet with footwear
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is a second verb that happens to be spelled the same way as the first. It is built straight from the everyday noun for a sandal (נַעַל), the way English might build a verb out of "boot". In both of its verses it describes what one person does for another, not what someone does for themselves.
Both times it sits inside a short list of things done for people who have nothing. In 2 Chronicles 28:15 the men of Samaria clothe their prisoners from Judah, give them sandals, feed them, anoint them, and carry the weak ones home on donkeys. In Ezekiel 16:10 God dresses an abandoned child in embroidered cloth and fine linen and puts good leather sandals on her feet. In both places the verb for clothing the body (לָבֵשׁ) comes first and this one covers the feet.
Going barefoot in the Bible marks poverty, mourning, or captivity, so handing someone sandals is not a small courtesy. It is the last item that finishes the outfitting of a person who arrived with nothing.
Names the fastening itself, the bolt drawn across a door that has already been pulled to, so the door is held fast and cannot simply be pushed open again.Jdg 3:242Sa 13:172Sa 13:18
Has a second everyday use with no door in sight: strapping sandals onto someone's feet as part of clothing them, so the word covers fastening leather to a body as well as fastening a door.2Ch 28:15Ezk 16:10
Supplies the love poem's image of a garden shut fast, praising a woman as guarded and belonging to one person alone rather than merely being closed off.Sng 4:12
Both
Both describe securing the same set of doors, and Judges 3:23 puts them back to back in one motion: Ehud pulls the doors of the upper room shut and then locks them behind him.Jdg 3:23
Both are used plainly of making a house door fast against a particular person, so that someone is kept outside or kept in.2Sa 13:18Jdg 3:24Gen 19:10Jdg 9:51
Is the ordinary all-purpose word for closing, stretching from a house door to a city barred tight against an army outside.Gen 19:6Jos 6:1Jdg 9:51
Can shut a person in or keep a person away, whether God closing the ark over Noah, a priest keeping someone with a suspected skin disease apart for seven days, or Miriam held outside the camp.Gen 7:16Lev 13:4Num 12:15
Reaches all the way to handing a person over into someone else's power, where nothing is closed at all and the word is best rendered "deliver up" or "surrender".Deu 23:151Sa 23:121Sa 26:8
Describes God closing a woman's womb so that she cannot bear children, an inward shutting no bolt could picture.1Sa 1:51Sa 1:6
חָתַםto seal something with a mark of ownership or authority rather than secure it with a bar
bolting a door so a person is shut in or shut out, used when Ehud barred the roof chamber behind him and when Amnon's servant bolted the door on TamarJdg 3:23Jdg 3:242Sa 13:172Sa 13:18
strapping sandals onto someone's feet, a closing that is part of clothing a person rather than securing property or a message2Ch 28:15Ezk 16:10
Both
both picture something shut so that no outsider can get at it, and Song of Songs 4:12 sets them side by side, calling the bride a locked garden and a sealed springSng 4:12
both can describe closing up a room around people, whether thieves shutting themselves indoors by day or a locked upper chamberJob 24:16Jdg 3:23
marks a written document as genuine and legally binding, pressed with the owner's own signet, as with the deed of purchase for the field at Anathoth, the letters sent out in the king's name, and the written pledge the people signedJer 32:10Jer 32:111Ki 21:8Est 8:8Neh 10:1
closes a message up so its contents stay hidden until the right time, which is why a sealed scroll is one nobody can read yetIsa 8:16Isa 29:11Dan 12:4Dan 12:9
describes God putting something out of human reach, shutting up the stars, stopping a man's hand, or storing away wrongdoing as if in a closed bagJob 9:7Job 37:7Job 14:17Deu 32:34
can describe a body stopping up so that a discharge no longer runsLev 15:3
נַעַלthe sandal itself, the noun that the second verb here is formed from
לָבֵשׁto clothe someone in a garment; the two verbs appear side by side when a person is outfitted from head to foot
Its more frequent use has nothing to do with getting dressed: it is what you do to a door, sliding the bar across so that no one can follow you in.Jdg 3:23Jdg 3:242Sa 13:17
From that barred door comes a picture of a person kept sealed off and out of reach, as when a bride is praised as a garden shut fast against anyone else.Sng 4:12
Both
Both describe putting an item onto a body, so the two stand side by side when a writer wants to say that someone was outfitted from head to foot: garments from the one word, sandals from the other.2Ch 28:15Ezk 16:10
Both can take the person being dressed as their object, so the one doing the dressing is a provider supplying someone who has nothing: prisoners of war sent home decently covered, an abandoned child taken in and cared for.2Ch 28:15Ezk 16:10
Covers clothing of every kind that goes on the body, from the first garments God made for the man and woman, to the priest's holy linen, to a soldier's armor.Gen 3:21Lev 16:41Sa 17:51Sa 17:38
