To cover (specifically with bitumen); figuratively, to expiate or condone , to placate or cancel
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כָּפַר (kaphar) is a Hebrew verb whose dominant Piel use concerns making atonement, effecting ritual expiation, or purging within Israel's covenant worship. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 103 H3722 occurrences.
Reader summary
Full entry for כָּפַר (H3722) · Open the biblical lexicon
כָּפַר (kaphar) is a Hebrew verb whose dominant Piel use concerns making atonement, effecting ritual expiation, or purging within Israel's covenant worship. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 103 H3722 occurrences.
The BSB source-word alignment has 102 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include to make atonement (27), will make atonement (14), and make atonement (6), shall make atonement (4), - (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 6:14. Its strongest book concentrations include Leviticus (49), Numbers (16), Exodus (8), Ezekiel (6).
כָּפַר (kaphar) is a Hebrew verb whose dominant Piel use concerns making atonement, effecting ritual expiation, or purging within Israel's covenant worship. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 103 H3722 occurrences. It can take people, sins, the altar, sanctuary objects, or holy space in its scope, so atonement should not be reduced to an invisible covering placed only over an individual sinner.
Genesis 6:14 uses related sound and spelling in the command to coat the ark with pitch. Scholars debate how that physical use relates historically to the ritual verb. It is unsafe to make protective covering the controlling image for every Levitical occurrence. Usage in ritual contexts must lead.
Leviticus 4-5 repeatedly says that the priest makes atonement and that the worshiper will be forgiven. The prescribed rites address unintentional sins and impurity within a wider covenant system. The text attributes forgiveness to God's provision while still involving confession, offerings, priestly action, and differentiated cases.
Leviticus 16 applies the verb to the high priest, people, Most Holy Place, tent of meeting, and altar during the Day of Atonement. The chapter therefore includes purification of sanctuary space from Israel's uncleanness as well as rites concerning the people's sins.
Leviticus 17:11 says that God has given blood on the altar to make atonement for lives because the life is in the blood. The construction translated 'by the life' or 'by means of the life' has generated debate. The verse grounds blood's cultic role in God's gift without by itself supplying a complete penal, commercial, or biological theory.
Exodus 32:30 uses the verb when Moses hopes to make atonement after the golden calf, while Psalms and prophets use it in prayer, judgment, or purification settings outside the detailed sacrificial laws. These occurrences keep the semantic profile broader than one ritual formula.
Hebrews 9-10 interprets the Day of Atonement, priesthood, sanctuary, blood, and repeated offerings in relation to Christ's once-for-all self-offering. Romans 3:25 uses hilasterion, a term that can evoke the mercy seat or an atoning sacrifice. Those NT arguments draw on a network of Greek and Hebrew cultic vocabulary rather than functioning as simple dictionary fulfillments of H3722.
For the preacher, כָּפַר (kaphar) opens God's provision for forgiveness, ritual purification, sanctuary holiness, priestly service, and later Christological interpretation. Immediate ritual objects and subjects must remain visible before systematic atonement theories are applied.
כָּפַר is concentrated in priestly legislation, especially Leviticus and Numbers. It appears in offering procedures, priestly ordination, altar and sanctuary purification, and the Day of Atonement. Its objects can include people, sins, altars, sanctuary areas, and other holy things. Outside detailed ritual law it appears in narrative, poetry, and prophecy, including Exod 32:30, Ps 78:38, Ps 79:9, Isa 22:14, and Isa 27:9.
For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for your souls upon the altar; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.
The theological rationale of the entire sacrifice system. Atonement is not explained as legal fiction but as life covering life — God providing what He also requires. This verse is the interpretive key for all subsequent כָּפַר usage in Leviticus.
Because on this day atonement will be made for you to cleanse you, and you will be clean from all your sins before the Lord.
The Day of Atonement summary statement. כָּפַר here covers the whole community, not just individual offenses — it is the systemic, annual reset of the covenant people's standing before God.
The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. Now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
Moses' intercession after the golden calf. He goes up to attempt כָּפַר on behalf of Israel — not through a prescribed rite but through substitutionary intercession. God's response in vv.31-33 clarifies that sin cannot be erased by a third party's moral credit, foreshadowing what the full sacrificial system will require.
And yet He was compassionate; He forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. He often restrained His anger and did not unleash His full wrath.
God as subject of כָּפַר — He Himself makes atonement by withholding deserved judgment. The same God who requires atonement provides it. This is the trajectory that the NT picks up in Rom 3:25-26.
The Lord of Hosts has revealed in my hearing: “Until your dying day, this sin of yours will never be atoned for,” says the Lord God of Hosts.
The negative use: some sin will not be כָּפַר under the current covenant terms. Isaiah announces that Jerusalem's specific sin of festivity in the face of judgment has exhausted the ordinary provision. Atonement is real; it is also not automatic or unconditional.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Covering sin through ritual means literally covers it over, rendering it invisible and neutralized before God.
Covering sin through ritual means literally covers it over, rendering it invisible and neutralized before God.
to cover (specifically with bitumen); figuratively, to expiate or condone, to placate or cancel BDB: cover over Usage: appease, make (an atonement, cleanse, disannul, forgive, be merciful, pacify, pardon, purge (away), put off, (make) reconcile(-liation).
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 3 selected witnesses from 103 lexical occurrence verses.
כָּפַר is a primitive root - no further derivation.
The warning underscores the seriousness of unresolved sin. Isaiah 22:9-14
Highlights purification through divine action. Isaiah 27:7-13
The declaration that sin is atoned anticipates the broader biblical theme of substitutionary cleansing fulfilled in Christ. Isaiah 6:1-8
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
The Day of Atonement belongs to the H3722 word family, but the verb operates throughout Israel's ritual system. Leviticus 4-5 joins priestly atonement with forgiveness; Leviticus 8 applies it within ordination; Leviticus 16 applies it to priest, people, sanctuary, tent, and altar; and Leviticus 17:11 grounds blood's altar use in God's provision. This range shows that kaphar includes cultic expiation or purification and cannot be explained only as hiding sin from sight.
Hebrews 9-10 interprets repeated priestly rites, the Day of Atonement, sanctuary, and blood through Christ's self-offering. Romans 3:25 uses hilasterion within Paul's account of God's righteousness. Those texts support a rich canonical atonement theology, but no single modern theory exhausts the ritual evidence and no automatic lexical line makes every H3722 occurrence a direct prediction of the cross.
Lev.17.11
Genesis 6:14 uses kaphar language for coating the ark with pitch, while the dominant Piel ritual use means make atonement or effect purification. The historical relationship between these senses is debated, so a protective-covering image should not control the ritual semantics. Related nouns include kopher, kippurim, and kapporet, but their forms and functions must be distinguished.
Greek exilaskomai, hilasmos, and hilasterion overlap with atonement and mercy-seat language in the Septuagint and NT without mapping one-to-one onto every H3722 use.
Romans 3:25 says that God presented Christ as hilasterion through faith in his blood while demonstrating divine righteousness after passing over former sins. The term may evoke propitiatory sacrifice, expiation, or the mercy seat, and the debate should be acknowledged. Hebrews 9-10 explicitly compares Christ's priesthood and self-offering with tabernacle, covenant, blood, repeated sacrifices, and Day of Atonement patterns.
Hebrews does not merely translate H3722; it constructs a sustained canonical argument from the wider cultic system.
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