rebellion: the deliberate breaking of a bond you were obligated to keep
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
This is the strongest of the Hebrew words for sin. It pictures wrongdoing not as a slip or a stain but as a revolt: someone deliberately throws off a relationship that held them. The image behind it is a subject nation rising up against the king it had sworn to obey. To commit this is to choose to break faith, to walk out on a bond you were bound to keep.
The word starts in the world of politics and law, where one party betrays a binding arrangement with another (a rebel province, a partner who breaks trust). The prophets then take that very picture and turn it on Israel: the nation has rebelled against the LORD exactly the way a treaty-breaking vassal rebels against his overlord. That is why it carries such weight in confession and in pleas for forgiveness, where it names the worst that a person or a people has done.
Because the wrong is willful, it needs more than a routine remedy. On the Day of Atonement it is the very category of sin loaded onto the goat sent away into the wilderness, the sin the ordinary offering could not handle. God's answer to it is to blot it out, to carry it off, to pass over it. In the wisdom books the word can soften toward a plain offense between neighbors, the kind that love covers, but even there it keeps the sense of a wrong done against someone you were meant to be at peace with.
Nuances
1aa breach between people: betraying a binding bond, breaking faith, or wronging someone you owed loyalty
carries the picture of a subject throwing off a rightful authority, the bond deliberately repudiatedMic 1:5Isa 59:20
Both
both name a willful repudiation of an authority one was obligated to obeyEzk 18:31
Only rebellion
the English word can imply organized political revolt with armies and leaders, where the Hebrew can name a single person's quiet act of breaking faith
“trespass”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“sin”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How peshah differs from similar Hebrew words
חַטָּאתthe common, neutral word for sin as failing or falling short of an obligation; it covers wrongs done by mistake, where this word names the deliberate breaking of the bond itself
names specifically willful rebellion against a known authority, a deliberate breach of loyalty or covenant: the most flagrant and relational category of sin, which the other word does not requireExo 23:21Isa 53:8
used for the named transgressions of nations against each other, a political and covenantal register for the act of breaking a relationship with authority, which the other word does not carryAmo 1:3Amo 2:6
Both
both appear in the Day of Atonement ritual, where the whole weight of Israel's sin must be named and carried away from the community before GodLev 16:21
both describe what must be forgiven and blotted out for a person to stand rightly before God, appearing together in the classic confessional psalmsPsa 32:5
both appear in confessions where Israel acknowledges the full weight of its moral failure before God, named together as the accumulated wrongs between the people and their GodIsa 59:12
carries a second, cultic meaning as the specific animal sacrifice prescribed to deal with sin and ritual uncleanness: the sin offering or purification offering, a technical term of Israel's worship system that the other word never approachesLev 4:3Lev 16:3
applies equally to inadvertent wrongs and ritual uncleanness with no moral intent, not only to deliberate failures; the other word by contrast names specifically willful, knowing defianceLev 4:3Num 15:27
עָוֹןwrongdoing felt as crookedness or twistedness, the act fused with the guilt and consequence it drags along; this word instead stresses the willful act of revolt against a relationship
specifically names deliberate revolt against a known authority, a conscious breach of loyalty or covenant rather than a general moral failing; the weight is on the will behind the act, not on the guilt or penalty that follows itExo 23:21Isa 53:8
used for transgressions between nations and rulers, naming the specific act of breaking a relationship with an authority, a political and covenantal sense the other word does not carryAmo 1:3Amo 2:6
Both
both appear together in the great biblical confessions and summaries of human sinfulness before God, where the full range of moral failure is named in a single breathExo 34:7
both name wrongs that must be forgiven and covered rather than simply overlooked, and both appear in the classic passages where God promises to pardon and blot out what stands against his peoplePsa 32:5
both are named explicitly in Isaiah's suffering-servant passage as the wrongs for which the servant bears the people's penalty, making them the vocabulary of substitutionary suffering in the Hebrew prophetsIsa 53:5
