to go around: to encircle something completely, close a ring around it, or bring a cycle full circle
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
This word pictures a line that closes back on itself. Something moves around a thing until it has gone all the way around and met its starting point. Israel's army circles Jericho once a day; a ring of gourd shapes runs around the rim of the great bronze basin in the temple; guards form a protective ring around the boy king; enemies close in on a person from every side.
Because the picture is a full circle, the word does more than say something is nearby. It says the surrounding is complete, with no gap left open. That is why the writers reach for it when a person feels hemmed in with no way out, whether by snarling dogs, by rising water, or by grief that walls them in.
The same image of a closed circle carries over to time. When the days of a feast have gone all the way around and the celebration has run its full course, this is the word for it. A broader Hebrew verb for turning and going around, סָבַב, overlaps with it; this word leans on the idea of a circuit carried through to completion.
Nuances
1ato surround a person, closing a ring around them, whether to trap them or to guard them
1bto run around an object as a border or encircling band
1Ki 7:242Ch 4:3
1cto go around or march around a place, making a circuit of it
Jos 6:3Jos 6:11Psa 48:12(13)Isa 15:8*
1dto come full circle, of a span of time completing its round
TranslatabilityPartial
Job 1:5Isa 29:1
1eto round off, cutting the hair at the edge of the head into a rounded shape
Lev 19:27*
2
to strike down: to cut down or hack away, as an axe fells standing timber
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
A second, unrelated use of the same spelling means to strike a blow that brings something down. Isaiah pictures God taking iron to a forest and hacking its tall thickets to the ground, an image of proud powers felled. Job uses it of his own body, his skin worn and struck away by disease.
The standard reference works list this as a separate word from the one meaning to go around, and this account keeps them apart. The overlap is only in the spelling. Where the first word traces a circle, this one lands an axe. A close partner is גָּדַע, the ordinary verb for hewing down trees and cutting things off.
names the felling stroke itself, iron bringing tall growth to the groundIsa 10:34
Both
both describe bringing something tall to the ground by cuttingIsa 10:34
Only cut down
"cut down" in English can mean merely to shorten or reduce, missing the violent felling in view
How naqaph differs from similar Hebrew words
סָבַבthe common, all-purpose verb for turning and going around; this word specifically closes a complete ring or carries a circuit through to its finish.
Marks a circuit that comes full around to its completion, used of the year's feasts running their round or a stretch of feast days reaching its end.Isa 29:1Job 1:5
Traces a sound or report sweeping all the way around the whole outer edge of a territory.Isa 15:8
Both
Both describe going the whole way around a thing to enclose it on every side, whether an army marching a full circuit around a city or a rim of ornaments ringing the edge of a basin.Jos 6:31Ki 7:24
Both picture hostile forces closing in around a person from all sides.Psa 22:16Psa 88:17
Covers simply turning around or turning aside, a pivot or change of direction with no sense of enclosing anything.Gen 42:241Sa 15:27
Reaches senses far outside going around at all, such as property changing hands or passing from one party to another.Num 36:7Num 36:9
כָּתַרto hem in or close around, most often of hostile forces pressing on every side; this word covers protective and decorative encircling as well as hostile.
נקף most often means to go around or encircle rather than to cut: an army compasses a city, and the ark is carried around its walls.Jos 6:32Ki 6:14
It pictures enemies or troubles closing in a ring around a person.Psa 17:9Psa 22:16
It also names the recurring round of the calendar, the cycle of feasts coming around again.Isa 29:1Job 1:5
Both
Both can describe felling trees or forest growth with a blade, and Isaiah sets them side by side: the high boughs are lopped off, then the dense thickets of the forest are cut down with iron.Isa 10:33Isa 10:34
גדע is the ordinary word for hewing down and cutting off what stands, above all in acts of destruction: hacking apart pagan altars and chopping down idol-poles.Deu 7:52Ch 31:1
It reaches into figurative severing, where something firm is cut away: a horn of strength snapped off, a covenant broken.Psa 75:10Jer 48:25
Even solid barriers yield to it, with iron bars cut clean through.Psa 107:16Isa 45:2
naqaph in the other biblical languages
κυκλόωGreek“to surround”the Greek verb for encircling or surrounding, as armies ring a city; matches the going-around sense.
The Hebrew word also means to strike off or cut down, a sense the Greek encircling word never carries.Lev 19:27Isa 10:34Job 19:26
The Hebrew word marks the closing of a cycle of time, the natural extension of going around: the days of a feast run their full round.Job 1:5Isa 29:1
The Hebrew word describes an ornament or border that runs all the way around the rim of an object, an architectural encircling with no counterpart in the Greek word.1Ki 7:242Ch 4:3
Both
Both picture a hostile force ringing a city until there is no escape, the classic image of armies drawn up around Jericho or Jerusalem.Jos 6:32Ki 6:14Luk 21:20Heb 11:30
Both describe people massing in a ring around a single figure, whether a guard closing in to protect or a crowd gathering to confront.2Ki 11:82Ch 23:7Jhn 10:24Act 14:20
Its striking-down force can fall on flesh rather than wood: in a difficult and much-debated line the body is struck or worn away, stretching the hacking image toward bodily decay in a way the Greek word never does.Job 19:26
Both
Both picture an axe or iron blade felling standing trees as an image of decisive judgment: the dense forest of the proud enemy hacked to the ground, and every fruitless tree brought down and thrown into the fire.Isa 10:34Mat 3:10
Reaches past timber to the human body, naming the amputation of a hand or foot that leads a person into sin, a severing done to oneself for the sake of the whole.Mat 5:30Mat 18:8
Pictures being severed from a living relationship: natural branches broken out of the olive tree and a grafted branch warned it can be cut off in turn if it does not continue.Rom 11:22Rom 11:24
Its one use with nothing physical in view is still a removal rather than a hindering: Paul takes away for good the basis his rivals wanted for boasting, so the handle they meant to grab is gone instead of merely being blocked for now.2Co 11:12
What scholars say about naqaph
The standard lexica treat two homonymous roots under this spelling. BDB and HALOT list one root meaning "to go around, encircle, surround, make a circuit," with the derived nuance of rounding off the hair at Leviticus 19:27, and a separate root meaning "to strike off, hew down." The encircling root supplies almost all of the occurrences, chiefly in the causative stem. The striking root is confined to Isaiah 10:34 (felling the forest) and the difficult Job 19:26. Whether the two are ultimately one root that split in sense or genuinely distinct words is not settled, but the lexicographical tradition consistently keeps them apart.