Word studies · Hebrew · Strong's H2403
חַטָּאָה · chaṭṭâʼâh · appears 295 times in the Old Testament
In one line: Missing the mark — and the offering that covers it.
He shall offer this bull just as he did the bull for the sin offering; in this way the priest will make atonement on their behalf, and they will be forgiven.
Leviticus 4:20
Chattath is both sin and the sin offering — the offense, and the sacrifice that deals with it, in a single word.
Chattath names failure, guilt and its consequences, and then names the offering prescribed to remove them. Leviticus uses it constantly in the sacrificial instructions, so the vocabulary of the problem and the remedy is identical.
Chattath comes from chata, whose root sense is to miss — the word is used of slingers who could aim at a hair and “not miss.” Sin in Hebrew is first a failure to hit what was aimed at, before it is rebellion.
That one word covers both the sin and its offering is easy to miss in English, where “sin offering” looks like a compound. The Hebrew is blunter: the animal is called the sin — the offense is transferred, and what is carried out of the camp is the thing itself.
Chattath (H2403) appears 280 times in the Hebrew Bible, and the same word does duty for the offense and for the offering that removes it.
Sin in the Old Testament is a problem with a prescribed remedy rather than a permanent verdict, and the remedy always costs a life. The New Testament reads Christ through exactly this vocabulary — “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin” — which is the Hebrew idiom, not a paradox.
Name a specific miss rather than confessing in general terms. Scripture's remedy is specific too, and vagueness is where guilt goes to stay.
an offence (sometimes habitual sinfulness), and its penalty, occasion, sacrifice, or expiation; also (concretely) an offender
If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you refuse to do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires you, but you must master it.”
Genesis 4:7Now please forgive my sin once more and appeal to the LORD your God, that He may remove this death from me.”
Exodus 10:17If the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, he must bring to the LORD a young bull without blemish as a sin offering for the sin he has committed.
Leviticus 4:3“Tell the Israelites that when a man or woman acts unfaithfully against the LORD by committing any sin against another, that person is guilty
Numbers 5:6Then I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all the sin you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD and provoking Him to anger.
Deuteronomy 9:18But Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the LORD, for He is a holy God; He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your rebellion or your sins.
Joshua 24:19Press and hold sin offering in any chapter and this study opens on the verse you are reading, with the lexicons, every occurrence and the commentaries beside it. The Bible is free to read.
Scripture quoted from the Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Strong's definitions are public domain. Counts come from The Pillar's own tagged text.