to draw out or pull loose: to slide a sword from its sheath, or pull a thing free from what holds it
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
At its core this verb names a single physical motion: pulling something out of what encloses or grips it. By far its most common object is a sword, drawn from its sheath and brought into the hand ready to strike, so most of its appearances sit in scenes of combat and killing.
From that literal act the language built a fixed phrase. To call someone a man "who draws the sword" was to name a trained fighter, and writers used it to count an army: "so many men who draw the sword" simply means so many soldiers. The words no longer describe anyone unsheathing a weapon at that moment; they classify a person as a warrior.
The same motion reaches beyond swords. A sandal is drawn off the foot to seal a bargain, an arrow is pulled out of a wound, and grass on a roof is plucked up. In each case the picture is the same pull, applied to a different thing.
Nuances
1ato draw a sword from its sheath, or to hold one drawn and ready
names specifically pulling a blade out of its sheath, or a thing out of what covers it, not motion in general1Sa 17:51
Both
both describe pulling a weapon out and into the hand, ready to strikeJdg 9:54
Only draw
the English word draw is far wider (draw water, draw near, draw a picture), so on its own it can hide that this verb means to unsheathe or pull loose
“draw out”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“draw off”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How shalaph differs from similar Hebrew words
רִיקalso means to draw the sword, but pictures it as emptying out the scabbard, and is the favored word in prophetic threats where God draws out his sword against a people.
to empty a container or pour something out: a sack, poured oil, rain from clouds, or a blessing sent down.Gen 42:35Sng 1:3Mal 3:10Ecc 11:3
חָלַץthe other verb for drawing a sandal off the foot, used for the formal act in the levirate ceremony, while this word draws the sandal off as a plain gesture that seals a legal transfer.
to rescue or deliver a person out of danger, distress, or death, most often with God as the one who pulls someone freePsa 6:4Psa 34:7Psa 50:15Psa 116:8
to be equipped and ready for battle, the armed men who go out before the armyNum 31:5Num 32:17Jos 4:13Jos 6:7
This is the ordinary word for pulling a blade out of its sheath. The text can say so in as many words, as when David takes the giant's own sword and draws it out of the sheath, and it covers the ready weapon already bare in the hand of the figure blocking the road.1Sa 17:51Num 22:23Jos 5:13Jdg 9:54
Because drawing a sword is what a soldier does, this word became the standard way of counting an army. Fighting men are tallied by the thousands as those "who draw the sword", a set phrase for how much force a side can put in the field.Jdg 8:10Jdg 20:15Jdg 20:172Sa 24:9
It also covers pulling a weapon back out of a body it has gone into. Ehud leaves the sword in the king and does not withdraw it, and one of Job's speakers pictures a shaft being drawn out of the wounded man.Jdg 3:22Job 20:25
Both
Both are used for taking a sandal off a foot, and this is where the two words genuinely meet. One is the command given on holy ground, at the burning bush and again outside Jericho, and the other is the old custom in which a man pulled his sandal off and handed it over to seal an agreement in public.Exo 3:5Jos 5:15Rut 4:7Rut 4:8
This is the word for something working loose and coming away on its own, with nobody pulling it. The iron head flies off the handle in mid swing and kills a man by accident, and a farmer's olives drop from the tree before he can press any oil from them.Deu 19:5Deu 28:40
It is also used of whole populations being cleared out of a land, which is far larger than anything the other word ever does. God pushes seven nations out ahead of Israel, and does it slowly rather than all at once, and a king empties a border town of the people living in it.Deu 7:1Deu 7:222Ki 16:6
shalaph in the other biblical languages
σπάωGreek“to draw”the Greek verb for drawing a sword from its sheath, as when a disciple drew his sword at Jesus' arrest.
Reaches beyond swords to any pulling out or off, such as slipping off a sandal to seal a bargain, drawing an arrow from a body, or plucking up grass.Rut 4:7Job 20:25Psa 129:6
As a fixed phrase, those who draw the sword counts the fighting men a nation can muster.2Sa 24:9Jdg 20:2
Both
Both mean to draw a sword from its sheath, especially in an act of violence.1Sa 17:51Mrk 14:47
Used only of unsheathing a sword, in each case a sudden desperate act by one person in a moment of crisis.Mrk 14:47Act 16:27
What scholars say about shalaph
The verb denotes drawing or pulling something out, attested only in the qal. Its dominant collocation is with חֶרֶב sword: to draw the sword (Judg 8:20;1 Sam 17:51), and the participial idiom שֹׁלֵף חֶרֶב drawer of the sword functions as a stock census term for able-bodied warriors (Judg 20:2, 15-17; 2 Sam 24:9;1 Chr 21:5). Beyond weaponry it is used of drawing off a sandal to ratify a transaction (Ruth 4:7-8), a gesture parallel to but distinct from the חליצה ritual of Deut 25:9-10 that uses חָלַץ, and of an arrow being pulled from the body (Job 20:25).Psalm 129:6 is text-critically and lexically disputed: MT שַׁקַּדְמַת שָׁלַף is variously rendered before it is plucked up or emended, and some read the root as the grass shooting up. HALOT and BDB give the sense draw out, draw off; a connection to Akkadian and Aramaic roots for pulling out is commonly noted. See TWOT and DCH for the semantic range.