because of: the phrase that names the person, group, or deed an outcome can be traced back to
This word never appears on its own. In all ten of its occurrences it is fused to a short preposition, forming a set phrase that English Bibles render "because of," "on account of," or "for the sake of." Its whole job is to point backward to the reason something happened, and it points only backward. It can never mean "so that," which is why it covers less ground than its neighbors בַּעֲבוּר and לְמַעַן, both of which can also look forward to a goal.
What follows the phrase is always personal. In every verse the reason named is a person, a group of people, or something those people did: Joseph, Jacob, Sarai, one act of open-handed giving, the practices of the nations, the sins of Jeroboam, the deeds of Manasseh. It is never used of weather, accident, or bare circumstance. That is the quiet force of the phrase. It says an outcome is traceable to somebody.
The outcome itself runs in both directions, and the phrase is equally at home with either:
- Four times a person or a household prospers on someone else's account, as when an Egyptian official's whole estate is blessed because Joseph is running it.
- Six times a person, a city, or a nation suffers on someone else's account, as when Zion is plowed like a field because of what its leaders have done.
Where the phrase turns up is telling. Apart from three scenes in Genesis and one line of law, every occurrence stands inside a speech about coming judgment, in Deuteronomy, in Kings, in Jeremiah, and in Micah. It is a favorite of the writers who trace national disaster back to named acts of disobedience, and it lets them fix the blame on a person rather than leave it vague.