Means to bring together, gather in (as a harvest), assemble (people), or take away / remove. It is used for gathering crops, assembling armies, collecting the people of Israel, and euphemistically for death ('gathered to his fathers'). The Levitical musician Asaph bears this name, and it also forms the root of the noun ʾāsēph (ingathering).
The theology of gathering runs throughout redemptive history. God scattered Israel among the nations as judgment (Deut 28:64) but repeatedly promised to gather them back (Deut 30:3; Isa 11:12; Ezek 36:24). This prophetic gathering is one of the most powerful images of eschatological hope in the Hebrew Bible. The Feast of Ingathering (Sukkot) celebrated the autumn harvest as a type of God's final gathering of His people. Jesus echoed this when He wept over Jerusalem: 'How often would I have gathered thy children together' (Matt 23:37). The death euphemism — being 'gathered to one's people' (Gen 25:8) — hints at reunion beyond the grave, a community that transcends death.