purpose or ground: what an action is aimed at, or the person or thing it is done for the sake of
This word never stands on its own in the Hebrew Bible. It always appears fused to a short prefix meaning "to" or "for", and that compound is what a reader actually meets on the page. Behind it sits a noun for what someone has in mind, shortened from a fuller word for an answer or a reply (מַעֲנֶה). English needs a small handful of phrases to cover it: "so that", "in order that", "for the sake of", "because of".
Two shapes account for nearly every use. It can point forward to the goal of an action, which is what it does in the long chains of promise in Deuteronomy. Or it can point to the person, place, or promise on whose account something is done, as when God spares Jerusalem "for the sake of David my servant".
Its career across the Bible is the reason a small word like this repays attention:
- In Deuteronomy the goal is almost always Israel's own good: long life, prosperity, a settled land.
- In Kings a second ground appears, God's old promise to David, which keeps a failing dynasty from being swept away.
- In Ezekiel and Isaiah the ground becomes God himself, who acts "for my own sake" and "for my name's sake".
That last move is not divine vanity. A name here is not a reputation to be defended but the self a person has already made public. When God says he blots out sins "for my own sake", he is saying the reason lies in his own settled character rather than in anything the guilty party has earned, which is exactly what makes the promise unconditional.
Nuances
Whether the psalmist means that he sinned in order that God would be shown right, or that his sin has simply had that effect.
- majorityThe word keeps its usual force, so the clause states an aim, understood as the outcome God intended rather than as the psalmist's own plan.; BDB, s.v. מַעַן, p. 775; GKC §165b
- minorityThe clause states a consequence, since a strict reading of it as the psalmist's aim would make him sin deliberately in order to vindicate God.; Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Eisenbrauns, 1990), §38.3
Disputed
Whether the word can mark a genuine outcome that nobody aimed at, or whether it always marks an aim.
- majorityIt always marks an aim. Where an unwanted outcome is stated with it, the writer is presenting that outcome as though it had been the goal, often with biting irony.; BDB, s.v. מַעַן, p. 775; GKC §165b; Paul Joüon and T. Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, §168-169
- minorityIt can also mark a real consequence, as at 2 Kings 22:17, Jeremiah 27:15 and Amos 2:7, where reading an aim strains the sense.; Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Eisenbrauns, 1990), §38.3, pp. 638-640; Christo H. J. van der Merwe, Jackie A. Naudé and Jan H. Kroeze, A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar, 2nd ed. (Bloomsbury, 2017)
- minorityThe aim is always present but belongs to whoever frames the sentence, who may be the speaker rather than the actor, so what looks like consequence is a matter of vantage point.; Ernst Jenni, Die hebräischen Präpositionen, Band 3: Die Präposition Lamed (Kohlhammer, 2000)