to wrap oneself in a covering, or to drape a covering over: to enfold, cover, or clothe.
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
At its heart this word pictures wrapping or draping a covering around: pulling a robe about oneself, enfolding the body in a garment. Where the everyday word for getting dressed is לָבַשׁ and the general word for covering something over is כָּסָה, this word names the narrower act of enfolding or draping a covering close around.
The Bible loves it as an image. A person can be wrapped in light, in zeal, or in shame, as though a mood or a fate were a garment thrown over the shoulders. God wraps himself in light like a robe and in zeal like a cloak; the wicked are draped in their own disgrace like a coat they cannot take off.
One fixed use stands apart: to cover the upper lip. This was a gesture, not a matter of fashion. A person with a defiling skin disease, a grieving mourner, or a discredited prophet would draw a fold of cloth up over the mouth as a public sign of shame or grief.
Nuances
1ato wrap or drape oneself in something, whether a real garment or, as a picture, a quality such as light, zeal, or shame
1bto cover the upper lip: a fixed gesture of grief, shame, or ritual uncleanness
Lev 13:45Ezk 24:17Ezk 24:22Mic 3:7
1cto cover or clothe someone or something else with a covering, as a condition draped over another like a garment
Psa 84:6(7)Psa 89:45(46)
2
to grip or seize firmly: to take tight hold of.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintyContested
This sense appears in a single, hard verse. As God threatens to hurl the royal steward Shebna out of office and out of the land, one verb describes the act just before the throw: taking firm hold of him, gripping him tightly before flinging him away.
Read this way the word means to grasp or seize, and the standard lexicons treat it as a second, unrelated verb that happens to be spelled the same as the common word for wrapping. Other readers keep it as that ordinary wrapping word, picturing God bundling Shebna up tight like a ball before the throw. The next line, which speaks of rolling him like a ball, is part of why the question stays open.
Conceals a wrong or a fact so it stays out of sight, which is where the idea of covering a sin (and so forgiving it) comes from.Gen 37:26Pro 10:12Psa 32:1Pro 28:13
Describes a mass of water, darkness, or earth swallowing something and burying it completely.Gen 7:19Exo 14:28Num 16:33Psa 104:6
Pictures a cloud or the glory of God settling down to blanket a place.Exo 40:34Num 9:15
עָטַףa close relative that also means to wrap or envelop oneself, but which additionally carries the sense of growing faint or feeble, which this word does not.
Pictures strength ebbing away: the spirit or soul growing faint, weak, or overwhelmed until it nearly gives out.Psa 77:3Psa 107:5Lam 2:11Jon 2:7Gen 30:42
Describes drawing a cloak or robe around oneself, with the garment itself in view.1Sa 28:14Psa 104:2Isa 59:17Jer 43:12
Is the word for covering only the upper lip, the fixed gesture required of the person put outside the camp and of the mourner.Lev 13:45Ezk 24:22Mic 3:7
Wraps a person in something that is not cloth at all, so shame, reproach or blessing is worn like a coat.Psa 71:13Psa 89:45Psa 109:29Psa 84:6
Names the veiling that keeps a person unrecognized by anyone watching.Sng 1:7
Both
Both describe the mourner's covering: cloth pulled over part of the head so that grief is announced without a word.2Sa 15:30Est 6:12Ezk 24:17Mic 3:7
Both put a layer over something so that what lies underneath is no longer seen.2Ch 3:7Sng 1:7
It carries one fixed gesture that the other word never has: drawing a fold of cloth up over the upper lip as a public sign of grief, shame, or a defiling skin disease.Lev 13:45Ezk 24:17Mic 3:7
It is the word the poets use to drape a quality over a person like a robe, so light, zeal, shame, and disgrace are all worn.Psa 104:2Isa 59:17Psa 109:29Psa 71:13
This is the ordinary, common word for wrapping, and it stays with cloth from beginning to end: a robe about a prophet, a shepherd's garment about a shepherd. The covering never turns into a person's strength giving way.1Sa 28:14Jer 43:12
One hard verse pulls it in a direction the other word never goes: as God is about to hurl the royal steward away, many read a firm grip on the man rather than a covering thrown over him.Isa 22:17
Both
Both describe drawing a covering close around a person until the body is enfolded and the face is hidden, and both do it of a woman veiling herself by the roadside.Sng 1:7Gen 38:14
Both can put a covering onto something other than the person doing the covering, so each takes what is covered as its object rather than only naming self-wrapping.Psa 89:45Sng 5:14
Both go beyond keeping a body warm: in each, the covering changes how the person is seen or what has become of them, so translators reach for "cover" and "wrap" for either word.Lev 13:45Isa 51:20
It also names a person being overwhelmed until strength fails and the body drops, from thirst, from blazing heat, from siege and famine. The wrapping word is never used this way.Amo 8:13Jon 4:8Isa 51:20
Its covering can be hard and precious rather than woven: a craftsman sets blue stones over a panel of ivory until the surface is encrusted, which is jeweller's work, not clothing.Sng 5:14
It is a rare word of five occurrences, so the covering it names is always something deliberate and pointed, whether a woman making herself unrecognizable or a body going down.Gen 38:14Isa 51:20
atah in the other biblical languages
περιβάλλωGreek“to clothe”the main Greek word for throwing a garment around oneself and being clothed, the usual rendering of this word in wrapping contexts.
