to stumble
ka.shal describes stumbling or falling, on a path, in conflict, or amid wrongdoing and reversal.
The word most often marks a person or group stumbling or falling, whether while moving, in battle, or under adverse circumstances. Some clauses place this failure within corrupt ways or wrongdoing, while Hiphil forms describe causing another person or group to stumble.
Senses in use
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Stumbling or falling in movement and defeat · dominant
Qal and Niphal forms portray subjects who lose their footing or fall: in 2 Chronicles 28:15 a stumbling person is carried on donkeys, while in Jeremiah 46:6 fighters stumble and fall near the River Euphrates. The same outcome is used of a secure path in Proverbs 4:12 and of bodies encountered amid the slain in Nahum 3:3.
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Causing someone to stumble · common
Hiphil forms place the action upon another: in Malachi 2:8 the addressed group has caused many to stumble by instruction, and in Proverbs 4:16 people will not sleep unless they cause someone to stumble. In 2 Chronicles 25:8 the APB renders the clause with God making someone stumble before the enemy.
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Stumbling in corrupt ways or under wrongdoing · occasional
The term can describe failure associated with a person's way or wrongdoing rather than a physical obstacle alone. In Hosea 5:5 Israel and Ephraim stumble in their iniquity, and in Jeremiah 18:15 the APB renders the people as having stumbled in their ways; Isaiah 28:13 joins stumbling backward with being broken, snared, and captured.
In the Anselm Project Bible: Across these verses the APB commonly uses “stumble” and often places it beside “fall,” as in Daniel 11:19 and Isaiah 40:30. It also uses causative wording such as “caused many to stumble” in Malachi 2:8; These renderings confirm the clauses' overall presentation rather than fixing every individual correspondence.