An offence (sometimes habitual sinfulness), and its penalty , occasion , sacrifice , or expiation ; also (concretely) an offender
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חַטָּאָה is the most theologically dense word in the Hebrew sin vocabulary. The local OT index currently counts about 299 uses, and the word carries a range that no single English translation can capture: it names an offense, habitual sinfulness, the penalty for sin, and the sacrifice that addresses it.
Reader summary
Full entry for חַטָּאָה (H2403) · Open the biblical lexicon
חַטָּאָה is the most theologically dense word in the Hebrew sin vocabulary. The local OT index currently counts about 299 uses, and the word carries a range that no single English translation can capture: it names an offense, habitual sinfulness, the penalty for sin, and the sacrifice that addresses it.
The BSB source-word alignment has 295 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include as a sin offering (32), for a sin offering (22), the sin (13), the sins (12), of the sin offering (11).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 4:7. Its strongest book concentrations include Leviticus (82), Numbers (43), Ezekiel (24), 1 Kings (18).
This entry includes 3 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
חַטָּאָה is the most theologically dense word in the Hebrew sin vocabulary. The local OT index currently counts about 299 uses, and the word carries a range that no single English translation can capture: it names an offense, habitual sinfulness, the penalty for sin, and the sacrifice that addresses it. BDB summarizes the core semantic as 'a missing of the mark' — the verb חָטָא (H2398) means to miss, to go wrong, to deviate from the path — and the noun form accumulates around that root all the weight of the OT's understanding of what sin is, what it costs, and what it requires.
The most striking feature of חַטָּאָה is that the same word can refer both to the sin and to the sin offering. In Leviticus, the חַטָּאָה is the specific sacrifice prescribed for unintentional sins — the animal whose blood addresses what the worshiper's act has disrupted. This semantic double-occupancy is not an accident of vocabulary; it is a profound theological statement.
The word that names the problem and the word that names the remedy are the same word. The same word field holds the diagnosis and the appointed remedy. This pattern reaches its fulfillment in 2 Corinthians 5:21, where Paul says God made Christ 'to be sin (ἁμαρτίαν, the Greek equivalent) for us' — the one who had no sin became the חַטָּאָה, the sin offering. The OT vocabulary prepares the canonical connection between the named problem and the appointed remedy.
For the preacher, חַטָּאָה is the word that insists sin is never merely a behavior pattern or a disposition. It is an objective disruption that requires an objective remedy — the breach calls for the offering. The 299 occurrences spread across Torah, prophets, writings, and poetry; no part of the Hebrew Bible is untouched by the reality this word names.
חַטָּאָה is used in three major registers across the OT: (1) the general noun for sin as offense and moral failure (most common), (2) the specific term for the sin offering in Levitical law (Leviticus, Numbers), and (3) a description of habitual or corporate sinfulness that has become characteristic of a people or individual. Its frequency and range make it the central sin-vocabulary term in the Hebrew Bible.
If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you refuse to do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires you, but you must master it.”
The first occurrence of חַטָּאָה in the narrative literature. God personifies sin as a crouching predator waiting at Cain's door — an image of danger, proximity, and readiness. The word's first appearance in Genesis establishes it as something outside the person that nevertheless has a directional pull toward domination. 'Its desire is for you' echoes the language of Genesis 3:16, linking Cain's temptation to the post-Fall disorder.
The pastoral note: sin is described here as something that can be 'ruled over,' which establishes agency and accountability from the beginning of the OT narrative.
If the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, he must bring to the Lord a young bull without blemish as a sin offering for the sin he has committed.
Leviticus 4 uses חַטָּאָה both for the sin committed and for the sin offering prescribed — 'for his sin (חַטָּאתוֹ) which he has sinned (חָטָא), a sin offering (חַטָּאת).' The triple occurrence in one verse demonstrates the word's semantic compression: offense and sacrifice share the same root. The anointed priest whose sin brings guilt on the people must bring the highest grade of offering — the sin of leadership has corporate weight.
This is the formal establishment of חַטָּאָה as the liturgical term for the remedy category.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
David's penitential psalm uses חַטָּאָה alongside two other sin terms (פֶּשַׁע transgression, עָוֹן iniquity) — the three major OT sin categories appear in the opening verses of Psalm 51. חַטָּאָה here names the sin that stands persistently in the psalmist's awareness: 'my sin is ever before me.' This is the word for the specific act and its felt weight. The psalm's movement from naming sin to requesting purification (ἁγνίζω vocabulary in the LXX) establishes the link between חַטָּאָה and the purification verbs — what this word names is what the purification acts address.