It covers a specific gesture of wrapping the face or upper lip, done in leprosy, mourning, or shame.Lev 13:45Ezk 24:17Mic 3:7
It pictures a person enveloped in shame or dishonor as if the disgrace itself were wrapped around them like a covering.Psa 71:13Psa 109:29Psa 89:45
It can name God wrapping himself, covering himself with light or clothing as with a garment.Psa 104:2
Both
Both describe wrapping the body in clothing, and the Greek word is the natural rendering for the Hebrew act of draping a robe or mantle around a person.1Sa 28:14Mrk 14:51
Both extend from literal dress to being clothed with an abstract quality, worn over a person like a garment.Psa 109:19Rev 19:8
It is the ordinary word for getting dressed: putting garments on the body, or being clothed by someone else.Mat 25:36Mat 6:29Luk 12:27
It regularly describes being arrayed in symbolic or splendid robes, especially the white robes of the redeemed and royal or mocking purple.Rev 7:9Rev 3:5Jhn 19:2
καλύπτωGreek“to cover”the Greek word for covering something over, close to this word's covering sense but without the picture of enfolding oneself.
Wraps or enfolds someone in a garment or cloak, the body enveloped in fabric: a figure comes up wrapped in a robe, and God is pictured wrapping himself in light as one puts on clothing.1Sa 28:14Psa 104:2Psa 109:19
Pictures a person wrapped in a mood or quality as if in clothing, so that shame or reproach clings to them like a robe drawn tight around the body.Psa 71:13Psa 89:45Psa 109:29
Names the specific gesture of drawing a covering over the upper lip or face, whether as a rule for the diseased, a sign of mourning, or a prophet silenced in disgrace.Lev 13:45Ezk 24:17Mic 3:7
Both
Both describe a covering that keeps something from being seen, so that what is under the covering stays hidden from view.2Co 4:3Sng 1:7
Covers by laying or dropping something over a thing so it is shut from view, without any sense of wrapping cloth around it: water closing over a boat, a jar set over a lamp, hills falling on people who beg to be hidden.Mat 8:24Luk 8:16Luk 23:30
Covers a wrong so that it is no longer held against a person, the language of forgiveness putting sin out of sight.Jas 5:201Pe 4:8
What scholars say about atah
The core sense of עָטָה is to wrap or envelop oneself, typically in a garment, and by extension to be clothed in an abstract quality (light, Ps 104:2; zeal, Isa 59:17; shame, Ps 109:29; reproach, Ps 71:13). A specialized idiom, covering the upper lip, functions as a gesture of grief, shame, or ritual defilement (Lev 13:45;Ezek 24:17, 22; Mic 3:7). Causative uses extend the verb to covering or clothing another party (Ps 89:45;Ps 84:6). BDB and HALOT posit a homonymous root, glossed to grasp or seize, solely for Isa 22:17, where the traditional versions instead render the common verb cover; the reading is bound up with the following image of rolling Shebna like a ball (Isa 22:18). DCH catalogues the range without committing to the split. The participle in Song 1:7 is a longstanding crux: the Masoretic Text yields one who veils herself, while the ancient versions read a verb of wandering, one who strays.
Where scholars disagree about atah
Whether עָטָה is a single verb meaning to wrap or cover, or also a second, unrelated verb meaning to grasp or seize. The question turns on Isaiah 22:17, where God is about to hurl the steward Shebna away.
majorityA distinct verb meaning to grasp or seize firmly stands behind Isaiah 22:17, separate from the common verb to wrap or cover.; BDB, s.v. עטה II; HALOT, s.v. עטה II
minorityIt is the same verb to wrap or cover, describing God bundling Shebna up tightly before hurling him away, in keeping with the ball image of the next verse.; KJV, Isaiah 22:17 (traditional versional rendering, cover thee)
Sources
HALOT, s.v. עטהlexicon
BDB, s.v. עטהlexicon
DCH, s.v. עטהdictionary
Wildberger, Isaiah 13-27 (Continental Commentary), on Isaiah 22:17commentary
Pope, Song of Songs (Anchor Bible 7C), on Song 1:7commentary