H5375 — נָשָׂא (nāśāʾ)¶

Core Data¶

Strong's: H5375
Original: נָשָׂא
Transliteration: nāśāʾ (nâsâʼ)
Pronunciation: naw-saw
Part of Speech: Verb
Root: Primitive root (alternate form נָסָה nāsāh occurs in Ps 4:6)
Occurrences: 607 unique verses (759 tokens) in 37 books
First Occurrence: Gen 4:13 — "My punishment [is] greater than I can bear"
Hapax Legomenon: No

Lexicon Definition¶

A primitive root; to lift, in a great variety of applications, literal and figurative, absolute and relative: — accept, advance, arise, (able to, armor-, suffer to) bear(-er, up), bring (forth), burn, carry (away), cast, contain, desire, ease, exact, exalt (self), extol, fetch, forgive, furnish, further, give, go on, help, high, hold up, honorable (man), lade, lay, lift (self) up, lofty, marry, magnify, needs, obtain, pardon, raise (up), receive, regard, respect, set (up), spare, stir up, swear, take (away, up), utterly, wear, yield.

Verb Stem Distribution¶

Stem	Count	Typical Meaning
Qal	596	lift, carry, bear, take (default active sense)
Niphal	34	be lifted up, be exalted, be carried
Piel	12	carry away, exalt, take up
Hithpael	9	exalt oneself, lift oneself up
Hiphil	2	cause to lift, help bear
Peal / Htpa	3	Aramaic cognate occurrences

Tallied from BHSA Text-Fabric (lex=NF>[), total tokens: 656 parsed forms

Translation Distribution (KJV)¶

Semantic Cluster	Representative Translations	Verses	Est. %
Lift up / raise	lifted up, lift up, Lift up	~90	15%
Bear / carry	shall bear, to bear, bare, bearing	~80	13%
Take / take up	take, take up, took	~45	7%
Transport / bring	carry, brought, bringing	~25	4%
Forgive / pardon	forgive, pardon, forgiven, forgiving	~15	2.5%
Armor-bearer	his armourbearer, armourbearer	~13	2%
Accept / regard	accept, regard, respect	~12	2%
Exalt / magnify	exalted, extolled, magnified	~8	1%
Other	200+ unique KJV phrases	~319	53%

607 unique verses. Highly distributed due to the verb's broad semantic range.

Distribution by Book¶

Book	Count	Per 100 Verses
Malachi	4	7.3
Micah	7	6.7
Habakkuk	3	5.4
Ezekiel	68	5.3
Haggai	2	5.3
Isaiah	57	4.4
Zechariah	9	4.3
Esther	7	4.2
Jonah	2	4.2
Numbers	44	3.4
1 Samuel	27	3.3
2 Samuel	23	3.3
Joshua	21	3.2
Lamentations	5	3.2
2 Kings	21	2.9
Genesis	42	2.7
Exodus	32	2.6
Leviticus	22	2.6
Psalms	43	1.7
Jeremiah	25	1.8
Proverbs	9	1.0

Ezekiel and Isaiah account for 125 of 607 uses (21%). High density in Micah/Malachi/Habakkuk suggests prophetic idiom for lament and divine exaltation.

Semantic Categories¶

1. Lifting the Eyes / Voice / Hand (Gestural Idioms)¶

The most common idiom is wayyiśśāʾ ... ʾet-ʿênāyw ("and he lifted up his eyes"), used for deliberate visual survey. Lifting the voice = weeping or crying aloud. Lifting the hand = swearing an oath. - Gen 13:14 — "Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art" (territorial survey) - Gen 21:16 — "she lifted up her voice, and wept" (crying aloud) - Exo 6:8 — "I did swear (lit. I lifted my hand) to give it to Abraham" (oath-swearing) - Lam 3:41 — "Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens" (posture of prayer)

2. Physical Transport and Carrying¶

Bearing physical objects — the ark, burdens, provisions, bodies — by servants, Levites, and laborers. - Num 1:50 — "the Levites... shall bear the tabernacle" (Levitical carrying duty) - 1 Kgs 5:15 — "Solomon had threescore and ten thousand that bare burdens" (labor force) - 2 Sam 2:32 — "they took up Asahel, and buried him" (carrying the dead) - Josh 3:6 — "Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people" (priestly command)

3. Bearing Consequences and Burdens (Moral/Legal)¶

Nāśāʾʾāwōn / nāśāʾ ḥēṭ — to "bear iniquity/sin" means to suffer the consequence or bear legal liability. The sinner bears his own guilt; alternatively, a substitute or God bears it away. - Gen 4:13 — "My punishment [is] greater than I can bear" (Cain bearing consequences) - Lev 5:1, 17 — "he shall bear his iniquity" (legal formula: liability falls on the sinner) - Isa 53:12 — "he bare the sin of many" (Servant bearing others' guilt — substitutionary) - Num 14:34 — "ye shall bear your iniquities, even forty years" (covenant penalty)

4. Forgiveness / Pardoning Sin¶

When God is the subject, nāśāʾ + ʿāwōn/peśaʿ/ḥaṭṭāʾ means to "lift off" guilt — to forgive, absolve, pardon. The same verb used for bearing sin is used for removing it. - Exo 10:17 — "forgive, I pray thee, my sin" (Pharaoh pleading) - Psa 32:5 — "thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin" (David's confession answered) - Mic 7:18 — "Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity?" (doxology) - Exo 34:7 — "forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin" (divine self-disclosure)

