to lay hold of: to grip something or someone firmly, often by force, so as to take, seize, or hold it fast
At its core this verb is about getting a firm hold of something. The hand closes on an object, a soldier closes on a city, an arresting party closes on a person. The same physical picture stretches across all of its uses: whether the thing seized is a harp, a sword, a runaway, a fortress, or a guilty party caught in the act, the word names the moment of taking firm hold.
Because the grip can be friendly or hostile, gentle or violent, the surrounding words do most of the coloring. To take hold of a tool is to handle it skillfully; to take hold of a city is to conquer it; to take hold of a person can mean to arrest, to capture in war, or simply to grab. English needs several different verbs (grasp, seize, capture, catch, handle, arrest) to cover the range, but the Hebrew sees one action throughout.
The passive forms turn the picture around to the one being held: a city that is taken, a fugitive who is caught, a guilty person who is found out. Used that way the verb often carries the weight of judgment, the sense that someone has finally been caught and will not escape.