נָדַד
na.dad (H5074)
to wander
AI Word Study
# Nādad (נָדַד): The Hebrew Word for Wandering The Hebrew verb nādad carries the fundamental meaning "to wander," describing movement that lacks a fixed destination or purpose. With 28 occurrences throughout the biblical text, this word occupies a modest but consistent place in Hebrew vocabulary for depicting displacement and aimless movement. The word's relatively stable frequency across biblical literature suggests it served as a reliable term for this concept, neither rare nor commonplace. The practical significance of nādad lies in its capacity to describe both literal physical displacement and metaphorical states of disorder. In contexts involving actual travel, it denotes the kind of movement associated with refugees, exiles, or those without settled habitation—people in transition rather than people with established homes. This semantic range allowed biblical writers to employ nādad when they needed to convey not merely motion, but the particular character of unsettled or restless movement, distinguishing it from purposeful journey or deliberate travel to a known destination. Without additional contextual examples from the provided data, the precise nuances of how different biblical authors deployed nādad—whether emphasizing loss, punishment, survival, or other dimensions of wandering—remain unspecified. What is clear is that this verb provided ancient Hebrew speakers with a specific vocabulary tool for expressing the condition and experience of being without a settled place, making it a semantically important word for
AI synthesis uses only provided lexicon data -- never training knowledge.
This was my situation: in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from my eyes.
But all the ungodly will be as thorns to be thrust away, because they can’t be taken with the hand,
On that night, the king couldn’t sleep. He commanded the book of records of the chronicles to be brought, and they were read to the king.
He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.
He will fly away as a dream, and will not be found. Yes, he will be chased away like a vision of the night.
Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbors, a horror to my acquaintances. Those who saw me on the street fled from me.
Behold, then I would wander far off. I would lodge in the wilderness.”
Their own tongues shall ruin them. All who see them will shake their heads.
“Kings of armies flee! They flee!” She who waits at home divides the plunder,
As a bird that wanders from her nest, so is a man who wanders from his home.
My hand has found the riches of the peoples like a nest, and like one gathers eggs that are abandoned, I have gathered all the earth. There was no one who moved their wing, or that opened their mouth, or chirped.”
Madmenah is a fugitive. The inhabitants of Gebim flee for safety.
For it will be that as wandering birds, as a scattered nest, so will the daughters of Moab be at the fords of the Arnon.
Give counsel! Execute justice! Make your shade like the night in the middle of the noonday! Hide the outcasts! Don’t betray the fugitive!
They brought water to him who was thirsty. The inhabitants of the land of Tema met the fugitives with their bread.
For they fled away from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the heat of battle.
All your rulers fled away together. They were bound by the archers. All who were found by you were bound together. They fled far away.
At the noise of the thunder, the peoples have fled. When you lift yourself up, the nations are scattered.
I saw, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the sky had fled.
I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.
Behold, I will bring a terror on you,” says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, “from all who are around you. All of you will be driven completely out, and there will be no one to gather together the fugitives.
Woe to them! For they have wandered from me. Destruction to them! For they have trespassed against me. Though I would redeem them, yet they have spoken lies against me.
My God will cast them away, because they didn’t listen to him; and they will be wanderers among the nations.
It will happen that all those who look at you will flee from you, and say, ‘Nineveh is laid waste! Who will mourn for her?’ Where will I seek comforters for you?”
Your guards are like the locusts, and your officials like the swarms of locusts, which settle on the walls on a cold day, but when the sun appears, they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.