To divide (in variation senses literally or figuratively, separate, distinguish, differ, select, etc.)
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To separate or distinguish is to mark a difference or put things apart. This Hebrew verb appears in different kinds of distinctions: God separates light from darkness, priests must distinguish holy from common and clean from unclean, and Isaiah describes sins as a barrier between the people and God.
Reader summary
Full entry for בָּדַל (H914) · Open the biblical lexicon
To separate or distinguish is to mark a difference or put things apart. This Hebrew verb appears in different kinds of distinctions: God separates light from darkness, priests must distinguish holy from common and clean from unclean, and Isaiah describes sins as a barrier between the people and God.
The BSB source-word alignment has 42 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include separate (2), set apart (2), who had separated themselves (2), You must distinguish (2), . . . (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 1:4. Its strongest book concentrations include Leviticus (8), Ezra (6), Deuteronomy (5), Genesis (5).
To separate or distinguish is to mark a difference or put things apart. This Hebrew verb appears in different kinds of distinctions: God separates light from darkness, priests must distinguish holy from common and clean from unclean, and Isaiah describes sins as a barrier between the people and God. The word itself does not make every separation good or every boundary oppressive. The things distinguished and the reason for the distinction must be read in context.
Isaiah 56:3 provides a particularly important limit. A foreigner joined to the Lord must not say that the Lord will exclude him from His people, and the following promises address both foreigners and eunuchs. By contrast, Isaiah 59:2 confronts sins and the injustice described in the surrounding verses. Read together, these passages prevent ethnic identity or bodily condition from being confused with the wrongdoing that creates the barrier in Isaiah 59. They also prevent teachers from explaining every feeling of distance from God as proof of personal guilt.
Creation's ordering, priestly distinctions, sin's barrier, and the foreigner's feared exclusion place separation language within different purposes. The passages require discernment about both valid distinction and unwarranted exclusion.
And God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.
God sees that the light is good and separates it from darkness, followed by the naming of day and night. The ordering of creation should not be made a complete moral classification of every later use of darkness.
You must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the clean and the unclean,
Priests must distinguish holy from common and clean from unclean, with instruction of Israel named immediately afterward. These categories have their stated priestly setting rather than serving as labels of ethnic or personal superiority.
But your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear.
The barrier is attributed to the people's sins, and the following verses name bloodshed, lies, and injustice. The accusation is concrete and should not be assigned indiscriminately to every distressed worshiper.
Let no foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will utterly exclude me from His people.” And let the eunuch not say, “I am but a dry tree.”
The foreigner joined to the Lord is told not to assume exclusion, while the eunuch is told not to regard himself as a dry tree. The following promises make the correction of hopeless exclusion explicit.
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 divide by making a distinction; carries covenantal weight in separating Israel as holy from nations.
To divide by making a distinction; carries covenantal weight in separating Israel as holy from nations.
to divide (in variation senses literally or figuratively, separate, distinguish, differ, select, etc.) BDB: be divided Usage: (make, put) difference, divide (asunder), (make) separate (self, -ation), sever (out), × utterly.
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 42 lexical occurrence verses.
בָּדַל is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Separation reflects covenant holiness and the safeguarding of spiritual identity.Nehemiah 13:1-3
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Isaiah 56:3 directly addresses a foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord and fears being separated from His people. The verse also addresses the eunuch's fear of being a dry tree. The following promises do not ask these people to pretend they have a different history or body; they speak of belonging and remembrance within faithful response to the Lord.
That text should govern the tone of an application about exclusion. A community must not use the mere idea of being different as proof that God has rejected someone. Isaiah 59 does confront a barrier caused by sins, but its surrounding language names actual wrongdoing. Distinguishing these passages protects the force of both: wrongdoing requires truthful acknowledgment, and those whom the promise addresses should not be denied hope because of their background or bodily condition. The verb separate cannot replace the careful attention that each passage requires.
Isa.56.3
Separating, distinguishing, and setting apart describe relations between things or people; they do not carry one moral evaluation across all uses. Creation, priestly instruction, wrongdoing, and promised welcome each specify the distinction that matters. A lexical gloss should not erase those different objects and purposes.
Acts 10:34-36 declares God's lack of favoritism and introduces the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, Lord of all. This offers a canonical comparison with Isaiah 56's promise concerning foreigners. It does not make every Levitical distinction interchangeable with the ethnic exclusion Peter's address confronts.