for-bid´ (כּלא, kālā’; κωλύω, kōlúō): Occurs very seldom in the Old Testament except as the rendering of ḥālı̄lāh (see below); it is once the translation of kālā’, “to restrain” ([Num 11:28], “Joshua ... said My lord Moses forbid them”); twice of cāwāh, “to command” ([Deu 2:37], “and wheresoever Yahweh our God forbade us”; [Deu 4:23], “Yahweh thy God hath forbidden thee,” literally, “commanded”); once of lō’, “not,” the Revised Version (British and American) “commanded not to be done” ([Lev 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 ḥālı̄lāh, denoting profanation, or abhorrence (rendered, [Gen 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 kōluō, “to cut short,” “restrain” is the word commonly translated “forbid” ([Mat 19:14], “forbid them not,” etc.); in [Luk 6:29], the Revised Version (British and American) has “withhold not”; diakōlúō, with a similar meaning, occurs in [Mat 3:14], “John forbade him,” the Revised Version (British and American) “would have hindered him”; akōlútos, “uncut off” ([Act 28:31]), is translated “none forbidding him.” The phrase “God forbid” (mḗ génoito, “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 [Gal 6:14], where the text has “Far be it from me”; mē genoito is one of the renderings of ḥālı̄lāh in Septuagint. “God forbid” also appears in Apocrypha (1 Macc 2:21, the Revised Version (British and American) “Heaven forbid,” margin, Greek “may he be propitious,” 1 Macc 9:10, the Revised Version (British and American) “Let it not be”).
