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Bible Dictionaries
Forsake
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words
or ‛Âzab (עָזַב, Strong's #5800), “to leave, forsake, abandon, leave behind, be left over, let go.” This word occurs in Akkadian and post-biblical Hebrew and Aramaic. Similar words appear in Arabic and Ethiopic. The word occurs in biblical Hebrew about 215 times and in all periods.
Basically ‛âzab means “to depart from something,” or “to leave.” This is the meaning of the word in its first biblical appearance: "[For this cause] shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife …” (Gen. 2:24). A special nuance of the word is “to leave in the lurch,” or to leave someone who is depending upon one’s services. So Moses said to Hobab the Midianite (Kenite): “Leave us not [in the lurch] I pray thee; forasmuch as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou mayest be to us instead of eyes” (Num. 10:31).
The word also carries the meaning “forsake,” or “leave entirely.” Such passages convey a note of finality or completeness. So Isaiah is to preach that “… the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings” (Isa. 7:16). In other places, the abandonment is complete but not necessarily permanent. God says that Israel is “as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit.… For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee” (Isa. 54:6-7). In Akkadian, this word carries a technical sense of “completely and permanently abandoned” or “divorced.” Isaiah employs this sense in 62:4: “Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; … but thou shalt be called [My delight is in her], and thy land [Married].…”
Another special use of the word is “to disregard advice”: “But he forsook the counsel of the old men which they had given him …” (1 Kings 12:8).
A second emphasis of ‛âzab is “to leave behind,” meaning to allow something to remain while one leaves the scene. In Gen. 39:12, Joseph “left” his garment in the hand of Potiphar’s wife and fled. The word may also refer to an intentional “turning over one’s possessions to another’s trust,” or “leaving something in one’s control.” Potiphar “left all that he had in Joseph’s hand” (Gen. 39:6).
In a somewhat different nuance, the word means to “let someone or something alone with a problem”: “If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him …” (Exod. 23:5). Used figuratively, ‛âzab means to “put distance between” in a spiritual or intellectual sense: “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath …” (Ps. 37:8).
The third emphasis of the word is “to be left over,” or “to take most of something and leave the rest behind”: “And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them [over] for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God” (Lev. 19:10).
Finally, ‛âzab can mean “to let go” or “allow to leave.” The “stupid and senseless men” are those who make no provision for the future; they die leaving (“allowing it to go”) their wealth to others (Ps. 49:10). A different nuance occurs in Ruth 2:16, where the verb means “to let something lie” on the ground. ‛Âzab can also mean “to give up”: “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them [gives them up] shall have mercy” (Prov. 28:13), and the word can mean “to set free,” as in 2 Chron. 28:14: “So the armed men left the captives and the spoil before the princes and all the congregation.” ‛Âzab can signify “let go,” or “make it leave.” Concerning evil, Zophar remarks, “… [The wicked] forsake it not, but keep it still within his mouth” (Job 20:13).
‛Âzab can mean to “allow someone to do something,” as in 2 Chron. 32:31, where “God left [Hezekiah], to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart”; God “let” Hezekiah do whatever he wanted. “Letting an activity go” may also signify its discontinuance: “I pray you, let us leave off this usury” (Neh. 5:10).
‛Âzab is sometimes used in a judicial technical sense of “being free,” which is the opposite of being in bondage. The Lord will vindicate His people, and will have compassion on His servants “when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left” (Deut. 32:36).
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Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Forsake'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/vot/f/forsake.html. 1940.
