to tie one thing to another, and so to fasten a person's loyalty, learning, or love just as firmly
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
At its root this word means to knot a cord: to tie a thread on a hand, fasten a stone to a scroll, or harness an animal. From that plain picture the Hebrew writers build a whole family of attachments. The same verb that ties a physical object also fastens a teaching to the heart, binds a bride's ornaments on, and knots one person's very life to another's.
What holds these together is the idea of a fixed, deliberate fastening, not a loose or temporary touch. To bind a teaching onto your hand or neck is to make it as inseparable from you as a knot you cannot easily undo. To say a father's life is bound up with his son's is to say the two cannot be pulled apart without tearing.
This is why the senses below are shades of one image rather than separate words. The cord, the lesson, the friendship, and the bridal sash are all things tied on so they will hold.
Nuances
1ato tie or fasten a physical object with a cord, thread, or rope
1bto fasten a teaching to oneself so it is always present, the way you would tie an object on your body
Deu 6:8*Deu 11:18*Pro 3:3Pro 6:21Pro 7:3
1cto bind one person's life or loyalty to another's in deep attachment
Gen 44:301Sa 18:1
1dto bind on an ornament or sash, as part of getting dressed
Isa 49:18
2
to conspire: to bind oneself together with others in a sworn plot, usually to seize a throne or break a treaty
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is the word's most common use in the Bible, and it grows straight out of the binding image. People who conspire have tied themselves together, sworn to a common plot the way you would knot a cord. Hebrew narrative reaches for the same verb that fastens a thread because a conspiracy is exactly that: a binding agreement, only a treasonous one.
The writers of Kings use it almost like a tolling bell over the northern kingdom of Israel, where one official after another binds a plot against the reigning king, kills him, and takes the throne. The companion noun built from this verb is the cry raised when a plot is exposed: Treason. The same act can be either condemned or, when a prophet commands it, presented as God's own judgment on a corrupt house, which is part of why the word carries such moral weight.
The range here runs
from a lone insider's strike
to a sworn coalition swelling with public support
to a vassal nation secretly binding itself to a foreign power against its overlord
In every case the point is a deliberate, committed alliance, not a passing grudge.
Nuances
2ato plot and strike against a ruler, typically a single insider seizing the throne
the Hebrew verb runs from a literal knot all the way to a sworn political plot, so the same word can mean tie a cord and conspire against a kingGen 38:281Ki 15:27
Both
both name the act of fastening one thing firmly to anotherJer 51:63
Only bind
the English word bind is broad and can suggest legal or moral obligation in the abstract, missing the concrete picture of an actual knotted cord that the Hebrew keeps in view
underneath the political sense the Hebrew still pictures a physical binding, conspirators tied together by oath, a connection the word never loses2Ki 10:9
Both
both describe people binding themselves together in a treasonous plot against a ruler1Ki 16:9
Only conspire
the English word conspire purely denotes secret plotting and carries none of the original picture of tying or knotting
“tie”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“fasten”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“make a conspiracy”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How qashar differs from similar Hebrew words
אָסַרto bind, tie, or imprison, often with the sense of restraining or harnessing; it stresses confinement and obligation, where this word stresses knotting things firmly together.
Its most common use is forming a plot: people tie themselves together in a secret agreement to kill or overthrow a ruler.1Ki 16:92Ki 15:102Ch 24:25
Used for tying a small marker onto something so it will be seen or remembered, such as a thread on a hand or words kept close.Gen 38:28Jos 2:18Pro 6:21
Used for an inward bond of loyalty: two lives knit so closely that one person's soul is tied to another's.1Sa 18:1Gen 44:30
Both
Both name the plain physical act of fastening one thing to another so it is held firm.Gen 49:11Job 39:10
Used for taking a person captive and shutting them up: binding a prisoner and putting him in jail or chains.Gen 39:20Jdg 16:212Ki 25:7
Used for harnessing or hitching an animal: getting a chariot or cart ready by fastening the team to it.Gen 46:29Exo 14:61Sa 6:10
Used figuratively for binding oneself by a promise: taking on a vow or pledge that legally ties a person down.Num 30:2Num 30:3
חָבַרto join, ally, or be allied with; it covers legitimate joining and partnership, where this word's coalition sense is specifically a treasonous, sworn plot.
Joins separate pieces into a single working whole, like the loops that fasten the tabernacle curtains so they become one tent.Exo 26:3Exo 36:10Exo 39:4
Describes nations and kings forming an alliance, throwing in their lot together for a common venture.Gen 14:32Ch 20:35Dan 11:6
Pictures things set so closely they belong together, like a city knit into one or wings that touch.Psa 122:3Ezk 1:9Ezk 1:11
qashar in the other biblical languages
δέωGreek“to bind”the ordinary Greek verb for tying or binding a physical object; it matches this word's plain knotting sense but does not develop the political conspiracy meaning.
