to be guilty, or to do wrong: to stand in the wrong before God or a just standard, and to act that way
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
This is the plain-conduct side of the word. It can point at a person's guilty standing (being in the wrong, deserving a verdict against you) or at the wrong behavior itself (acting wickedly, doing wrong). The two shade into each other because in the Bible being guilty and doing wrong are rarely far apart: what you do is what you are held answerable for.
It shows up most sharply in confessions. When Israel prays, they pile it together with words for sinning and rebelling: "we have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly." It is the honest admission that the fault is genuinely theirs.
It also runs through the book of Job as he protests his innocence. Job keeps insisting he is not the guilty party, that he has not done the wrong he is being blamed for. Here the force is closer to "be in the wrong" than "behave wickedly," though the same word covers both.
Nuances
1ato be guilty, to be in the wrong: to hold or admit a guilty standing before God or a just claim
to condemn, to declare guilty: to hand down or pronounce a verdict that someone is in the wrong
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is the courtroom side of the word. Instead of describing a person's own guilt, it describes the act of ruling against someone: a judge, an accuser, or God pronouncing a person guilty. It is the opposite of clearing or acquitting, and the two are regularly paired, as when a case is decided by "acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty."
Because it is a verdict word, it can be used unjustly. Scripture calls it an outrage when a judge condemns the innocent, and it warns that God will not let a righteous person be condemned in the end. In Job, the word turns painful: Job fears that even his own mouth, or God himself, will pronounce him guilty no matter what he says.
Is a courtroom word: to be in the wrong, and in its causative use to declare someone guilty. Its direct opposite is to declare someone innocent, so it belongs to the language of verdicts.Deu 25:1Pro 17:15Job 40:8
Points to a settled condition of being guilty or in the wrong rather than a single misstep, which is why it is the standing label for the wicked as opposed to the righteous.Psa 18:21Job 9:20Job 10:15
Both
Both are stacked together in confessions of guilt, where the speaker admits both having missed the mark and having been in the wrong before God.Psa 106:6Dan 9:51Ki 8:47
Names the act of missing the mark or falling short of what is owed, whether toward God or toward another person, without necessarily fixing who is to blame in a courtroom sense.Gen 39:9Gen 42:22Exo 32:30
Is the word woven into the sacrificial system: it is the offense a person brings a sin offering to cover, so it carries the whole machinery of guilt and its remedy.Lev 4:2Lev 5:5Lev 5:6
Can describe an unintentional lapse or a wrong done in ignorance, not only deliberate rebellion, so it covers a far wider range of failure.Lev 4:22Lev 4:27Num 15:27
רָשָׁעthe wicked person: the noun for the guilty party, whereas this is the verb for being or being declared guilty
Belongs to the courtroom: to be in the wrong in a dispute, the opposite of being cleared, so a judge who calls the guilty party guilty is doing justice and one who does the reverse is condemned.Deu 25:1Pro 17:15Job 9:20
Frames guilt as being on the wrong side against God, acting wickedly or rebelling, the settled character of the wrong-doer rather than a single act needing an offering.Neh 9:33Dan 9:5Psa 106:6
Both
Both describe a person ending up guilty before God rather than in the clear, so English Bibles can render either as being guilty or bearing the blame.Lev 5:19Job 10:2
Names the state of having actually incurred guilt by doing something that breaks a duty to God, so a person becomes liable and must make it right, often by bringing a guilt offering.Lev 5:5Lev 5:17Num 5:6
Used of whole lands and nations that bear their guilt and are laid waste for it, so the guilt spills over into ruin and desolation.Isa 24:6Hos 10:2Ezk 6:6
Belongs to the courtroom: to declare someone guilty, to condemn a person as in the wrong against a standard or judgment.Deu 25:1Exo 22:9
Sets the guilty against the innocent as a fixed pair, so its core is the verdict of being in the wrong, the opposite of being declared righteous.1Ki 8:32Pro 17:15
Used of admitting one's own guilt before God, owning that one has been in the wrong rather than describing harm done.Neh 9:33Dan 9:5
Both
Both can describe acting wrongly, a person behaving in a way that is morally bad, though one stresses the badness of the deed and the other the guilt incurred.Gen 19:7Job 10:15
Names the harm an action does to someone, the actual hurt or damage inflicted, not a verdict about it.Gen 31:7Num 11:11
Covers treating a person badly or dealing ill with them, the everyday sense of doing someone wrong or making things go badly for them.Gen 43:6Num 20:15
Used for bringing calamity or trouble down on someone, evil as misfortune and ruin rather than moral fault.1Ki 17:20Rut 1:21
rasah in the other biblical languages
καταγινώσκωGreek“to condemn”the Greek verb to condemn, matching the courtroom side of this word: to give a verdict of guilty against someone
Also runs the other direction: to be guilty, to act wickedly, to be in the wrong before God, describing the person's actual conduct and not only a verdict about them.Psa 106:6Dan 9:5Job 10:15
In its condemning sense it is the formal act of a court or judge declaring the accused guilty, the opposite of acquitting the innocent, so it belongs to legal judgment rather than private feeling.Deu 25:11Ki 8:32Pro 17:15
Both
Both can name the act of finding someone guilty and pronouncing them in the wrong, which is why the Greek word carries the weight of a condemning verdict that the Hebrew word delivers in a legal setting.Gal 2:11Job 40:8
Names a verdict that a person's own conscience passes on them from the inside. The heart is the judge that pronounces someone guilty.1Jn 3:201Jn 3:21
Used of one person plainly standing in the wrong and open to blame, without a formal courtroom in view. Peter was in the wrong and everyone could see it.Gal 2:11
Also names simply being guilty or acting wickedly, a state or behavior with no verdict in view, which the Greek word never covers.Dan 9:5Psa 106:6Neh 9:33
Both
Both formally pronounce a person guilty in judgment, the opposite of acquitting or justifying, and the Greek word is the standard New Testament term for what the Hebrew word does when a court declares someone in the wrong.Deu 25:11Ki 8:32Mat 27:3Mrk 14:64
Both can describe a person condemned out of his own mouth, self-condemnation rather than a sentence imposed from outside.Job 9:20Job 15:6Rom 2:1
Passes a specific sentence, above all a death sentence: to condemn someone to a set penalty at the end of a trial.Mat 20:18Mrk 10:33
Condemns by superior example, where the conduct of the righteous shows up the guilt of others rather than a court handing down a verdict.Mat 12:41Mat 12:42
What scholars say about rasah
The standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, DCH) treat H7561 as a single root with a stem-based sense split: qal intransitive be guilty, be in the wrong (of one's status or conduct), and hiphil in two directions, a declarative to declare guilty, condemn (the forensic antonym of the hiphil of H6663 to justify, acquit) and a factitive to act wickedly, do wrong. TDOT (s.v.) situates the verb in the wider rasha word group whose center of gravity is the disturbance of a rightful order, whether legal, social, or covenantal, over against tsedeq righteousness. The forensic pairing acquit or condemn (Deut 25:1;1 Kgs 8:32;Prov 17:15) is the clearest fixed usage.