Part 2 · Deep dive
Sin in the original languages
The Hebrew and Greek words behind the English word "sin", and what each adds.
English uses one short word, but the Bible's authors had a whole vocabulary. Each word lights up a different side of the problem: missing the target, twisting what is straight, rebelling against a relationship.
When Jews translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek (the Septuagint, about 250–100 BC), they matched these words with Greek ones. The apostles, including Paul, used that Greek Bible, so the two vocabularies are closely linked.
Hebrew words (Old Testament)
chataʾ — to miss, to go wrongAbout 600 uses; Septuagint: hamartanō
About 600 uses; Septuagint: hamartanō
חָטָא chataʾ — To miss, fail, sin
Used of left-handed slingers who 'did not miss' (Judges 20:16). Most of the time it describes moral failure before God. The noun chattaʾt means both 'sin' and 'sin offering', showing how closely sin and its remedy were linked in Israel's worship.
First moral use: God warns Cain that sin crouches at the door, eager to control him, but he must master it.
ʿāwōn — iniquity, crookedness, guiltAbout 230 uses
About 230 uses
עָוֹן ʿāwōn — Iniquity; the guilt and punishment of sin
From a root meaning to bend or twist. One word covers the wrong act, the guilt it brings, and its consequences. When Cain says 'my punishment is too great' (Gen 4:13), the word is ʿāwōn.
Isaiah 53:6 uses it of the Servant: the Lord laid on Him 'the iniquity of us all', meaning the guilt and its weight.
pešaʿ — rebellion, transgressionAbout 90 uses
About 90 uses
פֶּשַׁע pešaʿ — Rebellion, breach of trust
Used in politics for a vassal nation revolting against its king (2 Kings 8:20). Applied to God, it treats sin as betrayal within a covenant relationship.
All three words appear together in God's self-description in Exodus 34:7, forgiving 'iniquity, rebellion and sin', and again in David's prayer of confession, Psalm 32:1–5. Using all three says: every kind of wrong is covered.
Greek words (New Testament)
hamartia — sinAbout 170 uses; Paul's main word
About 170 uses; Paul's main word
ἁμαρτία hamartia — Sin; in Paul often Sin as a ruling power
In Romans 5–8, Paul uses hamartia about 40 times, and often with 'the': Sin entered, reigned, pays wages, deceives. Here it is less a single act and more a tyrant.
anomia — lawlessness
ἀνομία anomia — Lawlessness
Literally 'no-law'. Jesus warns those who did religious works but practised lawlessness that He never knew them.
paraptōma — trespass, false step
παράπτωμα paraptōma — A falling aside, a misstep
Paul's word for Adam's fall in Romans 5. It pictures someone stumbling off the path.
parabasis — transgression
adikia — unrighteousness, injustice
ἀδικία adikia — Injustice, wrongdoing
The opposite of dikaiosynē, righteousness or justice. Sin damages right relationships between people as well as with God.
asebeia — ungodliness
ἀσέβεια asebeia — Irreverence toward God
Paul pairs it with adikia in Romans 1:18: sin is both refusing God His honor and wronging others. Yet Christ died 'for the ungodly' (Rom 5:6).
Related words worth knowing
ὀφείλημα opheilēma — Debt
In the Lord's Prayer in Matthew, 'forgive us our debts'. Sin as something owed.
ἐπιθυμία epithymia — Strong desire, craving
Neutral in itself (Jesus 'eagerly desired' the Passover), but often used for disordered desire that leads to sin.
μετάνοια metanoia — Repentance, change of mind
The answer to sin: a turning of the whole person back toward God.
How the church fathers read these words
The early church
John Chrysostom · c. 390 · Homilies on Romans
Preaching on Romans 5–7, he stressed that Paul calls the Law holy and blames not the Law but Sin, which seized the commandment and used it.
