The Hebrew verb mālaṭ (מָלַט) means to escape, slip away, be delivered, or cause someone to escape. It appears about 95 times in the Old Testament. In the Niphal it means to escape or be delivered; in the Piel it means to give birth (slipping out), to let escape, or to save; in the Hithpael it is reflexive — to save oneself or flee. The word captures both the act of escaping danger and being providentially delivered.
Mālaṭ is one of the key vocabulary words in Israel's theology of deliverance. The prophets use it frequently in oracles of salvation: 'On Mount Zion there will be deliverance' (Obadiah 1:17). In Psalm 124, Israel celebrates escaping 'like a bird out of the fowler's snare' — the snare is broken and 'we have escaped' (mālaṭ). The eschatological promise of Joel 2:32 — 'And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved' — uses a related root. Ultimately, all human escape stories point to the one great Exodus: God's ultimate act of delivering His people from the bondage of sin and death through Christ.