traces the full chain from the crooked deed through to its consequence: the word can name the act, the guilt it leaves on the offender, and the punishment that guilt finally brings down, so one word reaches from wrong to reckoningGen 4:13Ezk 4:4
pictures wrongdoing as something bent or twisted, a character turned aside from what is straight, stressing the moral distortion of the person rather than a specific act of defianceIsa 1:4Psa 51:5
מַעַלan act of treachery or unfaithfulness, especially misusing what is holy or breaking trust in a sacred matter; it overlaps with this word's breach-of-faith sense but is narrower and tied to faithless betrayal
Names open rebellion, a defiant breaking away from a rightful authority, as when David insists he has committed no such revolt against the king.1Sa 24:11Gen 31:36
Is the standard word for an offense between people that can be forgiven or generously overlooked.Gen 50:17Pro 19:11
Is the sin God is repeatedly said to blot out and carry away when he pardons.Isa 43:25Psa 32:1
Both
Both name a grave wrong against God that the guilty party is called to confess.Lev 26:40Psa 32:5
Both are given as the reason a people is judged and carried off into exile.1Ch 9:1Lam 1:5
Names sacrilege: the misuse of what belongs to God, treating holy things as if they were common property.Lev 5:152Ch 36:14
Covers the betrayal of an intimate bond of loyalty, including a wife who is unfaithful to her husband.Num 5:12Num 5:27
Frames sin as a treacherous breach of trust, often done secretly by someone bound to be faithful, as when Achan quietly kept what was devoted to God.Jos 7:11Ch 10:13
מָרַדthe plain verb for rebelling or revolting; it is the word the Aramaic translators reach for to explain this one, so it names the same act of revolt but as an action rather than this word's settled label for the offense
פָּשַׁעthe matching verb, to rebel or break away; it is the action this noun names, used in Kings for nations throwing off an overlord and in the prophets for Israel breaking with God
Names the OFFENSE as a settled thing, a charge you can count, list, and carry. It is the noun that stacks up against a nation in the courtroom oracle of Amos, where God weighs three and four such offenses before he acts.Amo 1:3Amo 2:6Amo 2:4
Is the gravest item in the standard list of sin-words, set beside iniquity and sin when God's mercy is described as forgiving every kind of wrong. It names the worst tier in that inventory, the deliberate breach, not just any failing.Exo 34:7Psa 32:1Mic 7:18
Is the offense the worshipper pleads to have wiped away in penitential prayer, the thing God blots out, washes, and removes far off. It is named as the burden to be lifted, not the act being done.Psa 51:1Isa 43:25Psa 103:12
Is the category of guilt carried away in the temple ritual, the wrong heaped onto the goat sent into the wilderness on the Day of Atonement. It is treated as a tangible thing that can be transferred and disposed of.Lev 16:16Lev 16:21
Both
Both describe deliberate rebellion against God, not an accident or a mere slip. The prophets turn the language of political revolt onto Israel: the verb says the people rose up against the LORD, and the noun names the very offenses they committed against him.Isa 1:2Ezk 2:3Isa 59:12Dan 9:24
Names the ACT of breaking away in real time, the live event of revolt. It is the verb the historians reach for when a smaller kingdom throws off its overlord: Israel pulls away from the house of David, Moab and Edom and Libnah break free from their masters.1Ki 12:192Ki 1:12Ki 8:202Ki 8:22
Carries a target: someone rebels AGAINST a particular person or power. The phrasing names the one defied, whether a king or God himself, so the offense is felt as a betrayal of that specific relationship.Isa 1:2Hos 7:132Ki 3:7
Appears in spoken confession as the act admitted: we have rebelled, we have broken faith. The wrongdoers say it of themselves rather than have it pinned on them as a label.Lam 3:42Jer 3:13Isa 59:13
Rebellion: deliberately breaking away from a rightful authority you owe loyalty to, whether a ruler or God himself.Amo 1:3Amo 2:41Ki 8:50Job 34:37
A wrong done against another party that ruptures the relationship and needs that party's forgiveness, an injury one person charges to another.Gen 31:36Gen 50:17Exo 22:91Sa 25:28
Both
Both name wrongdoing that a penitent begs God to wipe away in an appeal for mercy.Psa 51:9Psa 51:1
Both stand for the guilt God graciously removes and does not pay back, used side by side for the same forgiven wrong.Psa 103:10Psa 103:12
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
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 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
It names a countable deed, so offenses can be itemized and added up. Amos indicts one nation after another "for three transgressions and for four", and Job asks God to tell him how many of his there are.Amo 1:3Amo 1:6Job 13:23
