The verb anaspaō means to draw something up or pull it upward. It appears twice in the New Testament: in Acts 11:10 (the great sheet in Peter's vision being drawn up to heaven) and in Luke 14:5 (pulling an ox or child from a well on the Sabbath).
Both uses of anaspaō illuminate Jesus' teaching about the Sabbath. In Luke 14:5, Jesus argues from the lesser to the greater: if you would pull (anaspaō) your ox from a well on the Sabbath — an act of practical mercy — how much more should a human being be healed on the Sabbath? Mercy always fulfills the Sabbath's intention, never violates it. In Acts 11, the vision of the sheet being pulled up to heaven frames Peter's radical new understanding: what God has cleansed, no human tradition should call unclean. Both passages confront religious rigidity with the expansive mercy of God.