sin: a wrong act and the guilt it leaves, usually a grave one whose damage spreads past the person who did it
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
Hebrew builds three different nouns for sin on one root, and this is the rarest of the three. What sets it apart is the company it keeps. Five of its eight appearances sit inside the phrase "a great sin," and those scenes are all of a piece: Abimelech tells Abraham that a lie almost brought a great sin on him and his whole kingdom, Moses asks Aaron what the people did to him that he brought a great sin on them, and Jeroboam is remembered as the king who made Israel commit a great sin. This is not quiet, private failure. It is wreckage that spreads.
That is why the word so often turns up with someone causing the sin rather than simply doing it. The verb this noun is built on (חָטָא) can be shaped to mean making somebody else sin, and the noun then names what they were made to do. A leader is usually the one at fault, and the ruin lands on everyone under him.
Two verses in the Psalms use the word more plainly, for sin as something charged against a person. In one it is the guilt God covers so that the sinner can be happy again, standing beside rebellion (פֶּשַׁע) as its partner. In the other it is what a condemned man's own prayer turns into. Even there the word settles where a person stands: the wrong is either lifted off the record or left on it.
Nuances
1aa grave wrong, especially one a leader brings down on a whole household or nation
Gen 20:9Exo 32:21Exo 32:30Exo 32:312Ki 17:21
1bsin as guilt charged against a person, either covered by God or left standing on the record
Psa 32:1Psa 109:7
Disputed
Whether the collocation "a great sin", which accounts for five of this noun's eight occurrences, is a technical legal designation for adultery taken over from ancient Near Eastern marriage law, or simply an emphatic way of marking an offense as grave.
majorityA general expression of gravity: the adjective intensifies the noun, and the standard lexica gloss the phrase as nothing more specialized than a grievous sin.; BDB, s.v. חֲטָאָה; HALOT, s.v. חֲטָאָה; DCH, s.v. חֲטָאָה
minorityA fixed legal designation for adultery, attested in Egyptian marriage contracts and at Ugarit, extended by metaphor to covenant infidelity in the golden calf narrative and in the indictment of Jeroboam.; W. L. Moran, "The Scandal of the 'Great Sin' at Ugarit," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 18 (1959): 280-281; J. J. Rabinowitz, "The 'Great Sin' in Ancient Egyptian Marriage Contracts," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 18 (1959): 73
2
the offering for sin: the sacrifice that clears a wrong away, called by the same word as the wrong itself
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
Once, the word names not the wrong but the remedy. Psalm 40 stacks four sacrifice words in a row, and this one fills the slot an English Bible reads as "sin offering." Hebrew often lets an offering be called by the trouble it deals with, so the word for the sin becomes the word for the sacrifice that removes it.
This is the only place this particular noun does that, and it is borrowing a job its far more common relative (חַטָּאת) does on nearly every page of Leviticus. The run of sacrifice words around it is what settles the reading: a poet who has just listed the ordinary offerings is not suddenly talking about wrongdoing.
names an offense whose fallout reaches past the wrongdoer to a household, a kingdom, or a whole nationGen 20:92Ki 17:21
can be something one person makes another commit, so the word covers guilt handed down by a leaderExo 32:212Ki 17:21
Both
both name a wrong measured against what God requires, not merely a social blunderExo 32:31Psa 32:1
Only sin
in English "sin" has drifted toward a private, inward, churchy word for a personal moral failing
English uses "sin" for everything from a small slip to a monstrous crime, with no hint that this word sits at the heavy end
“guilt”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“sin offering”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How ḥata'ah differs from similar Hebrew words
חַטָּאתthe common word for sin from the same root, and the only one that also names the offering that removes it across the sacrificial law; this rarer noun keeps almost entirely to grave, public wrongdoing.
Nearly every use of this rarer word sits inside the phrase "a great sin", a wrong grave enough to put a whole household or nation at risk rather than a private lapse.Gen 20:9Exo 32:21Exo 32:312Ki 17:21
It belongs to dramatic scenes and to poetry, where sin is a charge that is either lifted off a person or left standing against him, and it never appears in the instructions for worship.Psa 32:1Psa 109:7
The one time it names a sacrifice, it does so in a poem listing offerings God has not asked for, not in any rule about how the offering is to be made.Psa 40:6
Both
Both name a wrong committed against God that has to be dealt with, and both stand side by side in the golden calf story, where the people's great offense and the atonement sought for it are described in the same breath.Exo 32:30
Both can name the sacrifice for sin by the same word used for the sin itself, letting the offering be called after the trouble it removes.Psa 40:6Lev 4:3
This is the standard term for the offering itself, naming the animal brought and the rite performed with its blood so that the worshiper is forgiven.Exo 29:14Lev 4:3Lev 4:20Lev 5:6
It stretches to cover cleansing where nobody has done anything wrong at all, such as after childbirth, after a skin disease, or after contact with a dead body.Lev 12:6Lev 15:15Num 19:9
It carries the whole everyday range of wrongdoing, including an ordinary quarrel between two people and a plea for pardon between a servant and his master.Gen 31:36Gen 50:17Exo 10:17
It can also swing across to the punishment a wrong brings down, so that the word names the penalty rather than the offense.Zec 14:19
חֵטְאthe masculine noun of the same root, fixed on a particular offense and the guilt or penalty it earns, without this word's pull toward disasters that engulf a whole people.