It works between two human parties, not only between a person and God. Jacob demands to know what wrong of his against Laban justified the chase, Joseph's brothers beg him to forgive theirs, and David protests that he has done Saul none.Gen 31:36Gen 50:171Sa 24:11
It is precise enough to be a legal category and a treaty charge: the law uses it as the heading for a whole class of property disputes brought before God, and Amos uses it for a nation that handed over a captive population and forgot an agreement between brother states.Exo 22:9Amo 1:9
Because it is a definite act, it is the thing that gets forgiven, covered, blotted out, or carried away. God is described as forgiving it, the happy person is the one whose is lifted off, and on the Day of Atonement the goat carries all of them into the wilderness.Exo 34:7Psa 32:1Lev 16:21Isa 43:25
A community's accumulated offenses can be spoken of as one weight resting on a place, so a whole land or capital city can be named as the offense.Pro 28:2Mic 1:5
Both
Both name deliberate defiance against an authority the offender owes loyalty to, never a slip or an honest mistake. Samuel sets one beside the darkest sins he can name, and Elihu accuses Job of piling the other on top of the wrong he has already done.1Sa 15:23Job 34:37
Both are the charge a prophet is sent to press against God's own people, and the stated ground of the judgment coming on them. Ezekiel is sent to a people who will not hear, and Isaiah is told to announce to the same people what they have done.Ezk 12:2Isa 58:1Ezk 18:30
English Bibles render both as "rebellion", so the difference between the stubborn refusal underneath and the specific act of breaking faith is easy to lose in translation.Deu 31:27Job 34:37
Names a settled disposition rather than anything done: it describes what a people are like, not an act they have committed. Ezekiel is sent again and again to a "rebellious house", named by its temper before any particular offense is listed, and Moses tells Israel he already knows their rebellion while he is still standing in front of them.Ezk 2:5Ezk 12:2Deu 31:27
Its core is the refusal to listen. The word attaches to people who have ears and will not hear, who will not accept the LORD's instruction, and to whom the prophet is told to speak whether they listen or not.Ezk 12:2Isa 30:9Ezk 3:27
The stubbornness counts as a sin in its own right, with no particular deed required to make it culpable. Samuel weighs it against the gravest offenses he can name, treating the refusal itself as the crime.1Sa 15:23
It becomes a label for the offenders themselves, so that the people can simply be called "the rebellious" or "the sons of rebellion" with no further description.Num 17:10Ezk 44:6
Works between people just as readily as between a person and God. Jacob demands to know what wrong he has done Laban, David insists his hands are clean of any wrong against Saul, and the law uses the word for a disputed claim over a lost animal or garment.Gen 31:361Sa 24:11Exo 22:9
Is countable, so offenses can be tallied and charged one nation at a time. Amos indicts each neighbor for "three transgressions and for four" before naming the deed that broke faith.Amo 1:3Amo 1:6Amo 2:1
Is the word the pardon prayers reach for, something lifted off, wiped out, or carried away to a distance from the person who did it.Psa 32:1Psa 51:1Psa 103:12
Can be absorbed by another person rather than only by God: love covers it, and Proverbs counts it a man's glory to pass over an offense instead of pressing it.Pro 10:12Pro 19:11Pro 17:9
Has a fixed place in the priestly ritual, confessed over the live goat with the rest of Israel's wrongs and sent off into the wilderness.Lev 16:21Lev 16:16
Both
Both are prophetic charges against the same people, and Jeremiah lays them side by side as the reason judgment comes: their revolts are many and their turnings away are numerous.Jer 5:6
Both are confessed in prayer as things that have piled up, the worshipper admitting they are too many to count and that they stand between the people and God.Jer 14:7Isa 59:12
Both are beyond the people's own power to undo, so in each case God himself announces the remedy, though he describes it differently for each.Jer 3:22Isa 43:25
Names the direction a people are travelling, away from the God they belong to, rather than any single blow struck against him. Jeremiah asks why Jerusalem has turned back and calls the drift a lasting one, Hosea says the people are bent on it, and Jeremiah tells Judah her own turnings away will be the thing that rebukes her.Jer 8:5Hos 11:7Jer 2:19
Is the disloyalty God offers to "heal", treating it as a sickness in the people rather than a debt to be settled or a charge to be dropped.Jer 3:22Hos 14:4
Hardens into a name for the nation herself, so that Israel is simply called by her turning away and set beside her treacherous sister Judah.Jer 3:6Jer 3:8Jer 3:11Jer 3:12
