guilt and what is owed to set it right: the wrong a person incurs, the payment that makes amends for it, and the offering that puts it right with God
This word holds together three things English usually keeps apart: the guilt a person takes on by doing wrong, the compensation that pays that wrong back, and the specific sacrifice that settles wrong done against God. Hebrew does not separate the deed from what the deed costs, so a single word can move from the offense, to the price of the offense, to the rite that clears it. The compensation sense is the hinge between the other two: guilt is something owed, the payment discharges what is owed, and the offering is the form that payment takes at the sanctuary.
In everyday and prophetic use the word names plain guilt, the standing of someone who has done wrong and is liable for it. Genesis and the prophets use it this way, with no sacrifice in view. In a second use it names the actual thing handed over to make amends, whether money, returned property, or the gold the Philistines sent back with the captured Ark. The largest group of occurrences is the third use, the priestly offering of Leviticus, brought when someone has violated something holy or defrauded a neighbor under a false oath.
The priestly offering is distinct from the better-known purification offering. It is brought specifically for breaking faith with God, it requires paying back the full value of the loss plus an extra fifth, and the animal is a ram. Many modern scholars therefore call it the reparation offering rather than the older guilt or trespass offering, because its heart is making restitution, not merely expressing remorse.
The most striking use comes at Isaiah 53:10, where the Servant's life itself is made into one of these offerings. There is no animal, no priest, no altar, and no added fifth; the prophet borrows the language of the offering and applies it to a person, so that a single life pays back what a whole people owed.