Five of its eight appearances sit in one fixed expression, "a great sin", used for a single outrage rather than for wrongdoing in general: the golden calf, and the calves Jeroboam set up.Gen 20:9Exo 32:21Exo 32:30Exo 32:312Ki 17:21
It is the word used in an accusation, when one party is charged with dropping a ruinous offense onto people who did not commit it themselves.Gen 20:9Exo 32:21
It can name the offering brought to deal with sin, listed in worship language beside the whole burnt offering.Psa 40:6
Both
Both name a definite wrong that can be dealt with rather than a vague fault: one is covered or atoned for, the other is washed white or hidden from God's face.Isa 1:18Psa 51:9Psa 32:1Exo 32:30
Both are used as the thing a person does when they sin, so the sentence reads that someone "sinned a sin", the wrong itself standing as the object of the act.Deu 19:15Lam 1:8Exo 32:30Exo 32:31
Both stretch beyond one individual to the guilt of a whole people, whether the nation whose city lies in disgrace or the nation led into ruin by its king.Dan 9:16Lam 1:8Exo 32:312Ki 17:21
This is the word for guilt a person carries and can be executed for. The laws say a man will "bear his sin" or "die for his own sin", making it the legal weight that falls on the one who did the wrong.Lev 24:15Num 9:13Num 27:3Deu 24:162Ki 14:6
It works as a courtroom term for the charge itself: an offense that carries a death sentence, or an offense that does not, or any charge that has to be proved by two witnesses.Deu 19:15Deu 21:22Deu 22:26
It names guilt that quietly attaches to someone for a duty left undone, in the recurring warning that if you withhold what you owe, "there will be sin in you".Deu 15:9Deu 23:21Deu 23:22Deu 24:15
In the prophets and psalms it turns up in the plural for a running record of many wrongs, the accumulated sins God removes, blots out, or does not repay in kind.Psa 103:10Isa 1:18Isa 38:17Lam 3:39
עָוֹןiniquity pictured as something bent out of true, with the weight of guilt it drags behind it; this word names the offense itself and the damage it causes.
Names one specific wrong deed done at a particular moment, the kind the text calls "a great sin": what Abraham nearly brought down on Abimelech's household, the golden calf at Sinai, the calves Jeroboam set up.Gen 20:9Exo 32:21Exo 32:302Ki 17:21
Can name the offering brought to deal with wrongdoing rather than the wrongdoing itself, so the one word covers both the fault and the remedy for it.Psa 40:6
Both
Both name wrongdoing as something standing between a person and God, and both are what God is asked to cover, carry off, or forgive.Psa 32:1Exo 34:7Psa 103:3
Both can be charged to a whole community rather than to one person, so a nation as well as an individual is spoken of as having done wrong.Exo 32:31Lev 26:40Jer 14:20
Names the guilt that clings to people after the deed is over, a weight someone goes on carrying until it is taken away: the goat carries it off into the wilderness, and the priests carry what the sanctuary incurs.Lev 16:21Lev 16:22Exo 28:38Num 18:1
Slides from the offense into the punishment the offense earns, so the same word can mean the sentence a person serves: Cain calls his more than he can bear, and a whole generation carries theirs for forty years.Gen 4:13Num 14:34Lev 26:39
Accumulates over time and passes down the generations, treated almost as a quantity that can fill up or be inherited: the Amorites' is not yet full, and children are said to carry what their parents ran up.Gen 15:16Exo 20:5Lam 5:7
פֶּשַׁעrebellion, a deliberate breach against a rightful authority; the two stand together in Psalm 32:1, where the rebellion is lifted away and this word's guilt is covered over.
