THE TANGIBILITY OF “SIN” (chata)

What does the word “sin” mean?  There are four main word roots in Hebrew (OT) for the basic semantic range and others in Greek (NT) that each express different nuances.  However, in English, we basically use two words, “sin” and “guilt.”  What might we be missing?

Warning: This is a technical “devotional” about the main Hebrew word root for “sin” (ḥṭʾ) and probably not for anyone feeling brain weary.  However, I have found the exploration of “sin” important for me, so I will share what I have learned.  (The brain-weary may skip to “Conclusion.”)

Technical Stuff
Problem: The main Hebrew (OT) verb translated in English as “to sin” is ḥāṭāʾ (pronounced chata).  There is a problem understanding and translating this word.  Hebrew has root words with three letters that have a basic (etymological) meaning.  For example, the letters lmd employed as a basic-stem verb has the nuance of “to come to an apprehension or become familiar.”  It is often translated, “to learn.”  When the root is modified for the “doubled stem,” it makes an intransitive verb (no object) factitive with an object.  Therefore, lmd becomes lmmd and now means “to make apprehension to someone,” or better “to teach.”

Here is the problem with ḥāṭāʾ.  Its basic-stem meaning as a verb is “to miss hitting/reaching the desired end, the goal.”  It can literally mean that someone misses one’s target.  However, it is mainly used figuratively for human personal failure in terms of some kind of life standard, whether it be legal, communal, covenantal (with God), or just according to the standard of God’s holiness.  Most contextual uses make sense in terms of a failure to meet an end goal (whether intentional or unintentional).  The problem arises when it is a doubled-stem verb ḥiṭṭēʾ (pronounced chittā).  In its figurative use, it appears to mean “to cleanse from sin” (e.g. Exod 29:36).  Moreover, the noun that is formed from the doubled-stem verb ḥaṭṭāʾt (pronounced chattat) is the main technical term for the “sin-purification offering” (Lev 4:26).  On the surface that conversion of meaning from “to miss the goal” (basic stem) to “cleanse from sin” (doubled stem) does not make sense.  One would expect a meaning like “to make missing the goal to someone.”  What is happening?
Note: Since in the NT, Paul, using a Greek equivalent term, calls Jesus the sin-purification offering (Rom 8:23; 2Cor 5:21), the concept behind the word is important to grasp.

Solution: (This is where it gets interesting!)  In its figurative use, the verb ḥāṭāʾ focuses frequently on the end failure, a negative consequence, more than on the action.  The noun that spins off this verb ḥēṭʾ (chāt) is also more about that negative result than the act itself.  Most importantly, words and concepts associated with the basic-stem verb and noun show that people envisaged sin-results as “tangibly” real.  They concretized the negative result.  For example: God sees the sin (1Sam 2:17); a person must bear one’s sin (Lev 20:20); when God forgives sin, God lifts it (Exod 32:32) or covers it (Ps 32:1) or washes it (Psa 51:7); or in the Temple symbol system, it is likened to filth polluting God’s dwelling place/altar and needing to be cleansed away (Exod 29:36).

A modern analogy would be the “sin” of running a red light.  No one was around to see.  There was no danger.  There appears to be no tangible result.  However, a camera caught you and now the consequence becomes tangible as a ticket and a fine.

With this focus on the “tangible” result in mind, the doubled-stem verb makes sense.  The verb means “to make the result (sin-weight) to someone/something.”  Used literally in Gen 31:39, Jacob says to Laban that regarding any sheep lost under Jacob’s care, Jacob will “make the ḥiṭṭēʾ (sin-result – here financial loss) to himself.”  That is, he move/removes the resultant sin-weight (financial loss) to himself.  That makes sense now in the figurative use of the tangible sin-consequence.  The consequence of sin (ḥāṭāʾ) is moved/removed, which in context basically means to “cleanse/purify from sin.”  So, too, the atonement-technical noun form from the doubled-stem (ḥaṭṭāʾt) refers to the ritual act that moves/removes the consequence (sin-weight) makes sense.  The focus is on what is happening to the “tangible” consequence.

Conclusion:
The concrete, root concept of ḥāṭāʾ is about failing to hit the end goal (e.g. Jud 20:16, stone-slingers miss their target; Prov 19:2, one misses the way).  Abstractly it is used in terms of personal behavior measured against standards (e.g. legal contract of social groups, Gen 43:9) or in terms of religious abstraction of God’s standard or spiritual wholeness (Lev 4:2).  The focus of the idioms is on the negative consequences.  Particularly in a religious context, that consequence is conceptualized as real and “tangible” like a weight (Lev 20:20) or like unclean pollution (Psa 51:2).  Sin (ḥāṭāʾ) results in real consequences for which one is accountable.  In particular, the atonement ritual system sought to concretize the nature of sin as well as God’s graceful acts of forgiveness.  Such concretizing of the intangible in rituals helped the Israelites to comprehend the utmost seriousness of sin and the amazing grace of God’s forgiveness.  I need this help as well.

Application
Every offense I commit, intentional or not, against others and against God, not only is a failure to achieve the right (righteous) end goal, but it also results in real consequences.  Whether I can see them or not, God sees them.  As one who sins, I bear the weight of those consequences whether I feel it or not.  I must accept the reality of sin.  However, when I seek God, confess and repent of my sins, my God merciful moves/removes that “tangible” consequence.  God “bears/lifts” (=forgives) my sin.

Note: this is also the meaning in 1 Peter 2:24: “For our sins he [Jesus] bore in his body on the cross….”  That verse is the same OT idiom of divine forgiveness.  It is not picturing a forensic transfer of one’s legal death-penalty onto Jesus.  It presents Jesus showing God’s mercy of lifting our burden.

Lord, please always show me the error of my ways, all of my sins (ḥāṭāʾ), unintentional as well as intentional.  Help me to see the weight, to see the filth, to see it as in Your eyes.  So that I might be ashamed and appalled.  So that I might bow before You, confess, and repent.  So that You in Your mercy might lift it away.  So that there might not be any impediment between me and You.  Amen.