to leap or spring: to jump off the ground, or to jolt suddenly, and so to make something else jump
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
This is a word for a sudden jump. It covers the ordinary hop of a small creature with jointed legs built for springing off the ground, and it covers the lurch a person feels inside when something terrifying happens. In Job 37:1 the heart jumps out of its place at the sound of the thunder.
When God is the one acting, the same picture turns outward. Habakkuk 3:6 shows him looking at the earth and sending the nations jumping, the way a sudden noise makes a whole room flinch at once. Nothing here is graceful or chosen. That is what separates this verb from the word for skipping and dancing for joy (רָקַד): this one names the involuntary start, not the dance step.
The leap and the jolt are the same motion seen from different sides, which is why one word holds both. A body that springs and a heart that lurches are each doing something quick, whole, and beyond control.
Nuances
1ato leap or spring, whether a creature hopping off the ground or a body jolting in fear
TranslatabilityDirect
Lev 11:21Job 37:1
1bto make something jump: to startle or send reeling
Hab 3:6*
2
to loosen or untie what holds something fast, and so to let a person or thing go free
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
The picture underneath this word is a knot coming undone. Isaiah 58:6 uses it of the straps of a yoke: God says the fast he wants is not skipped meals but hands that untie what is pinning people down. Job 6:9 uses it of a hand that has been held back and is now let go.
From there it moves easily to people. When Pharaoh sends for Joseph in Psalm 105:20 the king "released him," and the second half of the same line says it again with the ordinary verb for opening (פָּתַח). Psalm 146:7 turns it into one of the standing descriptions of Israel's God: he is the one who sets prisoners loose, named in the same breath as feeding the hungry and doing justice for the oppressed.
So the word stays physical even at its most theological. It is not a term for inner or spiritual freedom in the abstract. It names the moment the rope, the strap, or the cell door gives way, and it leaves the larger question of what the freed person does next to other words.
Nuances
2ato release someone who is held prisoner
TranslatabilityDirect
Psa 105:20Psa 146:7
2bto untie or let loose something fastened or held back
Job 6:9Isa 58:6
2cto set a person's path loose and clear, so the way ahead is unobstructed
CertaintyContested
2Sa 22:33*
2Sa 22:33
Whether this verse uses the verb meaning "to loosen, set free" at all, since the parallel line in Psalm 18:32 has a different verb.
contestedThe wording preserved here is genuine, and the verb says that God sets the speaker's way free and clear.; HALOT, s.v. נתר II; BDB, s.v. נתר
contestedThe reading of Psalm 18:32, "he made my way blameless," is the better text, and the wording in 2 Samuel arose as the two versions of the poem were copied.; Frank Moore Cross and David Noel Freedman, "A Royal Song of Thanksgiving: II Samuel 22 = Psalm 18," Journal of Biblical Literature 72 (1953): 15-34; P. Kyle McCarter Jr., II Samuel, Anchor Bible 9 (1984)
covers an involuntary jolt of fear just as readily as a deliberate jumpJob 37:1
Both
both name a body springing up off the groundLev 11:21
Only leap
English "leap" suggests a chosen, often energetic or joyful movement, which is not what this word is reaching for
“loose”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“undo”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“release”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“shake”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How natar differs from similar Hebrew words
פָּתַחthe general verb for opening, used of doors, mouths, and prisoners alike; it stands right beside our word in Psalm 105:20 and Isaiah 58:6 but carries no picture of a knot being worked loose
Names a sudden jump or start: an insect springing off the ground, or a heart jumping inside the chest.Lev 11:21Job 37:1
Used for a violent shaking that jolts something out of place, with whole nations startled loose when God appears.Hab 3:6
Pictures the grip itself letting go so that what was held springs away, whether that is a hand turned loose to strike or prisoners turned loose to walk out. Nothing is said about a door, a lid, or a gate.Job 6:9Psa 146:7
Both
Both are used for getting a prisoner out of confinement, and in one line they sit side by side for the same act: the king sends word, and Joseph is let go.Psa 105:20
Both describe undoing the straps and cords that hold a person down, so English versions render each of them "loose" in the same call to end oppression.Isa 58:6
The ordinary word for opening a physical closure: a window, a sack, a city gate, the doors of a room, the mouth of a cave.Gen 8:6Gen 42:27Jos 10:22Jdg 3:25Neh 13:19
