to surround
na.qaph describes encircling people, places, or objects, and can also denote a recurring circuit or rounding an edge.
The predominant use depicts persons, forces, structures, or features forming an enclosure around someone or something, including a city, a king, and the sea. A smaller group concerns a completed or recurring circuit of days or feasts, while one command concerns rounding the side of the head.
Senses in use
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Encircling or enclosing · dominant
The Hiphil forms describe an enclosing ring: guards are directed to be with the king on every side in 2 Kings 11:8, and a force surrounds the city by night in 2 Kings 6:14. In Joshua 6:3 the Hiphil infinitive absolute occurs in the command for the men of war to move around the city once; in 1 Kings 7:24 the participle describes two rows of gourds around the sea.
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Completing a recurring circuit · occasional
In Job 1:5 the Hiphil perfect occurs when the days of the feast had gone around, after which Job acts for his children. Isaiah 29:1 uses a Qal jussive in the call, “let the feasts surround it,” placing the action in the sequence of year upon year.
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Rounding the side of the head · rare
Leviticus 19:27 uses a Hiphil imperfect in a prohibition concerning the side of the head, which the APB renders, “You shall not round the side of your head.”
In the Anselm Project Bible: Across clear enclosing contexts, the APB commonly uses “surround” or “went around,” as in 2 Kings 6:14 and 1 Kings 7:24. It also renders the temporal context in Job 1:5 as days having “gone around” and the bodily prohibition in Leviticus 19:27 as “round”; these are verse-level renderings, not definitionses.