to exercise watchful care over someone or something: to guard it, hold to it, and keep it safe
One flexible idea runs under all of this word's uses: to keep something by watching over it attentively. The same verb describes a shepherd minding a flock, a sentry posted at a gate, a person holding firmly to a promise, and God watching over his people. What it never means is careless or absent keeping. To keep something is to have it actively in view.
The senses sort by what is being kept and why.
- At its most concrete it is physical guarding: protecting a person, a place, a flock, or stored goods from harm or loss.
- Turned toward duty, it becomes keeping a charge, the posted watch of the priests and Levites around the sanctuary.
- Turned toward God's words, it becomes the central religious sense of the Hebrew Bible: to keep the commandments, the covenant, the Sabbath, by holding to them and living them out.
- Turned inward it becomes taking heed, watching yourself so you do not slip.
- It can also turn hostile, watching a person closely in order to trap or destroy them.
The word's deepest move is reciprocal. Israel is told to keep God's covenant, and in the same breath God is praised as the one who keeps Israel. The priestly blessing asks that the LORD keep you, and Psalm 121 answers that the Keeper of Israel never sleeps. The verb that names human faithfulness names divine protection too, which is why it carries so much theological weight.