TR: chaṭṭâʼâh → hamartia (Sin / Sin Offering)¶
The Chain¶
Hebrew OT LXX (Greek OT) Greek NT
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חַטָּאָה (chaṭṭâʼâh) → ἁμαρτία (hamartia) → ἁμαρτία (hamartia)
H2403, 270x in OT 242x as translation 151x in NT
"sin / sin offering" PMI score: 31.95 "sin"
OT Usage (Hebrew)¶
| Strong's | Word | Occurrences | Primary Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| H2403 | חַטָּאָה (chaṭṭâʼâh) | 270 | sin (moral offense) and/or sin offering (ritual sacrifice) |
| H2398 | חָטָא (châṭâʼ) | 240+ | root verb: to miss, to sin |
| H2399 | חֵטְא (chêṭᵉʼ) | 33 | the criminal act or its penalty |
Key OT passages: - Gen 4:7 — "sin lieth at the door" — earliest usage; sin as a crouching power - Exo 34:7 — God "forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin" — the classical triad - Lev 16:9,15 — Day of Atonement; chattaah = the sacrificial goat itself
[See H2403-chattaah.md for full canonical word study]
LXX Bridge¶
| Hebrew | Greek Translation | Co-occ | PMI | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| H2403 chattaah | ἁμαρτία G266 | 242 | 31.95 | Primary bridge — overwhelmingly consistent |
| H2403 chattaah | ὁλοκαύτωμα G3646 | 33 | 14.04 | LXX uses "burnt offering" for the sacrifice sense |
| H2403 chattaah | ἁμάρτημα G265 | 11 | 13.98 | Concrete sin — used for specific transgression sense |
| H2403 chattaah | ἀνομία G458 | 31 | 13.19 | "Lawlessness" — used in prophetic/covenant violation context |
G266 hamartia also translates these Hebrew words in LXX:
| Hebrew | Co-occ | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| H5771 עָוֺן (avon) | 93 | LXX conflates avon and chattaah under hamartia |
| H8163 שָׂעִיר (sair/goat) | 42 | Goat = the sin offering animal |
| H2399 חֵטְא (chet) | 28 | Closely related sin noun |
| H3722 כָּפַר (kaphar) | 41 | Atone — LXX uses hamartia in atonement contexts |
| H6588 פֶּשַׁע (pesha) | 34 | Rebellion — all three sin terms collapse under G266 |
Semantic shift in translation: The LXX translation is highly faithful — G266 ἁμαρτία preserves the abstract/moral sense of chattaah. However, the LXX handles chattaah's dual meaning (sin + sin offering) by sometimes rendering the sacrifice sense with ὁλοκαύτωμα (burnt offering) or omitting the article, losing the precise cultic specificity that the Hebrew carries. The boundary between chattaah = offense and chattaah = remedy becomes less sharp in Greek.
NT Usage (Greek)¶
| Strong's | Word | Occurrences | Primary Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| G266 | ἁμαρτία (hamartia) | 151 | sin (abstract: the nature, condition, or act) |
| G265 | ἁμάρτημα (hamartema) | 4 | sin (concrete: a specific sinful act) |
| G264 | ἁμαρτάνω (hamartano) | 43 | to sin (the verb) |
Key NT passages: - John 1:29 — "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin (ἁμαρτίαν) of the world" — the sin-offering imagery of Leviticus compressed into one person - Rom 3:9 — "for we have... proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin (ἁμαρτίαν)" — sin as a governing power - 1 Cor 15:3 — "Christ died for our sins (ἁμαρτίας) according to the scriptures" — direct echo of the OT sacrifice pattern - 2 Cor 5:21 — "he hath made him to be sin (ἁμαρτίαν) for us, who knew no sin" — the most direct NT recovery of the dual Hebrew sense: Christ = both the sin and the sin offering
[G266 canonical word study: TODO(need G266 study)]
Direct OT→NT Quotations / Echoes¶
| NT Verse | OT Echo | Shared Concept | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Cor 5:21 | Lev 16 (Day of Atonement) | Christ as sin offering | ἁμαρτίαν recovers chattaah's double meaning: offense + remedy |
| 1 Cor 15:3 | Isa 53:10 (asham = guilt offering) | "died for our sins" | OT sin-bearing language fully activated |
| John 1:29 | Lev 16:21-22 / Isa 53:6 | Lamb bearing sin away | Scapegoat (chattaah goat) fulfillment |
| Heb 9:26-28 | Lev 16 | "put away sin by sacrifice of himself" | Day of Atonement structure applied to Christ |
| Rom 8:3 | Lev 4-5 (sin offering) | "condemned sin in the flesh" | God "sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin" (G266 used as sin offering) |
Continuity and Shifts¶
What stays the same: - The core meaning of ἁμαρτία in the NT exactly matches chattaah's moral/legal sense — a transgression that creates guilt and requires remedy - The forensic frame: sin against a holy God who will not clear the guilty (Exo 34:7) - The need for atonement: chattaah presupposes kaphar (covering); NT ἁμαρτία presupposes ἱλαστήριον (propitiation, Rom 3:25)
What shifts: - In the OT, chattaah explicitly names the sacrifice (the sin offering is itself a chattaah). In the NT, ἁμαρτία rarely names the sacrifice directly — though 2 Cor 5:21 deliberately recovers this double sense when Paul says Christ "was made sin" (not just "died for sin") - The NT concentrates on sin as an enslaving power (Rom 6–7) more than the OT's focus on specific acts and their sacrificial remedy — a development enabled by the LXX's abstraction of chattaah into ἁμαρτία - The prophetic triad (chattaah + avon + pesha) dissolves in NT Greek: all three typically collapse into ἁμαρτία or παράπτωμα, losing the Hebrew precision
Generated from: gather_trace_data.py H2403, gather_word_data.py H2403 Last updated: 2026-04-02