Most often means to plot treason: men band together and scheme against a king to kill him, the dominant sense in the histories.2Sa 15:311Ki 15:272Ki 9:14Amo 7:10
Describes tying words and commands onto the body so they are not forgotten: bound on the hand, bound on the heart and fingers.Deu 6:8Pro 3:3Pro 7:3
Pictures one person's love or life knit to another's, an inward bond rather than a rope.1Sa 18:1Gen 44:30
Both
Both name the plain act of tying a physical thing fast: a cord knotted on the body, or a person tied with ropes so they cannot get free.Jos 2:18Gen 38:28Mat 14:3Jhn 11:44
Most often means to put a person in chains and hold them prisoner: bound and led away to trial, jailed, or kept in custody.Mat 27:2Mrk 6:17Act 21:33Act 9:2
Reaches into the spiritual realm: a person can be held bound by Satan or sickness, and Satan himself is bound and shut away.Luk 13:16Rev 20:2
Names a binding obligation between people, especially the marriage tie that holds a wife to her husband as long as he lives.Rom 7:21Co 7:39
Carries the authority of binding and loosing: what is bound on earth is bound in heaven.Mat 16:19Mat 18:18
συνωμοσίαGreek“plot”the Greek noun for a conspiracy or plot, as when men bound themselves by oath against Paul; it captures this word's treasonous coalition sense rather than its literal binding sense.
names the plot itself as a thing: the sworn band of men and the scheme they have agreed on, not the act of forming itAct 23:13
What scholars say about qashar
The standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, the 18th edition of Gesenius, DCH) agree on a single polysemous root with a four-way range: literal binding, affective binding of persons, ornamental binding, and political conspiracy. HALOT and Gesenius order these as a semantic development (to bind > to bind together > to make a binding agreement > to conspire) and cite Akkadian kasaru / kisru, whose own chain runs knot > bond > military contingent > coalition, as the controlling cognate; Geez qasara confirms an inherited Proto-Semitic root rather than an Akkadian loanword (Mankowski does not list it among loanwords). In the theological dictionaries, Ringgren (TDOT) and Chisholm (NIDOTTE) both derive the conspiracy sense metaphorically from the concrete one via the notion of a binding pact, paralleling the Akkadian phrase kasaru riksa, to conclude a treaty. The political use is concentrated in a stereotyped Deuteronomistic death-notice formula for usurpations; Dubovsky counts seven such northern coups and notes their accelerating frequency as a literary correlate of the kingdom's collapse. Cogan and Tadmor argue that the specifically interstate, treaty-breach use in 2 Kings 17:4 mirrors Neo-Assyrian administrative vocabulary, and the Chronicler (per Japhet and Klein) re-motivates several conspiracies as measure-for-measure divine retribution. For the affective sense, McCarter, Alter, and Tsumura read 1 Samuel 18:1 as covenantal-political attachment expressed in passive form, Jonathan's life involuntarily knotted to David's. For the Deuteronomy 6:8 binding command, Tigay, Weinfeld, and Nelson argue the language is figurative in origin and was literalized only in later Second Temple practice.
Where scholars disagree about qashar
Whether the binding command of Deuteronomy 6:8 ("you shall bind them as a sign on your hand") was originally a literal instruction to wear an object or a figure of speech for constant mindfulness of the covenant that was only later embodied in physical practice.
majorityFigurative in origin, a memory-and-loyalty image comparable to other binding metaphors in Proverbs and Jeremiah, literalized only in late Second Temple Judaism; the earliest physical evidence is no older than that period.; J. H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS Torah Commentary (1996), Excursus 10, pp. 441-444; M. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1-11, Anchor Bible 5 (Doubleday, 1991), pp. 341-343
minorityA directive that invited and was meant to find ritual embodiment, so the later physical practice is a legitimate outworking rather than a misreading.; R. D. Nelson, Deuteronomy, OTL (Westminster John Knox, 2002), on 6:6-9
In-depth research
This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.
Sources
BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), p. 905, s.v. קשׁרlexicon
HALOT, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. קשׁרlexicon
Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch, 18th ed. (Donner/Meyer, 2013), s.v. קשׁרlexicon
D. J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 7, s.v. קשׁרlexicon
H. Ringgren, "קָשַׁר qāšar," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 13 (Eerdmans, 2004)theological-dictionary
R. B. Chisholm Jr., "קשׁר," in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, vol. 3 (Zondervan, 1997)theological-dictionary
M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings, Anchor Bible 11 (Doubleday, 1988), pp. 109-110, 196-200commentary
M. Cogan, 1 Kings, Anchor Bible 10 (Doubleday, 2001), at 15:27 and 16:9-20commentary
P. K. McCarter Jr., I Samuel, Anchor Bible 8 (Doubleday, 1980), pp. 304-305commentary
J. H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS Torah Commentary (1996), pp. 78-79 and Excursus 10commentary
S. Japhet, I & II Chronicles: A Commentary, OTL (Westminster John Knox, 1993), pp. 824-838commentary
S. M. Paul, Amos, Hermeneia (Fortress, 1991), pp. 238-242commentary
P. Dubovský, "Why Did the Northern Kingdom Fall According to 2 Kings 15?" Biblica 95 (2014): 321-346article