To push , gore , defeat , stub (the toe), inflict (a disease)
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The Hebrew verb nagaph can describe striking, injuring, defeating, afflicting, or stumbling. Armies are defeated, an ox injures another animal, fighting men strike a pregnant woman, a foot strikes a stone, and judgment narratives describe people or a child being struck with illness or death.
Reader summary
Full entry for נָגַף (H5062) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew verb nagaph can describe striking, injuring, defeating, afflicting, or stumbling. Armies are defeated, an ox injures another animal, fighting men strike a pregnant woman, a foot strikes a stone, and judgment narratives describe people or a child being struck with illness or death.
The BSB source-word alignment has 49 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include they had been defeated (5), are defeated (2), defeated (2), strike (2), strikes (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Exodus 8:2. Its strongest book concentrations include 2 Chronicles (8), Exodus (7), 1 Samuel (6), 2 Samuel (5).
The Hebrew verb nagaph can describe striking, injuring, defeating, afflicting, or stumbling. Armies are defeated, an ox injures another animal, fighting men strike a pregnant woman, a foot strikes a stone, and judgment narratives describe people or a child being struck with illness or death. Isaiah can place striking and healing together. The range is broad, so translation alone does not settle whether the event is combat, accidental injury, disease, divine judgment, or an ordinary stumble.
Exodus 21 treats injury to a pregnant woman as a matter requiring assessment and court-directed consequence; it must not be used to minimize her trauma or settle every modern legal and medical question from one verse. Second Samuel 12 is a grievous narrative about David's sin, a child's illness, and death. It does not teach that a sick child bears personal guilt or that bereaved parents should accept speculative blame.
Responsible teaching distinguishes agent, victim, intent, bodily effect, legal setting, and outcome while directing injury and illness toward immediate care, accurate documentation, and compassionate support.
Nagaph denotes being struck, injured, defeated, afflicted, plagued, or caused to stumble. Agent, object, intent, grammatical voice, and setting distinguish battle loss, accidental or negligent injury, divine judgment, disease, animal damage, and ordinary physical contact.
When the troops returned to the camp, the elders of Israel asked, “Why has the Lord brought defeat on us before the Philistines today? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord from Shiloh, so that it may go with us to save us from the hand of our enemies.”
After military defeat, Israel's elders ask why and presume that bringing the ark will secure rescue.
If men who are fighting strike a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband demands and as the court allows.
The law addresses men fighting who strike a pregnant woman and cause premature birth without further injury.
If a man’s ox injures his neighbor’s ox and it dies, they must sell the live one and divide the proceeds; they also must divide the dead animal.
The law provides an economic response when one person's ox injures and kills a neighbor's ox.
After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill.
After Nathan leaves, David's child becomes gravely ill within the narrative of David's confessed wrongdoing.
And the Lord will strike Egypt with a plague; He will strike them but heal them. They will turn to the Lord, and He will hear their prayers and heal them.
Isaiah says the Lord will strike Egypt and also heal as the people turn and pray.
Then you will go on your way in safety, and your foot will not stumble.
Wisdom portrays a secure path on which a person's foot does not stumble.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. To strike or push with force, often implying defeat or harm; God's weapon of judgment against nations and individuals
To strike or push with force, often implying defeat or harm; God's weapon of judgment against nations and individuals
to push, gore, defeat, stub (the toe), inflict (a disease) BDB: strike Usage: beat, dash, hurt, plague, slay, smite (down), strike, stumble, × surely, put to the worse.
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 49 lexical occurrence verses.
נָגַף is a primitive root - no further derivation.
The term highlights the seriousness of divine discipline.Isaiah 19:18-22
Nagaph makes careful distinctions essential because striking can range from a stubbed foot to catastrophic defeat. First Samuel 4 records Israel's military loss and the elders' decision to bring the ark as though sacred proximity would guarantee victory. The later capture of the ark exposes that presumption and warns against using worship objects as techniques.
Exodus 21 addresses injury to a pregnant woman during men's violence and gives the court a role in consequence. Teachers should center the woman's safety and the actual injury rather than turning the verse into a slogan detached from its ancient legal setting. The nearby ox case demonstrates responsibility for harm caused through property and animals. Second Samuel 12 reports a child's illness after David's exploitation, arranged killing, confrontation, and confession.
The child must not be blamed, and the passage cannot become a formula for explaining another family's loss. Isaiah 19 holds divine striking and healing within an oracle concerning Egypt, while Proverbs 3 uses a non-stumbling foot to picture wisdom's safe course. Faithful application rejects magical guarantees, interrupts violence, seeks emergency and medical care, documents injuries, protects children and pregnant people, supports grief, and refuses to infer individual guilt from suffering.
Exod.21.22
Nagaph transliterates Hebrew נָגַף. Its forms can be transitive or passive and can take persons, armies, animals, lands, or body parts as objects; accompanying nouns and prepositions distinguish collision, injury, defeat, plague, and stumbling.
New Testament narratives of injury, illness, judgment, healing, and care use different Greek terms and maintain distinct agents and outcomes. Psalm 91's stone image is quoted in the temptation narrative, where Jesus refuses manipulative testing, reinforcing that protection promises do not authorize reckless exposure.