to hem in: to close something off so it cannot get out or move freely, whether a besieged city, money tied in a bag, or a person pressed on every side
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
The picture at the center of this word is shutting something in so it cannot escape. By far its most common use is military: an army rings a city and cuts it off until it falls, which older Bibles call laying siege. This is the sense in the long siege reports of Samaria, Jerusalem, and other towns.
The same act of shutting something up appears in smaller settings. Money can be tied tightly into a bag or a fold of cloth so nothing spills out, and a person can be hemmed in on every side, whether shut behind cedar boards or pressed close by God (Psalm 139:5).
These uses share one idea: something is enclosed and held fast. The city, the silver, and the person are all closed in and kept from getting free.
Nuances
1ato lay siege to a city or person: to ring them with an armed force and cut them off
1bto bind up or tie up: to shut something small away by wrapping it, as silver knotted into a bag or a cloth
Deu 14:252Ki 5:232Ki 12:10(11)Ezk 5:3
1cto hem in or beset a person or thing: to close in on every side so there is no room to move
Psa 139:5Sng 8:9
2
to treat as an enemy: to act with hostility toward someone, opposing or harassing them
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
This use turns on the closely related Hebrew word for an enemy or adversary. To do this to people is to act as their foe: to oppose, harass, or make war on them.
God promises to be a foe to the foes of his people (Exodus 23:22), and warns Israel not to provoke or attack the Moabites and Ammonites on the way to the promised land (Deuteronomy 2:9, 19).
This shades close to the hostility behind a siege, but the point here is the enmity itself, not the physical shutting in of a city. It is why the same word can be read as harass, distress, or be an adversary depending on the setting.
Exo 23:22Deu 2:9Deu 2:19Est 8:11
3
to fashion: to shape an object out of metal by working it into form
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintyContested
In a small handful of places the word describes shaping something solid, working metal into a finished form. Aaron fashions the gold into a calf (Exodus 32:4), and Solomon's craftsman casts the two great bronze pillars for the temple (1 Kings 7:15).
Whether this is truly a separate use of the word or a spelling that happens to overlap with the ordinary Hebrew verb for shaping is debated, and the golden calf verse in particular has been read in more than one way.
the underlying idea is shutting a place in so nothing can leave, which is broader than a single assault2Ki 6:24
Both
both name an army ringing a city and cutting it off until it surrendersDeu 20:12
Only besiege
the English word sounds purely military, hiding that the same Hebrew word can tie up money or hem in one person
“bind up”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“beset”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“fashion”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“distress”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How tsur differs from similar Hebrew words
יָצַרthe ordinary word for shaping or forming something, as a potter forms clay or God forms a human being; it overlaps with this word only in the rare sense of fashioning metal
In this rare sense it points narrowly to working molten metal, the technical act of casting or pouring bronze into a finished form, as when the great hollow pillars of the temple were cast.1Ki 7:15
Both
Both can describe a human craftsman giving physical shape to raw material to produce an image, and both are used of the making of an idol.Isa 44:12Exo 32:4
The primary word for God giving shape to living things and the world: he forms the man from the dust of the ground, forms every animal, and forms the light and the earth.Gen 2:7Gen 2:19Isa 45:18
Reaches inward to the shaping of a person's inner life and thoughts, as when God forms the heart of everyone alike and understands the plans they form.Psa 33:15Psa 94:9
Reaches forward to the shaping of events long before they happen, describing purposes and plans that God has formed and now brings to pass.Isa 46:112Ki 19:25
Is the potter's own word, picturing the craftsman pressing and molding clay on the wheel into whatever vessel he chooses.Jer 18:4Isa 64:8
צָרַרa closely related verb that likewise means both to bind up or press tight and to act as an adversary; the two overlap in both the enclosing and the hostility senses but are counted as distinct verbs
Names the physical act of laying siege: armies surround a city or a person and shut it in to force surrender. This is the standard verb of biblical siege warfare.2Sa 11:12Ki 6:24Jer 21:4Dan 1:1
Keeps its focus on enclosing a physical place or thing: hemming a person in on every side, or shutting silver up in a bag.Psa 139:52Ki 5:23
Both
Both can name acting as a hostile adversary, treating someone as a foe rather than only surrounding a place.Exo 23:22Num 10:9
