samakh

• It is the word for pressing weight down onto something, most often the hand laid heavily on the head of a sacrifice so the animal stands in the offerer's place.Lev 1:4Lev 4:4Lev 16:21
• It can mean to prop up or brace something so it does not collapse, whether a person leaning on a support or a wall shored up against falling.Jdg 16:292Ki 18:21Sng 2:5
• It describes commissioning by the transfer of authority, when Moses presses his hands on Joshua to pass on his charge.Num 27:18Num 27:23Deu 34:9

• Both describe keeping someone from falling, so English Bibles render each as uphold or sustain when God holds up the weak.Psa 3:5Psa 145:14Psa 41:12Psa 17:5
• Both can name God steadying a person by the hand, holding them upright when their strength gives out.Psa 54:4Isa 41:10

• It is the word for gripping something in the hand and taking firm hold of it, keeping it in one's grasp.Gen 48:17Pro 31:19Amo 1:5
• It pictures holding fast to a thing so as to be attached to it, as one lays hold of wisdom or clings to God.Pro 3:18Pro 4:4Psa 63:8
• It can carry a moral hold, where a person's own sins seize and bind him fast.Pro 5:22Pro 28:17

• Names the formal act of laying hands on a person or animal to transfer authority, guilt, or blessing. The worshipper presses a hand on the offering before it is killed, and Moses lays hands on Joshua to commission him.Lev 1:4Lev 4:15Num 27:18Deu 34:9
• Describes a supporter holding someone or something up from the outside: God upholds the falling and the fainting, or a person braces an object in place.Psa 37:24Psa 145:14Psa 3:5Jdg 16:29
• Pictures a settled inner steadiness: a mind held firm and untroubled, or a heart propped up and made secure.Isa 26:3Psa 112:8Psa 111:8

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• The everyday picture is putting weight on a physical support: a king leaning on the hand of his servant, or a man resting on his spear.2Ki 5:182Ki 7:22Sa 1:6
• Its dominant figurative use is trusting reliance, weighed as either faithful or misplaced: the command to lean on God rather than on your own understanding, and the rebuke of those who lean on Egypt or on human strength.Pro 3:5Isa 10:20Isa 31:12Ch 16:7Mic 3:11

• A physical action of pressing or leaning one thing hard against another, resting weight on it.Jdg 16:29Amo 5:19
• The ritual gesture of laying hands firmly on a sacrifice or a person, transferring role or responsibility.Lev 1:4Num 27:18
• Pictures God holding a person up so they do not fall, sustaining them under a weight.Psa 3:5Psa 145:14

• Both meet in the picture of putting your weight on a support: to trust something is to lean on it, so the two words come together where a nation leans on an ally that cannot hold it up.Isa 36:6

• Names an inner state of confident reliance: feeling safe and secure because of the one relied on, most often God.Psa 9:10Psa 56:3
• Can carry a negative charge: misplaced confidence in something that will fail, like wealth, allies, or a person's own strength.Psa 49:6Psa 52:7
• Describes a settled sense of safety and being unafraid, dwelling securely without dread.Jdg 18:7Psa 4:5

• It is the word for the ritual act of pressing a hand down on a head: on the animal being offered, on the man being set apart for service, on the one being sentenced. That whole world of worship and commissioning belongs to this word alone.Lev 1:4Num 27:18Lev 24:14
• It can describe plain physical weight put on an object: a man bracing himself against pillars, a hand set on a wall, a body resting on a walking stick that may or may not hold.Jdg 16:29Amo 5:192Ki 18:21
• The one in need can be the subject: a person leans, rests, or throws their weight onto God or onto another's word as an act of trust. The support is described from the side of the one depending, not the one propping.Isa 48:2Psa 71:62Ch 32:8
• The same pressing can be hostile rather than helpful: an army bearing down on a city, or waves bearing down on a sufferer, where the weight crushes instead of steadies.Ezk 24:2Psa 88:7

• Both describe God holding up someone who would otherwise collapse, and they are close enough that one psalm asks for the first in one line and the second in the very next line.Psa 119:116Psa 145:14Psa 119:117Psa 94:18
• Both can mean feeding someone to keep their strength up, whether with grain and wine, with raisins, or with a piece of bread.Gen 27:37Sng 2:5Gen 18:5Psa 104:15

• It carries the standard phrase for offering a meal, where bread "sustains the heart" of a guest or a traveler before the road. Nearly half its uses are this hospitality expression, and the other word never joins with "heart" this way.Gen 18:5Jdg 19:51Ki 13:7Psa 104:15
• It names what keeps a reign standing: a throne held up by loyalty, a kingdom held up by justice and right dealing.Pro 20:28Isa 9:7
• Everywhere it occurs, the help comes from outside the person: God's hand, God's help sent from the sanctuary, God's care on a sickbed. The weak one is always the one propped up, never the one doing the leaning.Psa 18:35Psa 20:2Psa 41:3

• Covers the deliberate pressing of hands onto the head of an animal or a person, the gesture that hands something over: an offering is claimed by the worshipper, the year's guilt is loaded onto the goat, a successor is publicly commissioned.Lev 1:4Lev 16:21Num 27:18
• Works from the other side of the action too, naming what the supporter does rather than what the leaner does: God is the one holding a person up so that they do not fall.Psa 145:14Psa 37:24Psa 3:5
• Stretches from bodies to trust, so it can expose reliance as misplaced: Egypt is a cracked reed that runs into the hand of anyone who puts weight on it, while others put their weight on the God of Israel.2Ki 18:21Isa 36:6Isa 48:2
• Can mean keeping someone going with food and provision, where the support is a supply rather than a surface.Gen 27:37Sng 2:5
• Describes an inner steadiness as well, a heart or mind that has been propped so firmly that bad news and fear cannot tip it over.Psa 112:8Isa 26:3Psa 111:8

• Both name the ordinary physical act of putting your weight on something solid enough to hold you: Samson braces himself against the two pillars, the bride rests against her beloved.Jdg 16:29Sng 8:5
• In both, the weight is carried by the other party, so each pictures a person who is not standing entirely on their own strength: a walker's staff in one, a beloved's body in the other.2Ki 18:21Sng 8:5

• What is leaned on is a person who is loved, and the leaning is chosen nearness rather than a rescue from collapse: the bride comes up out of the wilderness resting against her beloved.Sng 8:5
• Its single appearance keeps the word to the plain bodily posture, with none of the wider reach into trust, ritual gesture, provision, or inner steadiness.Sng 8:5