Extends to opening a person: a mouth that begins to speak, a donkey given speech, a womb God makes fruitful.Job 3:1Num 22:28Gen 29:31Gen 30:22
Carries a settled picture of generosity, since opening a hand or a storehouse is how supply reaches people who need it.Deu 15:8Deu 28:12Gen 41:56
Has a second, unrelated use in craft work, where it is rendered "engrave": cutting names or figures into stone, gold, and carved wood.Exo 28:9Exo 28:362Ch 3:7
נָתַקto tear or snap something apart rather than untie it, so the cord ends up broken instead of loosened; both verbs appear in Isaiah 58:6, one for undoing the straps and one for smashing the yoke
Covers a springing, jumping motion, which the tearing word never has: insects with jointed legs for leaping across the ground, and a heart that jumps out of its place in fear.Lev 11:21Job 37:1
Stretches that jolt to what God's approach does to whole nations, which startle and scatter at a single look from him.Hab 3:6
Names release granted by someone in authority. A king sends word and Joseph walks out of prison, and the LORD is praised as the one who sets prisoners free. The picture is a captive let go, not a rope destroyed.Psa 105:20Psa 146:7
Can also mean turning loose what was being held back, as Job begs God to let his hand go free and finish him off.Job 6:9
Both
Both describe undoing what holds a person down, and Isaiah sets them side by side in one line: the fast God wants unties the straps of the yoke and snaps every yoke bar.Isa 58:6
Both praise God as the one who frees captives, one by breaking the chains off them and the other by simply letting them go.Psa 107:14Psa 146:7
Names the snapping of a cord, rope, or strap under force. Samson breaks the bowstrings off himself the way a thread of flax gives way in fire, a threefold cord is the one that is not quickly snapped, and a ruined camp is one whose tent ropes have all been torn apart.Jdg 16:9Ecc 4:12Jer 10:20
Used for pulling a thing off or out of the place it is fastened: a signet ring pulled from the hand, or a vine's roots torn out of the ground.Jer 22:24Ezk 17:9
Carries a battlefield sense of drawing people away from where they belong, as Israel lures the defenders of Ai and of Gibeah out of their cities.Jos 8:6Jos 8:16Jdg 20:32
Marks something spoiled by being severed: an animal with torn parts may not be brought as an offering, a man's plans can be cut off in the same way, and so can the security he trusted in at home.Lev 22:24Job 17:11Job 18:14
חָלַץto pull someone out of danger, with the attention on the rescue and the rescuer rather than on the bonds coming undone
Its underlying picture is a sudden spring or leap: insects hopping along the ground, a heart jumping inside the chest at the sound of thunder, hills and nations startled into motion when God appears.Lev 11:21Job 37:1Hab 3:6
When it means freeing, the picture is specifically untying. Cords and bonds are undone, so that what was tied springs loose.Isa 58:6Job 6:9
It is the word for someone let out of confinement, whether a ruler orders a prisoner released or God himself opens the cell.Psa 105:20Psa 146:7
Both
Both describe God setting free a person who cannot get free without him, and both show up in Israel's praise for exactly that.Psa 34:7Psa 116:8Psa 146:7Psa 105:20
Both begin as everyday physical actions, taking something off or undoing a knot, and both stretch that action into the language of rescue from real danger.Isa 20:2Psa 140:1Isa 58:6Psa 105:20
This is the word Israel prays when trouble closes in, and the word God answers back with. It runs through the Psalms as both the plea and the promise of rescue.Psa 6:4Psa 50:15Psa 91:15
It covers the plain act of pulling something off or out of the place it sits in, such as a sandal off a foot or diseased stones out of a house wall.Deu 25:9Lev 14:40Isa 20:2
It became the standard term for men drawn out from the tribes and equipped for battle, which is why English Bibles often render it "armed for war".Num 31:5Num 32:21Jos 4:13
It carries a moral pattern in the wisdom writings, where the person who lives rightly is pulled clear of the trouble that then falls on the wrongdoer instead.Pro 11:8Pro 11:9
רָקַדto skip about and dance, a chosen and usually joyful movement, not the sudden involuntary start this word describes
Only this word carries the untying side of the picture: working a fastening loose so that whatever was held can go. It is what God does for people shut up in prison.Psa 105:20Psa 146:7
It is used of undoing the straps and cords that hold a load or a person in place, where nothing jumps at all and the whole point is that a tie gives way.Isa 58:6Job 6:9
When it does describe a jump, the jump is a single involuntary start, the jolt of fear rather than a movement anyone chose to make.Job 37:1Hab 3:6
