H3722

• {"n":"Genesis 6:14a","s":"Pitch it within and without with pitch. The noun for pitch and the verb for cover share the root behind atonement.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=genesis-6-14a","r":"Genesis 6:14","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Every version reads pitch or tar for the verse's substance and its verb, correctly and unremarkably. No version can show that the same consonants return later as the ordinary Hebrew word for atonement."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"English **tar** and English **atone** share no sound, no spelling, nothing. A reader moving from Noah's ark to the Day of Atonement chapters later would never connect them. In Hebrew, the two ideas are built from the same three letters."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Kopher, pitch, and the verb kaphar, to cover, here describing waterproofing, come from the same root as kippurim, atonement, the word behind Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and kapporet, the mercy seat covering the ark of the covenant later in the Torah. The ark of Noah is, in the vocabulary of the sentence describing it, covered the same way sin is later covered."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English has entirely separate words for a waterproofing tar and a ritual atonement, so the shared Hebrew root, and the theological resonance some readers hear in it, one covering that saves from judgment prefiguring another, cannot survive translation into two unrelated English vocabularies."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"When a mundane, technical instruction, here waterproofing a boat, uses a root that recurs in a book's central ritual vocabulary, that repetition is worth flagging even if the immediate context is entirely practical. Hebrew narrative frequently plants vocabulary early that ritual law develops later."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"Pitch and cover are the plainly correct sense here, and no version disputes it; the verse is giving construction instructions, not making an atonement statement. The connection to kippurim is an observation about shared vocabulary across the Torah, not a claim that Genesis 6 is itself describing a ritual."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05db\u05b9\u05bc\u05e4\u05b6\u05e8 kopher \/ \u05db\u05b8\u05bc\u05e4\u05b7\u05e8 kaphar \u00b7 H3724 \/ H3722"}],"src":["kippurim, atonement, and kapporet, the mercy seat, from the same root kaphar: Leviticus 16; Exodus 25:17","kopher as pitch\/tar, this verse's only use of the noun in this sense"]}
• {"n":"Psalm 32:1","s":"Blessed is he whose sin is covered. Kasah, cover, a near relative of kaphar, the atonement verb.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=psalm-32-1","r":"Psalm 32:1","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Every version reads covered, correctly, but without necessarily connecting the image to the broader covering-vocabulary, kaphar, atonement, kapporet, the mercy seat, that structures Israel's entire sacrificial system."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"English forgiven describes a legal or relational state, a debt cancelled. Hebrew covered pictures something more concrete: sin as a thing hidden from view, the way pitch covered the ark's seams against the flood. The two Hebrew cover-words, kasah and kaphar, are separate roots but sit in the same conceptual family running through Israel's sacrificial vocabulary."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Kesui, covered, here comes from kasah, a distinct root from kaphar, to cover or atone, the verb already met describing Noah pitching the ark at Genesis 6:14 and standing behind kippurim, atonement, and kapporet, the mercy seat. The two roots are not identical, but they occupy the same semantic neighborhood, covering as the central image for how sin is dealt with, whether by a flood-proof coat of pitch or by sacrificial atonement."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English forgiven and covered read as roughly synonymous religious vocabulary; the specific, concrete image of covering, and its resonance with the unrelated-but-neighboring root kaphar running through the sacrificial system, is invisible without tracking the Hebrew vocabulary of covering across these related but distinct words."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"When a psalm uses covering language for sin or forgiveness, listen for an echo of the sacrificial system's own covering vocabulary, kaphar, kapporet, even where the specific root used, as here, is a different, related word rather than the identical one."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"Covered is the uncontested sense of kasah here. What's worth seeing is how this verse's covering image sits inside the larger family of Hebrew covering-vocabulary for sin and atonement, connecting an ordinary psalm of confession to the sacrificial system's central metaphor."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05db\u05b0\u05bc\u05e1\u05d5\u05bc\u05d9 kesui (\u05db\u05b8\u05bc\u05e1\u05b8\u05d4 kasah, cover; cf. \u05db\u05b8\u05bc\u05e4\u05b7\u05e8 kaphar, atone) \u00b7 H3680 \/ H3722"}],"src":["kaphar as the atonement\/covering verb: Genesis 6:14; Leviticus 16","kasah as a related but distinct covering root: standard Hebrew lexicons"]}
• {"n":"kipper","s":"To atone. The root sense is disputed between covering and wiping clean.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=kipper","r":"Leviticus 16:30","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Versions read atone, make atonement, or make reconciliation."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"**Wipe the slate.** **Cover the debt.** Two pictures, two different theories of what happened to the debt."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Kipper may come from a root meaning to cover, on the Arabic cognate, or from one meaning to wipe or rub off, on the Akkadian. Both are argued. The noun kapporet is the cover of the ark, which English calls the mercy seat."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English atone was coined from at one and carries a reconciliation sense that neither Hebrew candidate supplies directly."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"When the root of a technical term is genuinely disputed, say so and work from usage instead. Usage is always better evidence than etymology."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"Atone and make atonement are the majority renderings across all versions."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05db\u05b4\u05bc\u05e4\u05b5\u05bc\u05e8 kipper \u00b7 H3722"}],"src":["kapporet, the ark cover: Exodus 25:17","Akkadian kuppuru, to wipe","Arabic kafara, to cover; both cognates are argued","Leviticus 16 throughout"]}