Word study

Atonement

2 Hebrew words behind this English word

In brief

Atonement translates the Hebrew verb kipper and the noun kippurim, as in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The verb describes what the sacrifices accomplished: dealing with sin so that the relationship with God is restored. Scholars discuss whether its root picture is covering, wiping clean or ransom. The word is almost entirely an Old Testament one; the New Testament uses other terms.

Written and reviewed by our editorial team.

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “atonement”. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.

At a glance

How often each original word is translated “atonement” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • כָּפַר kâpharcover over (figurative), pacify, make propitiationtranslated this way 81 times of its 100 uses · Strong’s H3722Verb  ·  Translated: make atonement 58, atoned 6, made atonement 4, atone 3

    Exodus 29:33 They must eat those things by which atonement was made for their ordination and consecration. But no outsider may eat them, because these things are sacred.

    Leviticus 1:4 He is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, so it can be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him.

    Full study and all 94 verses →
  • כִּפֻּר kippurexpiationtranslated this way 8 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s H3725Noun  ·  Translated: atonement 8

    Exodus 29:36 Sacrifice a bull as a sin offering each day for atonement. Purify the altar by making atonement for it, and anoint it to consecrate it.

    Leviticus 23:27 “The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. You shall hold a sacred assembly and humble yourselves, and present a food offering to the LORD.

    Full study and all 8 verses →
How to study a word well
  1. Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
  2. Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
  3. Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
  4. Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
  5. See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
  6. Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
  7. Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.

What the Bible says about atonement: passages by topic →

Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.