to separate, divide, or part: to draw a boundary between things once joined, so that they stand apart.
At its core this is a plain word for putting a division between things that had been together, and it works in both directions: one thing splitting into parts, or two parties going their separate ways. What is striking is where the Bible puts it to work. The same verb marks almost every decisive boundary in Israel's story, from the river of Eden dividing into four streams, to the nations spreading out after the flood, to Abram parting from Lot so the promise could go forward.
Because it names a boundary rather than a mood, the word takes its color from what is being separated and why. When God apportions the peoples or the lot settles a quarrel, the separating builds order. When Abram and Lot part, it is bittersweet: necessary for one, ruinous for the other. In the wisdom books the same act turns sour, as gossip drives friends apart and the loner cuts himself off from everyone. In the laments the body itself comes apart, bones slipping from their joints.
So the range runs from the founding of the world down to a sufferer's dislocated frame and a scattered people in exile. One verb carries all of it because the underlying picture never changes: a line is drawn, and what was one becomes two or many. Whether that is a gift or a disaster depends entirely on the story it serves.
Nuances
Whether the one who "separates himself" in Proverbs 18:1 is condemned or praised: a self-willed loner who breaks with the community, or a sage who withdraws from the crowd to pursue wisdom.
- majorityThe separator is the antisocial figure who cuts himself off from others out of self-will and quarrels against all sound judgment; the verse is a rebuke.; Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31, Anchor Yale Bible 18B (2009); Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 15-31, NICOT (2005), 66-69; Richard J. Clifford, Proverbs, OTL (1999); Roland E. Murphy, Proverbs, WBC 22 (1998)
- minorityThe separator is a positive figure who withdraws from the crowd to seek and pursue wisdom; the older reading, preserved in the KJV.; Moshe Kimchi and Ralbag (medieval Jewish exegesis), as summarized in the UBS Handbook on Proverbs (Reyburn and Fry, 2000), 354