HEBREW WORD STUDY – SIN – CHATAH  חטא  Cheth Teth Aleph

Psalms 32:5: “I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.”

Most of us as Christians, myself included just lump everything bad into the word sin.  Iniquity is sin, transgressions are sins. So when we say Jesus died on the cross for our sins we are also saying he died for our iniquities and transgressions.  The gentlemen on the other two crosses were malefactors so we can put malefactors into that bag of bad stuff to be forgiven. Anyone else has something we can put in that bag?  Jesus died for them all.  Of course in evangelism, we don’t try to explain the difference between all these bad things we just throw all those words into a laundry bag called sin. 

It is sort of like the word Torah.  In its truest sense, it refers to just the first five books of the Bible, then you have the prophetic writings the Historical writings the poetic writings but rather than go through the trouble of naming all those we call the entire Old Testament Torah. The correct name, of course, is Tanakh but if you call the Old Testament Torah in the context of speaking of the Old Testament at worst a rabbi may roll his eyes but acknowledge he understands the context that you use the word in.  Sometimes the entire works of Judaism including the Talmud, Mishnah, Targums, etc. are lumped into the word Torah.

In other words, the word sin has become an eponym which is a word like Coke becomes the name for all cola products. At my age, I cannot drink the stuff anymore but when I did I would often order a coke in a restaurant.  Obviously, they will not bring out a white powdered illegal substance.  They do understand the context of the word.  Many times they will say they do not have coke, but do have Pepsi or RC. I used to be put off by that remark because I knew 99% of the people asking for a coke could care less if it were Pepsi or RC but you had that 1% purist and cola connoisseur who when they said coke, they meant Coca Cola.

So let me say right here and now, I am not a connoisseur of sins.  If it offends God, I call sin. But when we get to a verse like Psalms 32:5 we need to be that purist who, when he asks for a Coke, means Coca Cola.  The word sin is chata’ spelled Cheth, Teth Aleph.  As most of you are aware it is an archer’s word for missing the target. Being a negative word we look at the shadows of the letters and find that the Cheth means destruction, the Teth is lacking the depth of understanding and the Aleph is ambivalence toward God.  Thus sin is having such ambivalence toward God that you do not attempt to understand His feelings and this will lead to destruction.

Rabbi Glazerson breaks the word down to the Cheth Teth which is the word for glazing or covering a wall with a protective and decorative coating like plaster.  It is a covering up or covering over.  The Aleph represents God and hence sin is covering the presence of God.  One plasters a wall to cover up an unsightly blemish hence it could mean to cover over the things that God considers unsightly.

The number 18 is often represented as sin.  18 is its numerical value.  The Cheth = 8, the Teth = 9 and the Aleph = 1.  Who knows 18? The word hachagab has a value of 18 which is the grasshopper.  Grasshoppers appear harmless, but they can swarm to destroy your crops and food supply. One sin may seem harmless but they can multiply until they destroy you.  The word echad has a value of 18.  Echad means one and only takes one sin to condemn one to hell. Yad’g has a value of 18 it means to be afraid.  Sin will cause you fear.  

Rabbi Samson Hirsch defines chatah as removing yourself from God, removing yourself from the source of life by being frivolous and immoral.   If you try to cover over you immoral behavior Numbers 32:23 promises, “Be sure your chatah – sin will find you out.”