Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
pesha
Transgression. A relational breach, closer to rebellion than to a slip.
Isaiah 53:5, in every translation this tool compares.
He broke with them. That is not a mistake. It is a decision about a relationship.
Because the three main Hebrew words for sin are not synonyms, and this is the one that is about breaking with someone rather than falling short.
Versions read transgression or rebellion.
פֶּשַׁע pesha · H6588
Pesha is used of political revolt as well as of sin against God, which is what fixes its flavour. Where chatta't is failure and avon is crookedness, pesha is deliberate breach.
English transgression sounds like crossing a line in a rulebook rather than breaking with a person.
Where a language has three words for one English idea, the three are a set. Learn them together or you will flatten all three.
Transgression is the majority rendering; rebellion appears where the political sense is clear.
- pesha of political revolt: 1 Kings 12:19; 2 Kings 8:20
- The three nouns together: Exodus 34:7; Psalm 51:1-2
- Isaiah 53:5, 8