5. Exaltation and Honor¶

Niphal and Hithpael stems frequently describe being raised to honor or exalting oneself. The prophetic literature pairs nāśāʾ with rûm (H7311) for the "high and lofty" exaltation of God. - Isa 2:2 — "the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established... exalted above the hills" - Isa 52:13 — "he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high" (Servant's vindication) - Ezek 1:19–21 — the living creatures and wheels "lifted up from the earth" (theophanic vision) - Est 3:1 — "Ahasuerus... advanced Haman" (royal promotion)

6. Taking a Census ("Lifting the Head")¶

A specialized idiom: nāśāʾ ʾet-rōʾš ("lift the head of") means to take a census, count, or muster. Used throughout Numbers. - Num 1:2 — "Take ye the sum (lit. lift the head) of all the congregation" - Num 1:49 — "thou shalt not number the tribe of Levi, neither take the sum" - Exo 30:12 — "when thou takest the sum of the children of Israel"

Common Collocations¶

Word	Strong's	Co-occurrences	Typical Pattern
פָּנִים (pânîym)	H6440	76x	"lift the face" = show favor; "lift up the face of" = accept/honor
עַיִן (ʻayin)	H5869	63x	"lift up the eyes" — surveying, beholding
עַם (ʻam)	H5971	62x	bearing the people's burden or addressing the community
יִשְׂרָאֵל (Yisrāʾēl)	H3478	57x	Israel's census, ark-bearing, covenant context
יָד (yâd)	H3027	48x	"lift the hand" = swearing, exerting power
מֶלֶךְ (melek)	H4428	48x	royal service, armor-bearing, tribute
נָתַן (nâthan)	H5414	49x	give + lift — combined actions

Word Family / Cognates¶

H5381 נָשַׂג (nāśag) — reach, attain (Strong's-adjacent; different root)
H4853 מַשָּׂא (maśśāʾ) — burden, oracle (derived noun from H5375: "that which is lifted/borne")
H5375 as denominative noun: נֹשֵׂא כֵלִים (nōśēʾ kēlîm) — "armor-bearer" (participle + H3627)

Synonyms¶

H1364 גָּבֹהַּ — high; elevation/exaltation neighbor.
H7311 רוּם — rise, be high, exalt; the closest parallel in the "lift up/exalt" sense.
H3680 כָּסָה — cover; overlaps with H5375 in the guilt-removal / forgiveness extension.
H5352 נָקָה — be clean, acquit; overlaps in the acquittal / guilt-clearing field.
H5545 סָלַח — forgive, pardon; explicit pardon parallel.
H5674 עָבַר — pass over; overlaps in removal / pardon idioms.
H6662 צַדִּיק — righteous, innocent; surfaced through the innocence/acquittal domain.
H1431 גָּדַל — grow, become great; exaltation field.
H6965 קוּם — arise, stand up; upward-motion neighbor.
H7287 רָדָה, H1993 הָמָה, H6670 צָהַל, H6681 צוּחַ, H7442 רָנַן — secondary neighbors surfaced by search_relationships.py from the wider action/speech/exaltation domains.

Antonyms¶

H8213 שָׁפֵל — be low, be abased; direct opposite of the exaltation sense.
H8217 שָׁפָל — low, humble; opposite of the lifted/high state.

Easily Confused Words¶

Word	Strong's	Shared Translation	Key Difference
רוּם (rûwm)	H7311	"lift up," "exalted," "high"	rûwm = static height or divine majesty; nāśāʾ = the active process of lifting or carrying
סָבַל (çâbal)	H5445	"shall bear," "bear"	çâbal emphasizes the heaviness/suffering of the load (Isa 46:4, 7); nāśāʾ is semantically neutral
לָקַח (lâqach)	H3947	"take," "take up"	lâqach = acquisition/receiving; nāśāʾ = raising/carrying something already held
סָלַח (çâlach)	H5545	"forgive," "pardon"	çâlach is exclusively divine forgiveness; nāśāʾ covers both bearing guilt AND removing it

UBS Semantic Domains¶

Code	Domain Label	Notes
002001001033	High	Covers the literal and figurative "lift up / exalt" range.
002003003003	Bear	Captures carrying burdens, guilt, or responsibility.
002003001009	Hold	Fits the "take up / hold aloft / carry in hand" uses.
002004001009013	Vow	Reflects the oath idiom "lift the hand."
002002001012	Move	Covers transport / taking up / carrying away.

search_relationships.py surfaced many secondary domains for H5375 because of its unusually broad semantic range, including acquittal/pardon and speech-related idioms; the five above are the clearest fits for the study's main usage clusters.

LXX Mapping¶

Greek Equivalent	Strong's	Co-occ	PMI Score	Notes
αἴρω (aírō)	G142	164x	24.47	Primary equivalent — "lift up, take away"
ἀναλαμβάνω (analambánō)	G353	45x	17.79	Take up, receive up — transport/ascension sense
ἐπαίρω (epaírō)	G1869	31x	14.95	Raise up (literally or figuratively)
ἀναβλέπω (anablépō)	G308	20x	14.64	Look up — captures "lift eyes" idiom specifically
λαμβάνω (lambánō)	G2983	153x	12.83	Take, receive — broader semantic overlap

αἴρω is the primary bridge (164x co-occurrence, PMI 24.47). The LXX also uses ἀναβλέπω specifically for the "lift eyes" idiom, showing translators tracking the Hebrew sub-idiom.