Read the source →Origen · c. 245 · Commentary on Romans
Noticed that Paul speaks of Sin as reigning like a king, and urged readers not to let it rule in their 'mortal bodies' but to give their members to God.
The words at work in key passages
Psalm 51: David uses every wordPsalm 51:1–5
Psalm 51:1–5
After his sin with Bathsheba, David prays: 'blot out the stain of my sins (pešaʿ, rebellion). Wash me clean from my guilt (ʿāwōn, crookedness). Purify me from my sin (chattaʾt, failure).' He then pairs each with a different cleansing: blotting out like ink from a record, washing like stained cloth, purifying like a priest declaring someone clean.
He confesses 'against You, and You alone, have I sinned' (51:4), even though he wronged Bathsheba, Uriah and the nation. He is not denying harm to others; he recognises that every wrong is finally a wrong against the God who made them.
The Day of AtonementLeviticus 16:21–22
Leviticus 16:21–22
The high priest lays both hands on the scapegoat and confesses 'all the iniquities (ʿāwōn), rebellions (pešaʿ) and sins (chattaʾt)' of Israel. The goat carries them away into the wilderness. Christians read Isaiah 53 and John 1:29 against this background: Jesus is the one who 'takes away' the sin of the world.
Romans 5:12–21: Paul's whole vocabulary
In ten verses Paul uses hamartia (sin as power), paraptōma (Adam's false step), parabasis (crossing a known command) and parakoē (refusing to listen, 5:19). Then he answers them with grace words: charis (grace), dōrea (free gift) and dikaiōma (righteous act). Where sin increased, grace 'super-abounded' (hyperperisseuō), a word Paul seems to have coined for the occasion.
ὑπερπερισσεύω hyperperisseuō — To overflow beyond measure
Perisseuō already means to overflow; Paul adds hyper, 'beyond'. Grace does not merely match sin; it floods past it.
From Greek tragedy to the gospel
Before the Bible, Greek writers used hamartia for an error, often a tragic misjudgment. Aristotle used it for the hero's fatal mistake in a play. It carried little sense of offense against a personal God. When the Septuagint translators chose hamartia for chataʾ, the word took on the weight of covenant: sin became a wrong done to the living God who loves His people.
This explains why the New Testament can speak of sin so personally. It is not fate or bad luck; it is a broken relationship that God Himself moves to heal.
Respected commentary
BDAG (Bauer–Danker Greek Lexicon) · 3rd ed. 2000
The standard scholarly dictionary of New Testament Greek; notes that in Paul hamartia is 'almost personified' as a power that rules and enslaves.
Brown–Driver–Briggs Hebrew Lexicon · 1906
The classic Hebrew dictionary; traces ʿāwōn to a root meaning 'to bend, twist', supporting the idea of sin as crookedness.
What Greek verb tenses tell us
1 John seems to contradict itself: 'If we claim we have no sin, we are fooling ourselves' (1:8), yet 'those who have been born into God's family do not make a practice of sinning' (3:9). The Greek helps. In 3:9 John uses the present tense, which describes ongoing, habitual action. He is not saying Christians never sin, but that sin is no longer the settled direction of their life.
Likewise in 1 John 2:1, 'if anyone does sin' uses the aorist tense, a single act. John expects believers will sometimes fall, and points them immediately to Christ their advocate.
How traditions read 1 John 3:9
Catholic
Distinguishes mortal sin, which breaks communion with God, from venial sin, which wounds it. A child of God does not live in mortal sin.
Orthodox
Reads it as the direction of the healed life: the one united to Christ is being made free of sin, a process completed in theosis.
Protestant
Most read the present tense as habitual sin. Wesleyans add that the Spirit can bring believers to 'entire sanctification', a love that no longer willfully sins.
Key takeaways
- Hebrew pictures sin as missing the mark, twisting, and rebelling.
- Greek adds lawlessness, misstep, injustice, ungodliness, and Sin as a ruling power.
- Paul's hamartia in Romans 5–8 is often a tyrant, not just an act.