This verb describes scattering or dispersing, particularly of people driven from their homes or spread across different locations. In agricultural contexts, it refers to scattering seed. In military contexts, it describes scattered, routed troops. In Acts, persecution scattered the Jerusalem believers throughout Judea and Samaria, inadvertently spreading the gospel beyond its original Jewish context. What enemies intended as destructive dispersion, God used for gospel multiplication. The term evokes both the trauma of displacement and the providential purposes accomplished through scattering.