The verb of hostile action: to lay siege, to hem a fortified place in and press it until it falls. This is something an army does, not a thing an enemy is.2Sa 11:12Ki 6:24Deu 20:12Dan 1:1
Apart from hostility, this same verb covers the plain physical act of shaping or tying something up: casting metal, binding coins in a bag, enclosing with boards. The noun never names an action like this.Exo 32:42Ki 5:23Sng 8:9
Both
Both draw on the same core picture of pressing and constriction. The verb presses an enemy in by siege; the noun is both the one doing the pressing and the pressed, hemmed-in condition it causes, so hostility is framed as being squeezed into a tight space.Isa 29:3Num 10:9
Names the enemy himself: the hostile adversary or foe as a person, the one who opposes you. It is a thing you have, not a thing you do.Psa 3:1Psa 27:2Num 10:9Psa 44:5
Names the felt distress that hostility produces: the tight, pressed condition of trouble, being backed into a corner with no room to move.Psa 4:1Job 36:16
Carries the plain physical sense of narrow or tight: a cramped place, a strait, something shut up close. This is the literal picture the whole family draws on.Num 22:26Job 41:15
חָנָהto pitch camp; an army encamps against a city as the settled position from which the hemming in and cutting off named by this word is carried out
Names the active pressing of a siege: shutting a city in and cutting it off so that nothing can go in or out, often by throwing up siege works against its walls until it falls.2Ki 17:52Sa 20:15Ezk 4:3
It is always hostile and aimed at a fortified place: the word assumes a city to be reduced, never a neutral stop for the night.1Ki 20:1Jer 32:2Deu 20:12
Both
Both describe an army massed hostilely against a city, and the two combine to tell one operation: the force first settles around the walls, then presses the siege home. In one verse God uses both of his assault on Ariel, first camping against it and then laying siege to it.Isa 29:3
Its home base is ordinary encampment, not warfare: a people or an army pitching their tents on a journey, arranging the camp in order, settling down for a stage of the march. Most of its occurrences have nothing to do with attacking anyone.Num 33:5Exo 15:27Num 1:52
Even when it is hostile, the word names the positioning: an army settling into place around a target and taking up its station, the setup before the assault rather than the assault itself.1Sa 11:12Ki 25:12Sa 12:28
Is the standard verb for laying siege: an army rings a city and cuts it off until it falls, and this military act accounts for most of its uses.2Ki 6:24Jer 39:1Deu 20:12
Shrinks to household scale for tying something small away so it cannot spill, as silver knotted into a bag or a fold of cloth.Deu 14:252Ki 5:23Ezk 5:3
Can name naked hostility with no enclosing at all, so it is rendered "be an adversary to" or "harass" when God opposes his people's foes or Israel is told not to provoke a neighboring nation.Exo 23:22Deu 2:9
Both
Both work from the same picture of walls closing in until there is no room left to move, which is why English reaches for words like "hard pressed" and "hemmed in" for either one.Gen 32:7Psa 139:5
Both can put the one doing the squeezing in the subject slot, so either verb can say that an attacker left a people no room.Neh 9:27Isa 29:3
Both turn up in the same kind of report of a nation crushed by its enemies, one naming the people's plight and the other the campaign that caused it.Jdg 10:92Ki 17:5
Normally describes the condition of the person under pressure rather than any act done to him: the Hebrew says that things got tight for someone, so the sentence names his tight spot without naming who caused it.Gen 32:71Sa 30:6Jdg 2:15
Can describe plain lack of room with nobody hemming anything in, even as a happy problem: a ruined land runs short of space because too many people are coming home.Isa 49:19
Used of how much room a person's stride has, so that a wide path keeps the steps from being cramped and calamity is what narrows them.Pro 4:12Job 18:7
Can be used where the pressure comes from inside a person rather than from an outside force: Amnon is boxed in by his own craving until he makes himself ill.2Sa 13:2
is the plain military verb for the operation itself, an army ringing a town and cutting it off, which is why it carries the siege reports of Rabbah, Samaria and Jerusalem and appears in the law of war.Deu 20:122Sa 11:12Ki 17:5
reaches down to small everyday acts of shutting something up, with no conflict in view: silver is knotted tightly into a bag or a fold of cloth so that none of it spills.Deu 14:252Ki 5:232Ki 12:10
can close someone in without harming them, even for their good: the psalmist finds God pressed close behind him and in front of him, and a young sister is boarded up with cedar for safekeeping.Psa 139:5Sng 8:9
can mean simply treating someone as a foe, opening hostilities, where nobody is being enclosed or worn down: God promises to be an enemy to Israel's enemies, and Israel is warned off attacking Moab and Ammon.Exo 23:22Deu 2:9Deu 2:19