Keeps the same shape even outside the prophets: in Proverbs the naive are killed by their own turning away from wisdom's correction, not by an offense they committed against someone.Pro 1:32
It is the standard word for what God pardons: he wipes it away, carries it off, puts it as far off as east is from west, and blesses the person whose load of it has been lifted.Isa 43:25Psa 103:12Mic 7:18Psa 32:1
It names wrongs done to another PERSON, not only to God: the offense Jacob dares Laban to name, the one Joseph's brothers beg him to bear, the neighbor's slight that love quietly covers.Gen 31:36Gen 50:17Pro 17:9
It can be counted and itemized, so a prophet indicts nation after nation with a running tally, three of them and then four, each charge a specific deed.Amo 1:3Amo 2:6
It has a fixed place in the Day of Atonement ritual as its own category of guilt: purged from the holy place and confessed over the live goat that carries it away.Lev 16:16Lev 16:21
Both
Both are the prophets' formal charge that Israel has broken with the LORD, and both come attached to a call to come back: return to the one you turned away from, turn back from everything you did.Isa 31:6Ezk 18:30
Both name a break that was chosen, not a slip or a mistake, and both are announced out loud as the reason judgment is coming.Jer 28:16Isa 58:1
It names wrongdoing that is SPOKEN: a message that pulls other people off the road the LORD set them on. The false prophet in the law is executed for having said it, and Jeremiah names two men who taught it.Deu 13:5Jer 28:16Jer 29:32
It pictures the wrong as a direction of travel rather than a countable offense: a people keep adding to it and go deeper into it, so the charge is about how far they have drifted, not how many acts they have committed.Isa 1:5Isa 31:6
Because at bottom it means simply turning aside, it can leave moral language altogether: a beating that never lets up is one that does not turn aside, and in court it is the damaging charge a hostile witness brings against a man.Isa 14:6Deu 19:16
peshah in the other biblical languages
ἀνομίαGreek“lawlessness”the Greek word for lawlessness; it is the most frequent Septuagint rendering of this Hebrew word and reframes the breach as crossing a law rather than rebelling against a person, the shift that pulled later thinking from relationship toward rule-breaking
Carries a relational core: it is the word for one party throwing off a bond it was obligated to keep, whether between people or, by extension, Israel against God. Jacob demands what bond he has broken with Laban; the prophets indict the nations for breaking faith.Gen 31:36Amo 1:3
Bears a specific weight in the worship system: it is the category of sin so grave that only the Day of Atonement scapegoat, with hands laid on its head, can carry it away. The Greek word has no such ritual anchoring.Lev 16:16Lev 16:21
Both
The Greek word is the main one the old Greek translation used to render the Hebrew word, so New Testament writers quoting the Hebrew Scriptures carry the same idea across in Greek. Paul's blessing on the forgiven quotes a psalm whose Hebrew word here is the Hebrew partner.Rom 4:7Psa 32:1
Both name humanity's grave sin precisely as the thing God removes: he blots it out, and he vows to remember it no more.Heb 8:12Isa 43:25
Frames sin as not-conforming-to-a-standard: it is built on the word for law, so it pictures wrongdoing as stepping outside a fixed rule rather than betraying a person. John's letter says it flatly: to sin is to be lawless.1Jn 3:4Mat 7:23
Names lawlessness as a swelling, end-times force with its own embodiment: a coming figure of lawlessness and a hidden power already at work, with lawlessness multiplying as the age closes. The Hebrew word never personifies sin this way.2Th 2:32Th 2:7Mat 24:12
παράπτωμαGreek“trespass”the Greek word for a trespass or false step; it captures a deliberate lapse against another but lacks this word's picture of throwing off a binding overlord
ἁμαρτίαGreek“sin”the broad Greek word for sin in general; it sometimes renders this word but flattens its specific charge of willful revolt into the generic idea of sin
The Hebrew word pictures revolt: a willful breaking away from a rightful authority, the rupture of a bond or covenant, going beyond a boundary against someone.Gen 31:361Ki 8:50
Names the offense as a personal breach against a wronged party, an act of defiance to be confessed and covered.Psa 51:1Pro 28:13
Both
Both name an actual offense committed, a real wrong done rather than a mere inner disposition, and both are the kind of guilt God can forgive and blot out.Isa 43:25Rom 3:25
The Greek word pictures a single failure measured against a standard, one wrong deed that fell short, without in itself carrying the idea of rebellion against a person.Mrk 3:281Co 6:18
Works entirely between people, in ordinary quarrels and property law, with God nowhere in view. Jacob demands to know what he has done to Laban, and a case about a disputed animal uses the same word for the wrong at issue.Gen 31:36Exo 22:91Sa 24:11
