To push off ; used in a great variety of applications, literally and figuratively (to expel, mislead, strike, inflict, etc.)
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The Hebrew verb nadach describes pushing or driving away, being banished or scattered, and being drawn from a path. Deuteronomy can speak of people banished to a distant horizon and of a heart turning away from the Lord.
Reader summary
Full entry for נָדַח (H5080) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew verb nadach describes pushing or driving away, being banished or scattered, and being drawn from a path. Deuteronomy can speak of people banished to a distant horizon and of a heart turning away from the Lord.
The BSB source-word alignment has 54 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include I have banished them (4), astray (2), He had banished them (2), I have banished you (2), the exiles (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Deuteronomy 4:19. Its strongest book concentrations include Jeremiah (18), Deuteronomy (10), Isaiah (7), 2 Samuel (4).
The Hebrew verb nadach describes pushing or driving away, being banished or scattered, and being drawn from a path. Deuteronomy can speak of people banished to a distant horizon and of a heart turning away from the Lord. Samuel uses the language of a banished person within a politically manipulated appeal, while Jeremiah condemns shepherds who drive the flock away and promises that the Lord will gather exiles from the places of banishment.
The verb can name an agent's coercive action, a displaced person's condition, or a figurative movement toward error. It does not prove that every exile, migration, church departure, or estrangement is divine punishment. Nor does restoration language permit authorities to force people back into unsafe homes, congregations, or relationships. Responsible teaching asks who drove whom, whether the action is condemned or attributed to covenant judgment, and what return, healing, justice, and consent the passage names.
It protects displaced people from stigma, confronts leaders who scatter through cruelty, and receives the Lord's gathering promises without erasing accountability or human agency.
Nadach ranges from causing someone to depart, banishing people, and describing an outcast condition to a heart being drawn away. The acting agent, verbal form, covenant setting, and restoration context distinguish coercion, judgment, wandering, temptation, and return.
Even if you have been banished to the farthest horizon, He will gather you and return you from there.
Moses says that even those banished to the farthest horizon will be gathered and brought back by the Lord.
But if your heart turns away and you do not listen, but are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them,
The covenant warning describes a heart turning away, refusing to listen, and being drawn toward other gods.
For we will surely die and be like water poured out on the ground, which cannot be recovered. Yet God does not take away a life, but He devises ways that the banished one may not be cast out from Him.
The wise woman speaks of God devising ways for a banished person, within Joab's staged appeal to David.
Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says about the shepherds who tend My people: “You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your deeds, declares the Lord.
The Lord indicts shepherds who scattered His flock, drove them away, and failed to attend to them.
I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore you from captivity and gather you from all the nations and places to which I have banished you, declares the Lord. I will restore you to the place from which I sent you into exile.”
The Lord promises to gather the exiles from every nation and place to which He had banished them.
The Lord builds up Jerusalem; He gathers the exiles of Israel.
The psalm praises the Lord who rebuilds Jerusalem and gathers the exiles of Israel.
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. Fundamental force concept: to push forcefully away, ranging from physical expulsion to spiritual seduction or moral deviation.
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 4 selected witnesses from 52 lexical occurrence verses.
נָדַח is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Nadach gives readers language for both the pain of being driven away and the danger of being drawn from a faithful path. Deuteronomy 30 holds banishment and gathering in the same covenant horizon: distance is real, but it is not beyond the Lord's reach. The chapter also warns of a heart that turns away, yet that warning does not authorize coercive control of another person's beliefs.
Second Samuel 14 contains a memorable statement about the banished, but it comes from a woman enlisted by Joab to influence David through a staged case. Its theological language must be read inside that political strategy and the unresolved consequences of Absalom's return. Jeremiah 23 speaks more directly to leadership: shepherds are accountable for scattering and neglecting the flock.
A leader cannot cite unity while driving people away through violence, concealment, discrimination, or retaliation. Jeremiah 29 and Psalm 147 place gathering with restoration and rebuilding, not mere institutional return. Faithful application listens to displaced people, names the agents and causes of exclusion, repairs material harm, and allows safe voluntary reconnection where truth and accountability make it possible.
Some departures protect life and conscience. The verb alone cannot tell whether a person wandered, was expelled, fled danger, experienced judgment, or was sent elsewhere; the passage supplies that judgment.
Jer.23.2
Nadach is a Hebrew verb with causative forms that commonly describe driving or banishing and passive or reflexive forms that describe being displaced or straying. Objects, agents, and directional language determine whether the movement is physical, social, covenantal, or figurative.
New Testament gathering, scattering, exile, wandering, restoration, and church-discipline passages use several Greek terms, including the distinct gathering verb G1996 in this batch. Canonical comparison can trace God's care for scattered people without treating every departure, return, or assembly as the same event.