is also written the same way as a verb for working metal into shape, so a reader meets it where neither closing in nor hostility is in view: the gold calf, and the bronze pillars of the temple.Exo 32:41Ki 7:15
Both
both belong to the language of a siege, and Isaiah's oracle against Jerusalem sets them one verse apart: God will bear down on the city, and God will ring it with siegeworks.Isa 29:2Isa 29:3
both name hostile action aimed at leaving the other side no room to move, so the same Babylonian army can be described either as shutting Jerusalem in or as pressing its people hard.Jer 19:9Jer 21:4
English Bibles reach for the same renderings for both, "besiege" and "distress", so a translation gives a reader no signal which of the two words stands in a given verse.Deu 28:532Ki 17:5
names what a siege does to the people shut inside it rather than the position the army outside takes: the curses of Deuteronomy use it for the point at which food gives out and parents eat their own children.Deu 28:53Deu 28:55Jer 19:9
covers pressure applied with nothing but words and persistence, where no force is used and nothing is shut in: Samson's wife weeps at him for seven days, and Delilah asks him day after day until he gives up his secret.Jdg 14:17Jdg 16:16
can name pressure rising inside a person with no opponent at all, as Elihu describes the urge within him that will not let him stay silent.Job 32:18
tsur in the other biblical languages
περικυκλόωGreek“to surround”the Greek verb for encircling; used of enemies ringing a city, it matches the besieging sense here
The Hebrew word also means to bind or tie something up tight, knotting silver into bags or wrapping articles in a garment, confining an object rather than an army.2Ki 5:23Ezk 5:3
Its range stretches further still, to walling something in with timber for safekeeping and even to shaping metal by hand into an image, senses the narrow Greek picture of encircling never touches.Sng 8:9Exo 32:4
Both
Both describe surrounding a city with a hostile force so that no one inside can escape, the ring of a siege closed around its target.Luk 19:432Ki 6:24
The Greek word is built on the term for a circle, so it names specifically the drawing of a complete ring around something, hemming it in on every side with no gap left to slip through. It carries nothing beyond that encircling motion.Luk 19:43
συνέχωGreek“to hold/oppress”a Greek verb for hemming in or pressing hard on every side, close to this word's picture of closing a place off
Is the ordinary word for laying military siege: an army surrounds a walled city and holds the position over time to force its surrender. Where the Greek word pictures a siege only once, this is the standard term for siege warfare, used again and again of real campaigns.2Sa 11:1Deu 20:121Ki 20:1
Both
Both picture enemies closing in on every side to overpower those inside. The Greek word foresees armies ringing Jerusalem and penning it in; the Hebrew word tells of an army encircling a city under siege.Luk 19:432Ki 6:24
Both can describe a person hemmed in so tightly there is no room to move, whether by a crowd pressing on all sides or by being hemmed in front and behind.Luk 8:45Psa 139:5
Grips a person the way a sickness or a strong emotion does, holding them fast so they cannot break free. Fever, disease, and sudden fear all take hold of someone with this word.Mat 4:24Luk 4:38Luk 8:37
Describes an inward pressure that leaves a person no other course. The love of Christ presses believers on, and Paul feels caught between two pulls with no room to move. This is a felt compulsion from within, not an outward wall.2Co 5:14Php 1:23Act 18:5
πλάσσωGreek“to mold”the Greek verb for molding or forming, the counterpart to the rare sense here of fashioning an object
In its fashioning use this word means working hard metal into an object, engraving or casting it, not molding something soft.Exo 32:41Ki 7:15
Both
Both name a maker deliberately working raw material into an intended form, so a finished object stands as the product of a craftsman's design.Exo 32:4Rom 9:20
Pictures a potter pressing soft, pliable material into shape, so the maker's hand fully determines what the thing becomes.Rom 9:20
Used above all for God forming a living human being, the creature shaped by its Creator rather than an object made from metal.1Ti 2:13
What scholars say about tsur
Standard lexicons treat the consonants צור as covering more than one verb. The primary verb (BDB I; HALOT) means to bind, hem in, or besiege, and accounts for the large majority of occurrences, including the frequent military sense of encircling a city. A second verb, denominative from the noun צַר (adversary), means to treat as an enemy or show hostility (Exodus 23:22;Deuteronomy 2:9, 19). A third, more doubtful entry (BDB III) covers the fashioning of metal in Exodus 32:4 and 1 Kings 7:15, which some relate instead to יצר (the ordinary verb for forming) or fold back into the binding sense. TWOT and DCH survey the same range. The division into homonyms is a lexicographic judgment rather than a certainty, and the golden calf verse in Exodus 32:4 remains an interpretive crux.