It can also describe clearing the way ahead of someone, so that a path once blocked is left open and running free.2Sa 22:33
Both
Both can name a leap that lifts a body clear of the ground, whether the legs belong to a hopping insect or to raiders swarming over the hilltops.Lev 11:21Jol 2:5
Both leave the world of legs behind and get applied to things that have none, so a heart bolts inside the chest and a chariot bounces along the road.Job 37:1Nam 3:2
Both can put God behind the movement, describing him as the one who sends something or someone leaping rather than leaping himself.Hab 3:6Psa 29:6
This is the ordinary word for dancing as celebration and play, the visible delight of a festival crowd or of children at their games.1Ch 15:29Ecc 3:4Job 21:11
It names a bouncing that repeats, the up and down of something already in motion, such as a chariot jolting along or an army pouring over a ridge.Nam 3:2Jol 2:5
Poets hand it to hills and mountains, which are pictured skipping like young animals when God draws near.Psa 29:6Psa 114:4Psa 114:6
It also pictures wild animals frisking about in a place people have abandoned, motion with no purpose but its own energy.Isa 13:21
natar in the other biblical languages
λύωGreek“to loose”the Greek verb for loosing and untying, covering the same stretch from working a knot free to releasing a prisoner
It carries a sense of springing or jolting loose that the Greek word never has: insects that leap on the ground, a heart that jumps out of place in terror, nations made to start at one look from God.Lev 11:21Job 37:1Hab 3:6
When it does mean freeing, it stays inside the world of captivity and oppression. It frees people held against their will, never a rope, a strap, or a knot.Psa 105:20Isa 58:6
It can turn the picture around, so that what is let go is not the captive but the striking hand. Job asks God to let his hand go loose and finish him off, which makes the release an act of destruction on the sufferer he pities.Job 6:9
Both
Both are used of letting a prisoner go free from confinement. The Hebrew speaks of the LORD who frees prisoners and of the king who sent and released Joseph from the dungeon; the Greek is used when a commander has Paul let go from his chains.Psa 146:7Psa 105:20Act 22:30
Both can treat whatever holds a person down as a bond to be untied, so that freeing them becomes an act of mercy and justice. Isaiah calls for the bonds of wickedness to be undone, and Jesus argues that a woman bent double for years had to be released from her bond on the Sabbath.Isa 58:6Luk 13:16
It is the everyday word for untying something that has been tied: a young donkey tethered by a doorway, or the strap of a sandal. Ordinary people do this ordinary thing all through the Gospels, and the Hebrew word is never used of a plain knot or tether.Mat 21:2Mrk 1:7Luk 19:33
It stretches to pulling a thing apart so that it no longer stands: a temple torn down, a wall between two peoples demolished, a ship broken up by the surf. Here it is often rendered "destroy" rather than "loose", a range the Hebrew word never covers.Jhn 2:19Eph 2:14Act 27:41
It can mean setting a rule aside, treating a command as no longer holding. A person who "looses" one of the least commandments cancels its claim, and the charge against Jesus is that he was undoing the Sabbath.Mat 5:19Jhn 5:18Jhn 10:35
It names an act of granted authority, paired against binding: whatever the disciples release on earth stands released in heaven. Nothing in the Hebrew word carries this legal, permission granting weight.Mat 16:19Mat 18:18
ἅλλομαιGreek“to spring”the Greek verb for leaping, used of a lame man springing to his feet, which lines up with the jumping sense rather than the releasing one
It names a jolt of fear felt inside the body. At the crash of thunder the speaker's heart jumps out of its place, which is terror rather than energy. Nothing in the three New Testament uses of the Greek verb touches fear.Job 37:1
It can have someone else as the cause of the jump. On the usual reading of Habakkuk 3:6, God looks at the earth and sends the nations reeling, so the leaper is not the one who decided to move. In the Greek verb the one who springs always springs of his own accord.Hab 3:6
It carries a second and entirely separate use with no counterpart in the Greek word: untying what holds someone fast and letting them go. It is used of loosing the straps of a yoke, of God setting prisoners free, and of Pharaoh releasing Joseph from prison. This is the sense behind the common rendering "set free", and it has nothing to do with jumping.Isa 58:6Psa 146:7Psa 105:20
Both
Where the Hebrew word means jumping, the two line up closely: each is the plain word in its language for a body leaving the ground in one quick movement, whether the hop of a small creature with legs built for springing or a healed man coming up off the pavement.Lev 11:21Act 14:10
