Sense of the Day: To Forgive <=> Lift Up

Sense: to forgive <=> lift up

v. — to forgive, conceived of as lifting up (or perhaps removing) something.

And now forgive my sin surely this time, and pray to Yahweh your God so that he may only remove from me this death.

Ex 10:17

Among the senses we defined in the Bible Sense Lexicon, I’ve found many of the most interesting ones are metaphorical extensions. The sense I’m looking at in Ex 10:17 is just that: it is an extension from a word that normally means “to lift something up”. But here in this context it is used to express the idea of forgiveness. In this verse sin is being thought of as an object that could be removed from a person. It’s probably not a metaphor we want to build grand theological constructs on, but it gives us a little insight into how sin is perceived in the Bible: like a weight that can be lifted from us. The Bible Sense Lexicon helps you see that in a context like this a metaphor is being used to express an important concept.

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.