Carries the picture of a subject people throwing off a lord they were sworn to obey. Amos indicts one neighboring kingdom after another with it, then turns the same charge on Israel.Amo 1:3Amo 1:6Amo 2:4
Can shrink to a wrong small enough for love to cover: an offense a friend passes over in silence and a sensible person lets go rather than pressing.Pro 10:12Pro 17:9Pro 19:11
Has a fixed place in Israel's worship: it is the category of deliberate wrong that the Day of Atonement purges from the holy place and loads onto the goat driven out into the wilderness.Lev 16:16Lev 16:21
Both
The old Greek translation put the Greek word where Isaiah has the Hebrew one, and Paul quotes that very line: the Deliverer will turn "ungodliness" away from Jacob, translating a Hebrew promise about rebellion turned away.Isa 59:20Rom 11:26
Both name the offense that God's anger actually answers. God's wrath is revealed from heaven against the one, and the prophets announce that he will punish the other on the day he settles accounts.Rom 1:18Amo 3:14Psa 89:32
Both name a whole way of living that a person is called to abandon, not just a single act. One is renounced as part of learning a new life; the other is what Israel is told to turn from and cast away in order to live.Tit 2:12Ezk 18:30Ezk 18:31
Names what is withheld from God rather than a bond thrown off: the awe, honor, and worship he is owed and never given. Paul lines it up next to a separate Greek word for wrong done to other people, so this one carries the offense that looks up toward God.Rom 1:18
It is something a person can be taught out of, and it has an exact opposite in its own family of words. Grace trains believers to renounce it so they can live the reverent, upright life instead, the two held in one sentence.Tit 2:12
Spreads like an infection through talk and appetite. Empty chatter grows into more of it, and in the plural it names the irreverent cravings that mockers follow. The Hebrew word never behaves like an atmosphere that seeps outward this way.2Ti 2:16Jud 1:18
It covers a wrong done to another person, the kind of grievance a wronged party can be asked to drop and a falsely accused person can deny.Gen 31:36Gen 50:171Sa 24:11
It names settled revolt against a rightful lord, a whole nation's record of defiance rather than one misstep, which is why the prophets count it up city by city.Amo 1:3Amo 2:6Mic 1:5
It is the word a worshipper uses of himself when he owns his wrong before God and asks to be washed of it.Psa 32:5Psa 51:3Psa 51:1
It can be carried by someone other than the guilty party, so a servant is wounded and struck down for wrongs that belong to the people.Isa 53:5Isa 53:8
It is something a neighbor can quietly cover over, so the wise are praised for passing over it instead of publishing it.Pro 10:12Pro 17:9Pro 19:11
Both
English Bibles render both words "transgression", and both mean the crossing of a line drawn by someone who had the right to draw it, not a slip or an accident.Heb 2:2Jos 24:19
Both name wrong that has to be dealt with rather than merely noted: the Greek word for what a death sets people free from, the Hebrew word for what the cleansing rites and God's own wiping away remove.Heb 9:15Lev 16:16Isa 43:25
It depends on a stated law being already on the books: with no law published there is no such act at all, and Paul says the law was brought in precisely so that these acts could be named.Rom 4:15Gal 3:19
It names one identifiable step over one specific command, so a single deed can be pointed to and dated, as with the first man and woman in the garden.Rom 5:141Ti 2:14
It belongs to reasoning about how law and penalty work, weighed against the law a person claims to honor, rather than to prayer or confession.Rom 2:23Heb 2:2
What scholars say about peshah
Rolf Knierim's 1965 monograph established the dominant reading that this is the strongest Hebrew sin word, naming the deliberate rupture of a binding relationship on the model of a vassal's revolt against his overlord. Kings uses the matching verb in a strictly political sense (Moab, Edom, and the northern tribes throwing off their suzerain), and the prophets transfer that vocabulary onto Israel's covenant with the LORD. The Priestly writers absorb it into the cult, where Leviticus 16 makes it the category of willful sin that only the goat sent away can carry. Three caveats temper the consensus: the comparative Semitic evidence for a deep root meaning is thin, so the rebellion sense is inferred from Hebrew usage rather than from cognate languages (Clines's lexicon deliberately declines to fix a single basic meaning); the Priestly system may be less rigidly architectonic than Milgrom proposed (Schwartz, Frankel, and Boda); and in the wisdom books and the Septuagint the political-covenantal charge softens toward a more generic offense or lawlessness.
