shalt make His soul an offering for sin'.  In 2 Kings 17:30 we read, 'The men

of Hamath made Ashima'.  This idol the Rabbins say was in the form of a goat

and a man, much as the Romans describe the satyrs and the god Pan.  The

connection of the word asham both with sin and sin offering might easily

suggest this form.  There is probably an allusion also to the 'sin' of

Samaria (Amos 8:14), which was plainly the golden calf set up by Jeroboam (1

Kings 12:30; Hos. 8:5; Deut. 9:21).

The Companion Bible gives as the meaning of asham, 'It is a breach of

commandment, done in ignorance, but, when guilt is proved, requiring

atonement'.  It appears to have close relation to commandments, and cannot be

predicated of those to whom no law is given.  The reader when reminded of the

tragedy of Gentile ignorance revealed in such passages as Romans 1:18-32 and

Ephesians 4:18,19 (see The Berean Expositor, Vol. 15 pp. 99-106 for fuller

treatment of this phase), will not consider this firstborn child of sin one

to be treated lightly.

The next in the awful genealogy of sin is amal.  Failure (chata) begat

ignorance (asham), and guilty ignorance begat weary, purposeless toil (amal).

Sin has made life a burden, work has been turned into weariness, why?

Because it has missed the mark.  Labour that does not consistently and

consciously aim at the glory of God must spend its strength in vain.  Sin

dominates the members of our bodies, and uses them as instruments of

unrighteousness.  Only when freed from this dominion, only when we can 'serve

in newness of spirit' can we entertain the hope that our labour shall not be

in vain (1 Cor. 15:58).  The book of Ecclesiastes is Scripture's commentary

upon sin's purposeless, wearisome toil.

Amal occurs 68 times and is translated as follows in the A.V.:

grievance, grievousness, mischief, misery, pain, perverseness, sorrow, toil,

travail, trouble, labour, iniquity and wickedness.  With the exception of

Habakkuk 1:13 ('iniquity') and Job 4:8 ('wickedness'), all the other

renderings stress the sorrow, toil and travail of the labour which, having

lost its true aim, gives to self and Satan that which belongs alone to God.

The old English word irk, which gives us irksome, is but the Runic yrk, work

of labour, and tells the same story.  Neither time, space, nor the purpose of

these studies will allow us to give a similar analysis as that given under

the word asham; we hope some readers may be led to undertake the task.  What

is the next in this decline caused by sin?  Job 15:35 says, 'They conceive

mischief (amal), and bring forth vanity (aven), and their belly prepareth

deceit' (mirmah).  So the frightful pedigree grows.

Aven.  Although the word aven is rendered in Job 15:35 'vanity', that

is not the best translation, and the margin reads 'or iniquity', and this is

the true rendering.  Whereas vanity occurs but six times for aven, iniquity

occurs 47 times, wickedness or wicked seven, idol twice, affection and

mischief three times each, and one occurrence only of the following, evil,

mourning, nought, sorrow, false, mourners, unjust, unrighteous and vain.

While iniquity may be a truer rendering of aven than vanity, yet we must not

bring our modern idea of iniquity into the word.  In Hosea 4:15 Beth-aven is

the house of idolatry or vanity, and a play upon the word is found in Amos

5:5, 'Bethel shall come to nought' (aven).  The last occurrence of the word

used in the Old Testament  is in Zechariah 10:2: 'The idols have spoken

vanity'.  Both Jew and Gentile have passed through this stage: