To go, to set off and leave where you are: the body turning and moving away on a road or errand. Yesterday's root was the arrival; this is its mirror, the departure. Every going is a leaving, and the root keeps both in one motion: the man in the parable who goes and sells everything is, in the same breath, walking away from his old life.
This root carries a rare distinction in this corpus: it is attested in Palestinian Aramaic, the dialect family closest to Galilee. The DJPA gives it as "to go, go away, depart," and Casey notes that it can stand euphemistically for dying: going for good. It surfaces 258 times: errands, roads, sendings-out, and a handful of goings that are really farewells.
| Form | Pattern | Transliteration | Script | Standard | Qala rendering |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Verb, perfect | Peal | ʾezal | אזל ܐܶܙܰܠ | he went | he goes and sells (Mt 13:44); went and sold (Mt 13:46) |
| Verb, perfect + "and" | Peal | wʾezal | ואזל ܘܶܐܙܰܠ | and he went | and he went |
| Imperative (pl) | Peal | zelw | זלו ܙܶܠܘ | go! (you all) | So go out (Mt 22:9) |
| Verb, imperfect (3pl) | Peal | dniʾzuwn | דנאזלון ܕ݁ܢܺܐܙܽܠ݈ܘܢ | that they may go | so they can go (Mt 14:15) |
| Stem | Form | Sense | In this corpus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peal | ʾezal | to go, go away, depart | throughout: Mt 13:44–46; 14:15; 22:9 |
| Ethpeel | — | — | not attested in this corpus |
| Pael | — | — | not attested in this corpus |
| Ethpaal | — | — | not attested in this corpus |
| Aphel | — | — | not attested in this corpus |
| Ettaphal | — | — | not attested in this corpus |
| Shaphel | — | — | not attested in this corpus |
Notice, once today, the exact moment you leave a place: the step across a threshold, the turn away from a conversation, the push away from a desk. That ordinary pivot is ʾezal. Now ask the parable's question of yourself: when did joy last make you go somewhere, not duty, not habit, joy? The man in the field does not linger admiring his treasure; the finding becomes a going. If something you have found is worth everything, there is a walk you have not yet taken.
Hebrew has a faint cognate, ʾāzal, rare, and shaded toward "gone, used up," as when the bread in the sack is gone (1 Samuel 9:7). In Aramaic the root stayed young and busy. This is also one of the roots where Palestinian Aramaic attestation exists (the Galilean-closest evidence, noted above) and where scholarship (Casey) hears an idiom: to go, said plainly, could mean to die. Within the 75 it is the returning half of yesterday's ʾ-T-Y: come; between them the two roots carry nearly all the corpus's traffic.
Take two or three minutes and retell Matthew 13:44 to a friend with the Aramaic hinge in place: found, hid, rejoiced (ʾezal) went, sold, bought. Then teach them the imperative zelw, "go!", from the feast parable, and point out the difference: in one, joy sends a man; in the other, a master sends servants. Ask them which kind of going their week needs.