Hebrew word · H4870

מִשְׁגֶּה

mishgeh

mistake

An error, oversight, or slip. It comes from the root shagah/shagag, 'to stray, to go wrong without meaning to'. This root also gives shegagah, the 'unintentional' wrongdoing of Leviticus 4–5 and Numbers 15, which is contrasted with deliberate, 'high-handed' sin.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

mistake

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Genesis 43:12

Range of meaning

An error, oversight, or slip. It comes from the root shagah/shagag, 'to stray, to go wrong without meaning to'. This root also gives shegagah, the 'unintentional' wrongdoing of Leviticus 4–5 and Numbers 15, which is contrasted with deliberate, 'high-handed' sin.

Against the English

'Oversight' (KJV, WEB, ESV) and 'mistake' (BSB, NIV) both fit. 'Oversight' is a little closer, because the root stresses an error made in ignorance rather than a calculated one.

Used elsewhere in the period

The noun appears only here in the Bible. The Greek Septuagint renders it with a word meaning 'something done in ignorance', which matches the 'unwitting' sense of the root.

Where it appears

Genesis · 1

  1. Genesis 43:12 מִשְׁגֶּ֖ה [was] a mistake

    Take double the silver with you so that you may return the silver that was put back into the mouths of your sacks. Perhaps it was a mistake.

    Here: An honest error, something done without meaning to. This is the only place in the Bible the noun occurs. It comes from the root for 'go astray' or 'err unintentionally'.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.