Sense: to cause to sin
v. — tocause to violate a divine law.
They will not live in your land, lest they cause you to sin against me when you serve their gods, for it will be a snare to you.
Ex 23:33
In Exodus 23, God is giving a warning to his people not to allow the current residents of the Promised Land to remain there. If they do, the people that live there could cause the Israelites to sin! What’s going on in this passage? Outside influences were taking the people and leading them away from God. While we have defined the sense as “to cause to violate a divine law”, that doesn’t mean the people of Israel were off the hook for what happened in their history. Ultimately, the Israelites didn’t drive out all the pagan influences in the Promised Land, and they were led into sin. While the language itself shows causality here, we must remember theologically that we are all called to account for our actions, regardless the influences we might have on our lives.
What is the Bible Sense Lexicon?
Sense of the Day is based on content from Logos’ Bible Sense Lexicon, which organizes biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words by meaning based on a variety of semantic relationships. Sense of the Day provides examples of senses in context, along with insight into their application for theology and interpretation.
The Bible Sense Lexicon is a Logos dataset available in Logos 5 Gold and higher base packages. If you’re enrolled in the Logos Academic Discount Program, you can also find the Bible Sense Lexicon in the Biblical Languages base package. Take your studies even further by exploring semantic domains, engaging the biblical text like never before.
Learn more about the Bible Sense Lexicon.