The Gift of Forgiveness

God’s Exceptional Forgiveness

According to the Hebrew Bible, God’s fundamental goodness is expressed through his willingness to forgive sin. No sin is too great to be forgiven by God. Even terrible deeds such as David’s sin with Bathsheba are readily forgiven by God, provided the sinner repents sincerely. The divine ability to forgive sin is so important that the Hebrew language contains a special word for it: סלח salakh. 

Two Words for Forgive

Although the word “forgive” appears about 200 times in your Bible, salakh only appears 50 times – always when God is forgiving human sins. Moses beseeches God, “Forgive the iniquity of this people” (Num. 14:19). However, when humans forgive one another, the Bible uses other words. Jacob asks Joseph, “Forgive the transgressions of your brothers and their sin” (Gen. 50:17). In the original Hebrew, the word “forgive” is nasa which means “to lift up” the sin. 
   

Cut Through the Fog of Translation

The distinction is clear. Humans can lighten the load of transgressions, but only God can definitively wipe the slate clean. Reading the Bible in translation you have no sense that there is a difference between how God forgives humanity’s sins and how people forgive one another. Enroll in our live online Biblical Hebrew course to get the insider’s perspective on Scripture!