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush Him and to cause Him to suffer; and when His soul is made a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.
Isaiah 53:10 uses חַטָּאָה (אָשָׁם, asham, the guilt offering, in some readings) — but the entire Servant Song is saturated with the sin-offering vocabulary. The Servant is 'wounded for our transgressions' and 'bruised for our iniquities'; his soul is made a guilt offering. The theological line from Leviticus 4's sin offering to Isaiah 53's Servant is the fullest OT anticipation of Paul's 'God made him to be sin for us.'
The preacher who understands חַטָּאָה in Leviticus has the background for preaching Isaiah 53 and 2 Corinthians 5:21.
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.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Hebrew word. Sin encompasses both the transgression and its consequences—the act, guilt, offering, and expiation form an inseparable semantic whole
Sin encompasses both the transgression and its consequences—the act, guilt, offering, and expiation form an inseparable semantic whole
an offence (sometimes habitual sinfulness), and its penalty, occasion, sacrifice, or expiation; also (concretely) an offender BDB: sinful thing Usage: punishment (of sin), purifying(-fication for sin), sin(-ner, offering).
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 299 lexical occurrence verses.
חַטָּאָה is built from this root:
The proverb warns that wicked gain often feeds further wrongdoing. Hosea 4:4-10
Priests exploited sacrificial system for gain. Proverbs 10:16
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
חַטָּאָה is the word the OT chose to name both the problem and the remedy: sin and the sin offering share the same Hebrew root. That is not a lexical accident — it is the OT's way of saying that the gravity of sin is measured by what it takes to address it. The sin is serious enough to require a life. The offering is specific enough to match the offense. And when the OT speaks of a sin offering, it is not using a softer or more euphemistic word for the sin itself — it is using the same word, pressing it into service as the name for the remedy.
The preacher who explains this double usage has opened one of the clearest vocabulary paths from Leviticus to the cross. Paul's statement in 2 Corinthians 5:21 — 'God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us' — draws on this exact Hebrew idiom. Christ became the חַטָּאָה: the offense and the offering, the naming and the addressing. This is not word-play or theological sophistication beyond the congregation.
It is one of the clearest vocabulary paths for teaching atonement from Scripture — the word that refuses to let us separate the diagnosis from the cure. For the congregation, חַטָּאָה is also a realistic word. Its 299 occurrences span from personal offense (Gen 4:7) to habitual corporate sinfulness (Hosea, Jeremiah) to the detailed Levitical legislation for addressing it.
The OT does not permit the reduction of sin to a vague moral failing or a spiritual development challenge. It names it, categorizes it, assigns it weight, and prescribes an offering. The NT does not abandon this realism — it fulfills it.
Lev.4.3
חַטָּאָה derives from the root חָטָא (H2398), whose primary meaning is to miss, to go wrong, to deviate from the correct path. The noun form accumulates the root meaning into a comprehensive description of the offense and its relational disruption. BDB identifies the semantic range: (1) a specific sinful act, (2) habitual or characteristic sinfulness, (3) the guilt or penalty incurred, and (4) the sin offering that addresses the guilt.
This last usage — where the noun for sin becomes the noun for the sacrifice — is the most theologically significant feature of the word family. The LXX typically renders חַטָּאָה with ἁμαρτία (sin) or ἁμαρτωλός (sinner), but for the sin offering specifically it uses the compound term περὶ ἁμαρτίας (concerning sin) — a phrase that Paul echoes in Romans 8:3 when he says God sent Christ 'in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin (περὶ ἁμαρτίας), he condemned sin in the flesh.'
The NT does not replace the Hebrew חַטָּאָה vocabulary — it inherits it and fulfills it. The primary NT equivalent is ἁμαρτία (G266), which the LXX consistently uses to render חַטָּאָה. When Paul writes that 'all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God' (Rom 3:23), the ἁμαρτία behind that statement carries the full OT weight of חַטָּאָה — the missing of the mark, the objective offense, the guilt incurred, the remedy required.
The most direct line from חַטָּאָה to the NT is 2 Corinthians 5:21: 'God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us.' The one who had no חַטָּאָה became the חַטָּאָה — both the named offense and the appointed remedy. Romans 8:3 completes the picture: God sent his Son 'in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as a sin offering (περὶ ἁμαρτίας).' The Levitical legislation of חַטָּאָה as a sacrifice was not a detour in the redemptive plan — it was the vocabulary lesson that prepared Israel to recognize what the cross accomplished.
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