The proclamation of Exodus 34:6-7 closes with נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן וָפֶשַׁע וְחַטָּאָה (nosei avon vafesha ve-chataah) — "who bears/forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin." That same verb, nasa, sounds again centuries later — in Isaiah 53:12, of the Suffering Servant: "he bore (nasa) the sin of many." This study follows that one verb from Mount Sinai to the deepest prophecy of the Old Testament, closing out the series of five core words from the proclamation.
This study is the last in the series of core words from Exodus 34:6-7, building on Rachum, Channun, Emunah, Emet, and Erech Appayim within the walk Being Conformed to YHWH's Character.
By the end of this study you will understand:- Why nasa ("to lift, carry, bear away") is one of the broadest verbs in the Tanakh — and why that matters here.
- Why the exact same expression "nasa avon" can mean both "to bear one's own guilt" (punishment) and "to carry away another's guilt" (forgiveness).
- How the scapegoat of Leviticus 16 literally enacts nasa avon — physically carrying iniquity into the wilderness.
- Why Psalm 32:1 is the passive mirror image of Exodus 34:7 — nesui-pesha, "whose transgression is carried/borne away."
- How Isaiah 53:4 and 53:12 use the exact same verb as the proclamation, and what that means for the tension between "forgiving" and "by no means clearing the guilty" (Ex. 34:7b).
Read Exodus 34:7 in full, including the second half: "who will by no means clear the guilty." How can the same sentence speak both of bearing/forgiving and of not clearing?
One of the broadest verbs in the Tanakh
The closing word of the proclamation Canonical
After rachum, channun, erech appayim, and chessed-ve-emet, the proclamation closes with a tension: God bears/forgives iniquity — and at the same time holds fast that the guilty do not simply go free. These two halves of the same verse do not resolve easily without looking further into the canon. See Panim for the full proclamation of all thirteen elements.
One phrase, two opposite directions Canonical
"Nasa avon" is remarkable because the exact same words in the Tanakh can describe two opposite movements, depending on who the subject is and for whom:
The same expression, then, describes both bearing one's own punishment and carrying away another's guilt. The turning point between the two is not the verb itself but the question: whose burden is being borne here, and by whom?
| Form | Hebrew / Strong's | Part of speech | Core trait |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nasa | נָשָׂא · H5375 | Verb | To lift, carry, bear away — 650+ occurrences |
| Avon | עָוֹן · H5771 | Noun | Bentness/iniquity — and the guilt that flows from it |
| Nosei avon | נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן | Participle + object | "Who bears iniquity" — God's own self-description |
The pictographic depth of נ-שׂ-א
In Paleo-Hebrew, each letter carries its own image (source: Jeff A. Benner, Ancient Hebrew Research Center):
Read cautiously, this pictures a firm grip (sin) that, with strength (aleph), carries something forward (nun) — a burden not set down along the way. This is pictographic word analysis grounded in recognized Paleo-Hebrew sources, not a Kabbalistic Sod reading (Protocol VI.i extension); given how broadly nasa is used, some restraint in the pictographic reading is appropriate.
The scapegoat bears it literally Canonical
On the Day of Atonement, the high priest lays his hands on the scapegoat (Azazel) and confesses over it all the iniquities of Israel (16:21) — and then the goat bears (nasa) those iniquities physically into the wilderness, to a land cut off from the camp. This is no metaphor invented by later interpreters but a literal enactment of nasa avon within the text itself: something not one's own is laid upon you, and you carry it away.
The passive mirror image Canonical
Where Exodus 34:7 actively describes God as nosei avon (the one who bears), David here uses the passive participle nesui of that same verb: blessed is the one who sees their own burden being carried. Same root, two grammatical directions — the Bearer and the one whose burden is borne.
Micah's rhetorical question Canonical
"Who is a God like You, who bears iniquity (nosei avon)... He will again have compassion on us (yeshuv yerachamenu)..." — Micah 7:18-19 (paraphrase)
Micah quotes the closing words of the proclamation almost verbatim, and links them directly to yerachamenu — the same root as rachum, with which this series of core words began. Here the proclamation canonically closes itself in a circle.