It is the word in the fixed phrase for one enormous wrong, "a great sin": the single act that ruins a whole community rather than a pattern of behavior. Abimelech uses it for what Abraham nearly brought down on his household, and Israel's golden calf is named with it again and again.Gen 20:9Exo 32:21Exo 32:30Exo 32:31
It can name the guilt one party loads onto another, so that people who did not choose the act still carry it. Abimelech says the guilt was brought on him and his kingdom, Moses tells Aaron he brought it on the people, and Jeroboam is remembered for driving Israel into it.Gen 20:9Exo 32:212Ki 17:21
It can also name the sacrifice that deals with the wrong, not only the wrong itself. In a list of offerings God has not asked for, it stands as the offering rendered "sin offering" beside burnt offering and grain offering.Psa 40:6
Both
Both name real guilt that a person cannot clear on their own and needs God to take away. Psalm 32:1 sets them side by side in one blessing, one word for the wrong that is lifted off and the other for the wrong that is covered over.Psa 32:1
It is the language of revolt against a rightful ruler, so it fits nations and kingdoms breaking away, not just individuals doing wrong. Amos indicts one country after another with it, and a proverb ties it to a land that churns through rulers.Amo 1:3Amo 2:6Pro 28:2
It works as a formal charge between two people, something an accused person can deny outright or ask a wronged person to pardon. Jacob demands to know what his offense is, David insists there is none in his hand, a law about disputed property uses it for the contested claim, and Joseph's brothers beg him to pardon theirs.Gen 31:361Sa 24:11Exo 22:9Gen 50:17
It reaches down to the everyday slight between neighbors, the kind wisdom says to cover and let go rather than repeat. Proverbs praises the person who overlooks one and warns that raking it up breaks a friendship.Pro 10:12Pro 17:9Pro 19:11
ḥata'ah in the other biblical languages
ἁμαρτίαGreek“sin”the broad Greek word for sin, covering both the wrong act and sin as a power ruling a person; it takes in everything this Hebrew noun does and much more, while this noun stays with grave wrongs and the guilt they leave.
It turns up mostly in the set phrase "a great sin", which measures the seriousness of one specific act rather than describing sin in general.Gen 20:9Exo 32:21Exo 32:302Ki 17:21
It is typically guilt that one person brings down on other people, so a household or a whole nation ends up carrying the consequences of a leader's act.Gen 20:9Exo 32:212Ki 17:21
It can mark something being charged to a person's account as guilt, so that even his prayer is counted against him.Psa 109:7
Both
Both name a definite wrong that has to be forgiven or covered by God rather than simply regretted or outgrown.Psa 32:1Mat 26:28Luk 7:47
Both can name the offering brought to deal with sin, and the New Testament quotes the Hebrew line about that offering directly, using the Greek word where the psalm used the Hebrew one.Psa 40:6Heb 10:6Heb 10:8
Both are used of wrongdoing that piles up until judgment falls on a whole people.Exo 32:311Th 2:16Rev 18:5
It can name sin as a power that owns a person and gives the orders, not just a wrong action someone performed.Jhn 8:34Rom 6:14Rom 7:17
It can name the shared human condition, something that came into the world and has left everyone in the same position before God.Rom 3:9Rom 5:121Jn 1:8
It can be spoken of as one whole load that is carried off or put away by a single sacrifice, rather than as a list of separate offences.Jhn 1:29Heb 9:261Pe 2:24
It is the ordinary word for the everyday wrongs people confess and are cleansed of again and again, so it covers small failures as readily as great ones.Mat 3:6Jas 5:161Jn 1:9
What scholars say about ḥata'ah
חֲטָאָה is one of three nominal formations from the root ḥṭʾ, alongside חֵטְא and the far commoner חַטָּאת, and the standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, DCH) treat it as a byform of the latter with a much narrower distribution: 8 occurrences, all in the feminine singular. Seven are moral; Psalm 40:7 in the Hebrew numbering (English 40:6) supplies the sole cultic use, where the noun closes a four-member series of offering terms (זבח, מנחה, עולה, חטאה) and is rendered sacrificially by the versions. The concentration of five occurrences in the collocation חֲטָאָה גְדֹלָה (Genesis 20:9;Exodus 32:21, 30, 31; 2 Kings 17:21) led W. L. Moran and J. J. Rabinowitz, arguing from Egyptian marriage contracts and from Ugaritic evidence in which the corresponding expression functions as a legal designation for adultery, to propose that the Hebrew phrase carries the same technical force, applied by extension to covenant infidelity at Sinai and under Jeroboam. The lexica register no such specialized sense, glossing the phrase simply as a grievous sin, and the extension to the calf and the northern cult is in any case metaphorical on either reading. Note also the deliberate variation in Exodus 32:30, where the narrator uses חֲטָאָה of the deed and חַטָּאת in the following clause of the same sin as the object of atonement.
Sources
BDB, s.v. חֲטָאָהlexicon
HALOT, s.v. חֲטָאָהlexicon
DCH, s.v. חֲטָאָהlexicon
TDOT, s.v. חטאdictionary
W. L. Moran, "The Scandal of the 'Great Sin' at Ugarit," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 18 (1959): 280-281article
J. J. Rabinowitz, "The 'Great Sin' in Ancient Egyptian Marriage Contracts," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 18 (1959): 73article