Undertake un-der-tak': "To take upon one's self," "assume responsibility," and so in Elizabethan English "be surety." In this sense in the King James Version Isaiah 38:14, "O Lord, .... undertake for me" (`arabh, the Revised Version (British and American) "be thou my surety"). Perhaps in the same sense in Wisdom of Sirach 29:19, although the idea is scarcely contained in the Greek verb dioko, "pursue." In the modern sense in Ezra 1:28, 2Macc 2:29, 8:10; the King James Version 2:27.

See SURE, SURETY.


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