Neither word requires someone who chooses to jump. The Hebrew describes a heart that lurches at the sound of thunder, and the Greek describes water pushing up from its source, so in both languages the motion can be something that happens to a subject rather than something it decides to do.Job 37:1Jhn 4:14
It can be used of water rather than of a living body. In John 4:14 the gift Jesus describes becomes a spring inside the person who drinks it, surging up toward eternal life. The Hebrew verb is never used of water or of anything flowing.Jhn 4:14
Both of its other uses land at the moment a man who could not walk is healed, so the jump serves as public proof of what has happened. The beggar at the temple gate goes on leaping as he walks and praises God, and the man at Lystra is on his feet in a single bound at Paul's command.Act 3:8Act 14:10
נְתַרAramaic“to strip”the Aramaic verb of the same root, used in Daniel of stripping the leaves off a tree, so the shaking-loose idea survives in the other language
What the Hebrew word most often sets loose is a person, and the loosening is a rescue. God is praised as the one who frees those who are tied up, and a foreign ruler sends word and lets Joseph out of prison.Psa 146:7Psa 105:20
It also covers a sudden spring or startled jump, with no bond or covering involved at all: the hind legs an insect uses to leap along the ground, a heart that jumps out of its place in fear, and nations made to start at the sight of God.Lev 11:21Job 37:1Hab 3:6
It can turn the loosening into a threat rather than a kindness, where God lets his own hand go free to fall on a sufferer and finish him off.Job 6:9
Both
Both words picture something being made to come away from whatever held it, in one decisive act rather than a slow working loose. In Hebrew it is the straps of a yoke untied so the load drops off, and in Aramaic it is foliage taken off a tree at a word of command.Isa 58:6Dan 4:14
The Aramaic word is used of a plant rather than a person or an animal: the order given over the great tree is to take its leaves off it.Dan 4:14
Here the loosening is pure loss. It is one step in a sequence of orders that dismantles the tree, alongside cutting it down, lopping its branches and scattering its fruit, so what comes away leaves the tree stripped rather than free.Dan 4:14
What scholars say about natar
The standard lexica divide the consonants נתר between two verbs. HALOT and DCH list נתר I, attested in the qal, piel and hiphil with the sense of springing, trembling or leaping (Lev 11:21;Job 37:1;Hab 3:6), and נתר II, attested in the hiphil with the sense of loosening, unfastening and setting free (Ps 105:20; 146:7; Isa 58:6;Job 6:9; and, on the reading of the Masoretic Text, 2 Sam 22:33). BDB arranges the same material under one headword, taking the releasing sense as a development of the causative within a single root whose core notion is a sudden springing loose. STEPBible's tagging of the Hebrew Bible follows the two-verb analysis and assigns the eight occurrences accordingly, which is the split adopted here. The one genuinely open text is 2 Sam 22:33, whose וַיַּתֵּר stands against וַיִּתֵּן in the parallel line of Ps 18:32; the textual relationship of the two recensions of the poem was analysed at length by Cross and Freedman and is discussed in McCarter's commentary. The noun נֶתֶר (Prov 25:20;Jer 2:22), the alkaline mineral used for washing, is treated by the lexica as a separate item, generally as a loanword, and is not evidence for the verb's meaning.
Where scholars disagree about natar
Whether these eight occurrences belong to one polysemous verb or to two unrelated verbs that happen to share the same spelling.
majorityTwo separate verbs: one meaning to spring or leap, the other meaning to loosen or set free. The modern lexica list them as distinct entries and the tagged Hebrew text follows that division.; Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), s.v. נתר I, נתר II; David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), s.v. נתר I, נתר II
minorityOne verb with a broad range, in which the releasing sense grows out of the idea of something springing loose.; Francis Brown, S. R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB), s.v. נתר
Sources
Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), s.v. נתר I, נתר IIlexicon
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB), s.v. נתרlexicon
David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), s.v. נתר I, נתר IIlexicon
Frank Moore Cross and David Noel Freedman, "A Royal Song of Thanksgiving: II Samuel 22 = Psalm 18," Journal of Biblical Literature 72 (1953): 15-34article
P. Kyle McCarter Jr., II Samuel, Anchor Bible 9 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984)commentary
John D. W. Watts, Isaiah 34-66, Word Biblical Commentary 25, rev. ed. (2005)commentary