שְׁגִיאָה

From the study of Psalm 19:12

Range of meaning

This noun appears only here in the Hebrew Bible. It comes from the related verbs shagah and shagag, "to stray, go astray, wander, stagger, err." Shepherds used the verb of wandering sheep (Ezekiel 34:6). Wisdom writers used it of a man staggering, drunk or infatuated (Proverbs 5:19–23; Isaiah 28:7). The priests used it for unintentional sin. The closely related noun shegagah is the technical term in Leviticus 4–5 and Numbers 15 for an offence done "in error" or "inadvertently." That covered both not knowing the rule and not realising what one was doing.

Against the English

"Errors" (KJV, BSB, WEB, YLT) is accurate, but in modern English an "error" sounds like a harmless mistake. "Faults" sounds like a personality weakness. Neither word carries what the Hebrew assumes: an unintentional straying is still a real breach that leaves a person guilty and needing to be cleared.

How it drifted

Modern English separates "mistakes" from "sins" and treats only knowing wrongdoing as morally serious. Israel's law did not. An unwitting offence still defiled and still had to be atoned for (Leviticus 4:2, 13–14, 27–28; 5:17).

Used elsewhere in the period

The cognate shegagah appears in Leviticus 4:2, 22, 27; 5:15, 18; Numbers 15:24–29; and Ecclesiastes 5:6 (Heb 5:5), "it was a mistake." The Dead Sea Community Rule (1QS 8:24–9:2) keeps the same two-tier system. It gives a lighter penalty for an offence done bishgagah ("in error") than for one done "with a high hand." The Septuagint translates paraptōmata, "false steps, lapses."