Meaning
Occurs very seldom in the Old Testament except as the rendering of chalilah (see below); it is once the translation of kala', "to restrain" (Nu 11:28, "Joshua .... said My lord Moses forbid them"); twice of tsawah, "to command" (De 2:37, "and wheresoever Yahweh our God forbade us"; De 4:23, "Yahweh thy God hath forbidden thee," literally, "commanded"); once of lo', "not," the Revised Version (British and American) "commanded not to be done" (Le 5:17). In the phrases, "Yahweh forbid" (1Sa 24:6, 1Sa 26:11, 1Ki 21:13), "God forbid" (Gen 44:7, Jos 22:29, Jos 24:16, 1Sa 12:23, Job 27:5, etc.), "My God forbid it me" (1Ch 11:19), the word is chalilah, denoting profanation, or abhorrence (rendered, Ge 18:25 the King James Version, "that be far from thee"); the English Revised Version leaves the expressions unchanged; the American Standard Revised Version substitutes "far be it from me," "thee," etc., except in 1Sa 14:45, 1Sa 20:2, where it is, "Far from it."
In the New Testament koluo, "to cut short," "restrain" is the word commonly translated "forbid" (Mt 19:14, "forbid them not," etc.); in Lu 6:29, the Revised Version (British and American) has "withhold not"; diakoluo, with a similar meaning, occurs in Mt 3:14, "John forbade him," the Revised Version (British and American) "would have hindered him"; akolutos, "uncut off" (Ac 28:31), is translated "none forbidding him." The phrase "God forbid" (me genoito, "let it not be," Luk 20:16, Rom 3:4, etc.) is retained by the Revised Version (British and American), with margin "Be it not so," except in Ga 6:14, where the text has "Far be it from me"; me genoito is one of the renderings of chalilah in Septuagint. "God forbid" also appears in Apocrypha (/APC 1Macc 2:21, the Revised Version (British and American) "Heaven forbid," margin, Greek "may he be propitious," /APC 1Macc 9:10, the Revised Version (British and American) "Let it not be").
W. L. Walker
