To encounter , whether accidentally or in a hostile manner
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An encounter brings someone face to face with another person or with an event that has come upon them. This Hebrew verb can describe going out to meet someone, finding oneself confronted by danger, or suffering something that happens.
Reader summary
Full entry for קָרָא (H7122) · Open the biblical lexicon
An encounter brings someone face to face with another person or with an event that has come upon them. This Hebrew verb can describe going out to meet someone, finding oneself confronted by danger, or suffering something that happens.
The BSB source-word alignment has 138 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include to meet (22), to meet him (12), against (11), . . . (7), to meet them (7).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 14:17. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Samuel (20), 2 Kings (16), 2 Samuel (16), Genesis (14).
An encounter brings someone face to face with another person or with an event that has come upon them. This Hebrew verb can describe going out to meet someone, finding oneself confronted by danger, or suffering something that happens. It does not decide beforehand whether the meeting will bring welcome, confrontation, relief, or sorrow. Those differences emerge from the people involved and from what the passage says they do. The same kind of encounter language belongs to Esau's embrace of Jacob and to Israel's summons to face divine judgment. A reader must hear each scene before drawing a lesson from the word.
In Genesis 33:4, the meeting that Jacob dreaded becomes an embrace. In Genesis 42:38, Jacob imagines harm overtaking Benjamin during a journey. Neither passage permits us to turn the verb into a prediction about how our own feared meeting will end. At Sinai, Moses brings the people out to meet God, and the surrounding account establishes the holiness and seriousness of that approach. Amos uses a summons to meet God after repeatedly describing Israel's refusal to return to Him. The danger in Amos comes from that covenant context, not from a threatening meaning hidden inside the verb.
David's meeting with Abigail offers another distinction. He praises God for sending her because her intervention has restrained his vengeance. The narrative itself identifies this merciful purpose. We may therefore thank God for correction without assuming that every interruption carries a message we can confidently decode. Faithful teaching names the encounter, listens to the surrounding story, and locates its moral significance in the text's own explanation. It leaves room for welcome, warning, grief, and restraint without reducing them to one spiritual formula.
These representative encounters move from family reunion and feared loss to meeting God and receiving corrective intervention. Their varied outcomes show why encounter language must be interpreted through the surrounding narrative or prophetic address.
Esau, however, ran to him and embraced him, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. And they both wept.
Esau's approach ends in embrace and shared tears. The gracious reception belongs to this narrated reunion and does not guarantee the outcome of every difficult family meeting.
But Jacob replied, “My son will not go down there with you, for his brother is dead, and he alone is left. If any harm comes to him on your journey, you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow.”
Jacob fears that harm will overtake Benjamin. His anxious anticipation describes a possible event, not an inspired explanation of every loss or danger.
Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain.
Moses leads Israel from the camp to meet God at Sinai. The mountain, divine speech, and commanded boundaries explain the solemn character of this encounter.
“Therefore, that is what I will do to you, O Israel, and since I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!
The summons follows repeated refusals to return to the Lord. Meeting God here is a warning of accountability, not a detached promise of an uplifting experience.
Then David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you to meet me this day!
David credits the Lord with sending Abigail to meet him. The following blessing identifies her discernment and his restraint from bloodshed as the encounter's good fruit.
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 encounter , whether accidentally or in a hostile manner
to encounter, whether accidentally or in a hostile manner BDB: encounter Usage: befall, (by) chance, (cause to) come (upon), fall out, happen, meet.
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.
קָרָא 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.
A timely meeting may expose a course of action that anger has made seem inevitable. David is already moving toward violence when Abigail addresses him. His praise in 1 Samuel 25:32 does more than acknowledge that their paths crossed: he recognizes God's restraint through her discernment. The next verses name the bloodshed and self-avenging he has been kept from committing. That explanation gives the encounter its moral force.
Teachers can invite listeners to receive truthful correction before retaliation hardens into action. The invitation should place responsibility on the person preparing to harm, not turn Abigail's dangerous intervention into a duty imposed on threatened people. Nor does the episode teach us to identify every interruption as divine guidance. Here the text supplies the interpretation: restraint from wrongful bloodshed is reason to bless God. The useful question is whether we will listen when our intended response is shown to be wrong.
1Sam.25.32
The encounter verb represented by H7122 must be kept distinct from H7121, the similarly written verb associated with calling. Here participants and events supply the meaning of each meeting; neither the shared spelling nor an English gloss proves a theology of divine calling.
Hebrews 12:18-24 returns explicitly to Sinai and describes approach to God through Jesus, mediator of the new covenant. This is a connection established by the passage's comparison, not a claim that the Hebrew encounter verb itself means salvation or predicts every feature of Christian access.