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The basic image is of leaving a fixed course, stepping off a road, walking away from someone, or abandoning a way of life. What unites these uses is the subject's own movement away from something. Physical and moral departures use the same word, and the Bible exploits that overlap deliberately: stepping off the road and turning away from God are described by the same act.

The moral and relational dimension is the most theologically weighted use in the Hebrew Bible. Israel "turns aside" from the way God commanded (Exodus 32:8, Deuteronomy 9:12); kings are repeatedly evaluated by whether they "did not turn aside" from the sins of Jeroboam (2 Kings 3:3, 10:29, 13:2 and many more). The wisdom tradition inverts this: the wise person "turns aside from evil" (Job 1:1, Proverbs 3:7, 14:16).

When used causatively, the word shifts to an agent who takes something away from its place. The range is wide: physically removing an object, putting away foreign gods, deposing a king, or, most powerfully, God removing guilt, reproach, or disaster from his people.

The theological use in the prophets is striking: it is the same motion as turning away from God (meaning 1), but reversed in direction and in who acts. Where Israel turns away from God, God promises to remove their sin (Isaiah 6:7, Ezekiel 36:26), strip away idols (2 Kings 18:4, 2 Chronicles 14:3), and take away their reproach (Isaiah 25:8, Zephaniah 3:15). This reciprocity, the same verb for human apostasy and divine restoration, is a deliberate pattern the biblical writers sustain.