sagar

The basic force of this word is the physical act of closing: a door swings shut, a gate is bolted, a wound is closed over. The thing doing the shutting can be a person (shutting a door behind them), God (shutting Noah into the ark, closing up Sarah's womb), or the object itself (scales locked tight, a gate that stays shut). What is shut may be an entrance, a body, or a city, the common thread is that access is blocked.

A specialized and frequent use appears in the Levitical quarantine laws: the priest "shuts up" the person with a suspicious skin condition for a period of isolation and observation. Here the word does not mean imprisonment but controlled separation, the person is confined to a space while the condition is assessed. The same logic governs Miriam's exclusion from the camp for seven days.

A third cluster uses one form of the word as a fixed expression for refined or pure gold: the "shut" or "enclosed" gold of the temple furnishings (1 Kings 6-7; 2 Chronicles 4; 9). This is likely the image of gold that has been sealed or worked into solid form, as opposed to raw ore or plating, the same root that closes a door here describes metal finished into a dense, enclosed mass.

A causative form carries a distinct extension: to cause someone to be shut in: that is, to deliver a person into the grip of an enemy or a dangerous power. Where meaning 1 describes the physical act of closing, this meaning describes the transfer of a person from freedom into captivity or danger. The one being handed over is typically a fugitive, a defeated enemy, or a whole people given over to conquest.

This sense appears most sharply in the David narratives: will the men of Keilah hand David over to Saul? The Ziphites promise to do so. David confesses that God has not handed him over to the enemy (Psalm 31:8). The same logic governs Deuteronomy 23:15, which forbids handing back a runaway slave to his master, the word for that forbidden surrender is this same verb.

In prophetic and poetic speech the subject is often God delivering a people to conquest or plague: God handed Israel over to the sword (Psalm 78:62), gave their cattle to hail (Psalm 78:48), and delivered the nation to enemies (Lamentations 2:7). Amos indicts Gaza and Tyre for handing over whole communities of exiles. The core image, closing someone in, trapping them, removing their freedom, runs through all these uses, but the focus has shifted to the social and political act of transfer rather than the physical act of shutting.