shalaḥ

At its core this word is about releasing something from your own hand so that it goes where you direct it. The same single act lies under everything the word does. You send a servant to carry a message, you reach out your hand toward a thing you want to take, a tree pushes out its roots toward water, a master frees a slave to walk away, a husband puts away a wife. In each case something leaves the sender's grip and moves outward.

The shade of meaning turns mostly on what is sent and on whether the sending is a commission or a dismissal. When you send a person on your behalf, the focus is the errand and the authority behind it. When you put forth your hand, the focus is what your hand reaches for, whether to grasp or to strike. When God is the one sending, what goes out can be rescue (a word that heals, help from heaven) or judgment (fire, sword, plague) loosed against a target.

The hardest edge of the word is the difference between sending out on a mission and sending away in dismissal. The first keeps a tie between sender and sent; the second cuts one. Releasing a slave, letting a captive people go, and divorcing a wife all use this same word for the act of letting someone leave for good. Context, not a different word, tells you whether a sending binds or severs.

Because one Hebrew word covers commissioning, reaching, loosing, freeing, and expelling, English needs many verbs to carry it. That spread is the word's character, not a set of unrelated meanings.