Stretches far past cloth: a person can be spoken of as wearing shame or salvation, skin and flesh can be described as what a body is dressed in, and God's spirit can be said to clothe itself with a man and act through him.Jdg 6:342Ch 24:202Ch 6:41Job 8:22Job 10:11
Marks a change of standing or mood, since putting on a particular garment announces who a person now is: widow's clothes traded for a veil, a slave raised to high office in fine linen, a courtier honored in the king's own robe, a mourner in sackcloth.Gen 38:19Gen 41:42Est 6:11Est 4:1
na'al in the other biblical languages
κλείωGreek“to shut”the Greek verb for shutting a door, which covers both the closing and the barring that Hebrew splits between two words
Names the fastening itself, not just the closing: a door made fast so that people on the other side cannot get in and cannot even tell what is happening inside.Jdg 3:242Sa 13:18
Doubles as the word for putting sandals on someone, which shows that the fastening idea is the heart of it: captives are given sandals for the road, and God says he shod Jerusalem in fine leather.2Ch 28:15Ezk 16:10
Supplies the love poetry image of a garden shut fast, praising a woman as a private place kept for one person alone.Sng 4:12
Both
Both are the ordinary word for closing the doors of a room or house behind you, so a Greek writer says "shut" where the Hebrew story says the doors were made fast.Jdg 3:23Jhn 20:19
Both are used when the closing is aimed at a person, shutting someone outside with no way back in.2Sa 13:17Mat 25:10
Covers a closing that has nothing to do with doors at all: the sky held shut so that no rain falls on the land.Luk 4:25Rev 11:6
Is used of a person closing his own heart against someone he sees in need, treating pity as a door he can pull shut.1Jn 3:17
Belongs to the language of authority over access: the one who holds the key shuts what no one else can open, the deep is shut and sealed over the dragon, and the gates of the new city are said never to be shut at all.Rev 3:7Rev 3:8Rev 20:3Rev 21:25
Describes shutting people out of what is sacred, whether teachers closing God's kingdom in people's faces or the temple doors swung shut behind a mob.Mat 23:13Act 21:30
Can mean nothing more than pulling a door to for privacy or for the night, with no bolt, bar, or fastening in view.Mat 6:6Luk 11:7
ὑποδέωGreek“to put on”the Greek verb for tying sandals on, used of putting on one's own as freely as another person's
The same Hebrew spelling carries a second and completely unrelated action: barring a door so that nobody outside can open it. Ehud pulls the doors of the room shut behind him and drops the bar across, and Amnon has Tamar put out and the door barred after her.Jdg 3:232Sa 13:17
That barring sense turns into poetry, where the woman is praised as a garden and a spring shut fast and reserved for one person alone.Sng 4:12
Where it does mean footwear, it is always one person outfitting another who has nothing, the last item in clothing someone from head to foot.2Ch 28:15Ezk 16:10
Both
Both name the plain act of putting sandals onto feet, and English Bibles have long rendered each of them "shod".Ezk 16:10Eph 6:15
In both languages the sandals mark a person as equipped to go: prisoners are given footwear before being sent home, and messengers are sent out wearing it.2Ch 28:15Mrk 6:9
Every use stays with footwear, and it can describe simply having sandals on rather than the moment of tying them: the disciples are sent out already wearing theirs.Mrk 6:9
It is used of a person putting sandals on his own feet, which is why it works as a command to someone getting himself ready to leave.Act 12:8
It stretches into a picture of readiness, where the good news of peace is what a person straps onto the feet before standing his ground.Eph 6:15
What scholars say about na'al
The standard lexica treat נעל as two homonymous verbs. נעל I, "to bar, bolt," is read in the qal at Judges 3:23 and 2 Samuel 13:17-18 and as a passive participle at Judges 3:24 and Song of Songs 4:12 (BDB and HALOT, s.v.). נעל II is a denominative from נַעַל "sandal" (H5275), attested only in the hiphil at 2 Chronicles 28:15 and the qal at Ezekiel 16:10, in each case with a personal object, hence "to furnish someone with sandals." DCH and TDOT follow the same division, and no proposal to unify the two roots has gained standing in the lexicographical tradition. The Song of Songs participle is treated at length in the commentaries as part of the garden-and-spring imagery of 4:12-15, but the lexical value "barred, shut" is not itself in question there; the argument concerns the referent of the imagery and the text-critical status of גַּל beside גַּן, not the verb. At Ezekiel 16:10 the material תַּחַשׁ is the disputed item, not the verb.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. נעל I and נעל IIlexicon
BDB, s.v. נָעַלlexicon
DCH, s.v. נעלlexicon
TDOT, s.v. נַעַלtheological-dictionary
Marvin H. Pope, Song of Songs, Anchor Bible 7Ccommentary
Othmar Keel, The Song of Songs, Continental Commentariescommentary
Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1-24, NICOTcommentary