Sin or offense names wrongdoing or its stated consequence, and the passage identifies whose conduct is in view. Deuteronomy requires more than a lone witness to establish an offense and commands timely pay for poor workers rather than placing the guilt on those who depend on wages.
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Full entry for חֵטְא (H2399) · Open the biblical lexicon
Sin or offense names wrongdoing or its stated consequence, and the passage identifies whose conduct is in view. Deuteronomy requires more than a lone witness to establish an offense and commands timely pay for poor workers rather than placing the guilt on those who depend on wages.
The BSB source-word alignment has 33 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include for his own sin (3), guilt (3), guilty of sin (3), a sin (1), and you will be guilty of sin (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 41:9. Its strongest book concentrations include Deuteronomy (8), Isaiah (4), Leviticus (4), Numbers (4).
Sin or offense names wrongdoing or its stated consequence, and the passage identifies whose conduct is in view. Deuteronomy requires more than a lone witness to establish an offense and commands timely pay for poor workers rather than placing the guilt on those who depend on wages. Its named assault case expressly says to do nothing to the young woman because she has committed no sin worthy of death.
Another instruction refuses punishing parents for children or children for parents, retaining the actual person's offense. Psalm 103 praises the Lord's compassion beyond repayment according to sins, while Isaiah joins cleansing language with justice for the vulnerable. These contexts keep culpability, evidence and mercy distinct. Read the act and affected people without treating accusation, victimization or family relationship as automatic guilt.
Ancient legal instructions must not become a modern consent test, violence mandate or private ruling about another person's case.
Evidence requirements, unpaid wages, an assaulted woman's protection, individual responsibility, compassionate forgiveness and cleansing with justice supply distinct offense contexts. Actual actors and explicit limits determine culpability and response.
A lone witness is not sufficient to establish any wrongdoing or sin against a man, regardless of what offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
A lone witness is insufficient to establish an offense, and the following false-witness case requires both parties before the judges, retaining evidence rather than accusation as proof.
You are to pay his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and depends on them. Otherwise he may cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.
The worker's poverty and dependence require wages before sunset, and withholding pay exposes the employer to the stated sin rather than blaming the needy worker.
Do nothing to the young woman, because she has committed no sin worthy of death. This case is just like one in which a man attacks his neighbor and murders him.
The named case explicitly protects the overpowered young woman from punishment and compares the attack with murder, refusing culpability based merely on her being harmed.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Sin as both transgression and its inescapable consequence; moral violation inherently carries divine penalty
Sin as both transgression and its inescapable consequence; moral violation inherently carries divine penalty
a crime or its penalty BDB: sin Usage: fault, × grievously, offence, (punishment of) sin.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
חֵטְא is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
An offense must remain attached to the person and conduct actually named. Deuteronomy's evidence rule rejects a lone accusation as sufficient, and its wage instruction places responsibility on the employer who withholds needed pay. In the specified assault case, the young woman is not to be punished; the account identifies coercive harm and lack of rescue rather than culpability from victimization.
The parent-child instruction also refuses transferring the execution responsibility between family members. Psalm 103 praises compassionate mercy, and Isaiah places cleansing alongside ending wrong and defending the fatherless and widow. Keep these protections and responses visible when teaching sin. Do not use the noun to blame a victim, assign inherited guilt to a child or create a modern rule that treats inability to cry out as consent.
The selected laws supply their own ancient cases, not a private contemporary verdict or permission for violence.
Deut.24.15
The licensed Hebrew noun includes sin, offense and a stated penalty in context. The actor and sentence distinguish an actual wrong from an allegation or expressly denied culpability. An English crime rendering does not turn every witness into a present legal category, and the noun cannot determine consent or inherited guilt by itself.
Luke 24:46-49 names Christ's suffering and resurrection before repentance and forgiveness of sins proclaimed to all nations. This separate Greek instruction supplies a forgiveness connection without erasing the Hebrew laws' evidence, wages and protected victim. Read the named response alongside justice and care rather than turning forgiveness into compelled contact, silence about harm or abandonment of practical accountability.