Where scholars disagree about peshah
Whether the word's core meaning is genuinely "rebellion / rupture of a binding relationship" or whether that is read into the Hebrew. The dominant view derives the rebellion sense from the political usage in Kings and the prophets, but the comparative Semitic evidence is thin, so a minority treats the core as criminal negligence or breach of trust (anchored in the bailment law of Exodus 22), with rebellion as a later political specialization.
majorityCore sense is deliberate rebellion / rupture of a binding relationship; Rolf Knierim, Die Hauptbegriffe für Sünde im Alten Testament (1965); TLOT 2:1033-1037; Horst Seebass, TDOT 12:133-151
minorityCore sense is criminal negligence or breach of trust, with rebellion as a derived specialization; the rebellion core is inferred, not lexically secured; David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), 6:793-796
How tightly the Priestly cult organizes this word. Milgrom argued it is a distinct grade of brazen, high-handed sin that only the annual goat sent away can remove, with confession able to downgrade it; others hold the Priestly system is less rigidly tiered, treating this word as one intensity of a single physical reality of sin rather than a category needing its own mechanism.
contestedA graded Priestly system in which this word names brazen sin that penetrates the sanctuary and requires the scapegoat; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, Anchor Bible 3 (1991), 253-264, 1033-1045
contestedA unified Priestly conception of sin as a transferable substance, with this word an intensity rather than a separate category; the confession-as-downgrade theory is forced; Baruch J. Schwartz, 'The Bearing of Sin in the Priestly Literature,' in Pomegranates and Golden Bells (1995), 3-21
In-depth research
This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.
Sources
Rolf Knierim, Die Hauptbegriffe für Sünde im Alten Testament (Gütersloh, 1965; 2nd ed. 1967), esp. 141-184monograph
Rolf Knierim, 'פשע pšʿ to rebel,' in Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament (TLOT), ed. Jenni and Westermann, trans. M. E. Biddle, 2:1033-1037lexicon
Horst Seebass, 'פָּשַׁע pāšaʿ; פֶּשַׁע peshaʿ,' in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), vol. 12 (Eerdmans, 2003), 133-151lexicon
G. Herbert Livingston, 'פָּשַׁע / פֶּשַׁע,' in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (TWOT), entry 1846, ed. Harris, Archer, and Waltke (Moody, 1980), 741-742lexicon
BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1906), 833, s.v. פשעlexicon
David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), vol. 6 (Sheffield, 2007), 793-796, s.v. פשעlexicon
Eugene Carpenter and Michael Grisanti, 'פשע,' in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDOTTE), 3:706-710lexicon
Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, II Kings, Anchor Bible 11 (Doubleday, 1988), on 1:1, 3:5, 8:20-22commentary
Baruch J. Schwartz, 'The Bearing of Sin in the Priestly Literature,' in Pomegranates and Golden Bells, ed. Wright, Freedman, and Hurvitz (Eisenbrauns, 1995), 3-21article
Shalom M. Paul, Amos, Hermeneia (Fortress, 1991), 45-47, 72-76commentary
Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Amos, Anchor Bible 24A (Doubleday, 1989), 233-306commentary
Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel, Hermeneia, 2 vols. (Fortress, 1979/1983), on 2:3 and 20:38commentary