ba.rach describes flight from a person, place, danger, or pursuit, and in a few clauses driving away or passing through.

The predominant use describes people or groups leaving in flight from a threatening person, place, or situation, often with a stated destination or source of danger. A smaller set of clauses depicts driving people away, while passages about the tabernacle’s middle bar use the term for its movement from end to end.

1. Escape or withdraw from pursuit and danger · dominant

   Qal forms repeatedly describe departure under threat: Moses leaves Pharaoh’s presence in Exodus 2:15, David escapes after being let down through a window in 1 Samuel 19:12, and Zedekiah with the fighting men leave the city by night in Jeremiah 39:4. The same use includes directed commands and intentions, as Jacob is told to go to Laban in Genesis 27:43 and Jonah sets out for Tarshish in Jonah 1:3.

   Exodus 2:151 Samuel 19:12Genesis 27:43Jonah 1:3Jeremiah 39:4Isaiah 48:20
2. Drive people away · occasional

   Hiphil forms occur where people are forcibly removed: in 1 Chronicles 8:13 the APB renders the clause “they drove out the inhabitants of Gath,” and in Nehemiah 13:28 it renders “I drove him away from me.”

   1 Chronicles 8:13Nehemiah 13:28
3. Extend or pass through · occasional

   In descriptions of the middle bar among the boards, the clause concerns movement from one end to the other: Exodus 26:28 says it “shall run from end to end,” while Exodus 36:33 says it was made “to pass through” the boards’ midst. These clauses do not describe a person escaping.

   Exodus 26:28Exodus 36:33

In the Anselm Project Bible: Across the flight clauses, the APB commonly uses “fled,” “flee,” or “fleeing,” and it also depicts destinations, pursuit, and escape. In the smaller non-flight clusters it uses “drove out,” “drove him away,” “run,” and “pass through”; these are renderings of whole clauses glosses.