Forgiveness as something that costs, not an erasure Canonical
Nasa avon teaches something the English word "forgive" easily lets slip: in the text, forgiveness is not an act of erasure, as though nothing happened, but an act of bearing. Something must land somewhere — it moves, from the guilty party to whoever carries it. That is precisely why Exodus 34:7 can say in one breath that God bears iniquity and that He does not simply leave the guilty unpunished: the two are no contradiction once it becomes clear that the burden must land somewhere.
Who bears what is not their own?
The scapegoat of Leviticus 16 bears a burden that is not its own — it has not sinned, yet it carries away what was laid upon it. That is the key to reading the second half of Exodus 34:7 not as a contradiction of the first, but as a question calling for an answer: if YHWH bears iniquity without simply clearing the guilty, who then truly bears that burden?
Where in my relationships this week do I treat forgiveness as erasure rather than bearing — as though it costs nothing, instead of recognizing that someone, somewhere, is actually carrying the weight?
Choose one situation this week where you deliberately practice nasa avon yourself: not by denying or minimizing guilt, but by actually carrying something on another's behalf — time, patience, a burden that is not your own.
From the scapegoat to the Servant Canonical
Were nasa avon an image from the Day of Atonement liturgy, it would be the sa'ir la-Azazel — the goat sent into the wilderness, bearing what is not its own, to a land cut off. Precisely that image — bearing what belongs to another, carried away into isolation — is no longer applied to an animal in Isaiah 53, but to a Person.
The same verb as Exodus 34:7, now applied to the Servant who suffers.
The closing line of the chapter uses exactly the same grammatical structure as "nosei avon" in Exodus 34:7 — the same verb, now with "the sin of many" as its object. The proclamation said of YHWH Himself: He is nosei avon. Isaiah 53 describes a Servant who lives that word out concretely, bodily, to the utmost — precisely at the point where Exodus 34:7 left the question open: who truly bears the burden, so that the guilty are not simply left unpunished and yet receive forgiveness? This is demonstrably canonically anchored through the shared verb, not through an artificially equated theme (Protocol VI.i, step 1).
With nasa avon, the circle of this walk closes. Rachum wells up from a hidden inner chamber; channun bends down toward the one standing outside; emunah holds firm; emet makes reliable; erech appayim waits. Nasa avon is where all these movements converge into a single act: no longer a feeling or a posture, but a burden that actually lands somewhere — on a goat sent into the wilderness, and finally on a Servant who, in the words of the very proclamation Moses heard at Sinai, does what YHWH said of Himself: He bears.
This word study treats nasa avon as the last of the core words from the proclamation of Exodus 34:6-7. For the full overview of all thirteen elements, see the foundation study Panim — His Face Passes By.
- TorahLeviticus 5:1, 17; Leviticus 7:18; Leviticus 16:20-22 (the scapegoat); Leviticus 17:16; Leviticus 19:8; Leviticus 20:17, 19; Exodus 34:7 (the proclamation); Numbers 14:18.
- Prophets & WritingsPsalm 32:1-5; Micah 7:18-19; Isaiah 53:4-12.
- PaRDeSRabbinic hermeneutical framework. Talmud, b. Sanhedrin 67b; b. Chagigah 14b. Kabbalistic Sod content (Zohar, Sefer Yetzirah) explicitly excluded — Protocol VI.i extension.
- Paleo-HebrewJeff A. Benner, Ancient Hebrew Research Center — pictograph analysis of Nun, Sin, and Aleph.
- Source materialDevar Emet study design "Nasa Avon — Bearing the Sin," tested against Protocol VI.i and canonically grounded in Torah, Prophets, and Writings.
- ProtocolCanonicity test (VI.i) applied to every concept. No use of the Zohar, Sefer Yetzirah, or Kabbalistic works. YHWH used throughout (VI.iii).