Genesis 2:25 · Symbol · Shame and Guilt
The Words Bosh and Aischyne
The Hebrew verb bûwsh and the Greek noun aischýnē are Scripture's chief words for shame, the disgrace of one exposed before others.
Hebrew and Greek have more than one word for shame, and the Berean Standard Bible renders them ashamed, put to shame, disgraced, humiliated and reproach.
And the man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed.
- The word
- בּוּשׁ (bûwsh), H954
- First appears
- Genesis 2:25 “And the man and his wife were both…”
Summary
The prophets set the noun bôsheth in some names and verses where the name Baal could stand. The verb bûwsh runs through the laments of the Psalms, where the faithful pray that they will not be put to shame. In the New Testament the same family reaches the cross and the promise made to the one who believes.
- Besides bûwsh and bôsheth, Hebrew names disgrace with kâlam, kᵉlimmâh and cherpâh.
- The Greek verbs aischýnomai, epaischýnomai and kataischýnō belong to the family of the noun aischýnē.
- The Hebrew noun ʼâshâm means guilt and also names the guilt offering of the law.
Naked in Eden
Genesis 2:25 sets the verb in the garden before the fall.
The trial of shame and guilt has its own words in Scripture. This study asks what the chief Hebrew and Greek words for shame mean in the verses where they stand, and how they differ from the word for guilt.
It gives a table of eleven words with their uses and follows the Hebrew verb through the Psalms and the prophets. It reads the Hebrew noun where it stands for the name Baal and traces the Greek words from a parable of Jesus to Paul's letters. Three cautions keep a word from saying more than its sentence says.
The trial's own verse, Romans 10:11, uses the Greek verb kataischýnō in its promise to the one who believes.
In Genesis 2:25 the verb is yitboshashu, which the STEP Bible's word-by-word gloss renders "they were ashamed", and the same verse calls the man and his wife arummim, naked.
Matthew Henry set the shame of later ages beside the innocence of Eden.
“They knew not what shame was, so the Chaldee reads it. Blushing is now the colour of virtue, but it was not then the colour of innocency. Those that had no sin in their conscience might well have no shame in their faces, though they had no clothes to their backs.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Genesis 2:25Puritan
Eleven Words for Shame and Guilt
Each word is set beside its count in the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament.
The verb bûwsh is the most frequent word for shame in either Testament, and more than two thirds of its 113 verses stand in Psalms, Jeremiah and Isaiah.
| Word | Sense | Uses | Verses | Books with the most verses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hebrew words for shame | ||||
| bûwsh, בּוּשׁ, H954, verb | be ashamed | 127 | 113 | Psalms 31, Jeremiah 26, Isaiah 21 |
| bôsheth, בֹּשֶׁת, H1322, noun | shame | 30 | 29 | Psalms 7, Jeremiah 6, Isaiah 5 |
| kâlam, כָּלַם, H3637, verb | be humiliated | 38 | 38 | Psalms 6, Jeremiah 6, Ezekiel 6 |
| kᵉlimmâh, כְּלִמָּה, H3639, noun | shame | 30 | 29 | Ezekiel 12, Psalms 7 |
| cherpâh, חֶרְפָּה, H2781, noun | reproach | 73 | 72 | Psalms 20, Jeremiah 12 |
| Greek words for shame | ||||
| aischýnē, αἰσχύνη, G152, noun | shame | 6 | 6 | one verse in each of six books |
| aischýnomai, αἰσχύνομαι, G153, verb | be ashamed | 5 | 5 | one verse in each of five books |
| epaischýnomai, ἐπαισχύνομαι, G1870, verb | be ashamed of | 11 | 9 | 2 Timothy 3, Romans 2, Hebrews 2 |
| kataischýnō, καταισχύνω, G2617, verb | to dishonor | 13 | 12 | 1 Corinthians 4, Romans 3 |
| entropḗ, ἐντροπή, G1791, noun | shame | 2 | 2 | 1 Corinthians 2 |
| The Hebrew word for guilt | ||||
| ʼâshâm, אָשָׁם, H817, noun | guilt (offering) | 46 | 41 | Leviticus 23 |
Greek words for shame, aischýnē, αἰσχύνη, G152, noun, aischýnomai, αἰσχύνομαι, G153, verb, epaischýnomai, ἐπαισχύνομαι, G1870, verb, kataischýnō, καταισχύνω, G2617, verb, entropḗ, ἐντροπή, G1791, noun, The Hebrew word for guilt, ʼâshâm, אָשָׁם, H817, noun
Bûwsh in the Psalms and the Prophets
The verb names the shame God spares those who wait for Him and the shame His people had ceased to feel.
Surely none who wait for You will be put to shame; but those who are faithless without cause will be disgraced.It stands first because it is a lament's own prayer about shame.
Do not be afraid, for you will not be put to shame; do not be intimidated, for you will not be humiliated. For you will forget the shame of your youth and will remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.The prophet promises Zion that she will forget the shame of her youth, and the verse holds four of the five Hebrew words in the table.
Are they ashamed of the abomination they have committed? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they will collapse,” says the LORD.The LORD charges His people with losing shame itself, so here the verb names a shame they ought to feel and do not.
Three Cautions in Reading the Words
Each caution comes from the verses themselves and from Strong's definitions of the words.
Pale, ashamed and delayedH954 in Exodus 32 and Judges 3
Strong's defines bûwsh as "properly, to pale, i.e. by implication to be ashamed; also (by implication) to be disappointed or delayed". The verb stands in Exodus 32:1, where the people saw that "Moses was delayed in coming down from the mountain", and in Judges 3:25, where the servants "waited until they became worried". The sense "to pale" is Strong's account of where the word began, and a reader takes the sense of each use from its sentence, so Exodus 32:1 speaks of a delay and of no blush.
One verb, two English wordsH954 in Psalm 25:3
In Psalm 25:3 the one verb bûwsh stands twice, as "be put to shame" and then as "be disgraced". A reader of the English alone cannot see where the Hebrew repeats its word.
Disgrace and liabilityH3639, H2781 and H817
Strong's defines kᵉlimmâh as "disgrace" and cherpâh as "contumely, disgrace", words for a standing lost before others. He defines ʼâshâm as guilt, and by implication a fault or a sin offering, a word for what a wrong makes a person owe. In Leviticus 5:6 the one who has sinned "must bring his guilt offering to the LORD for the sin he has committed".
Read from these senses, the shame words look to a person's standing before others, and the guilt word looks to the wrong itself.
Bôsheth in Place of Baal
Jeremiah, Hosea and the names of three men show the noun standing for Baal.
Strong's ends his definition of bôsheth with "by implication (specifically) an idol". Jeremiah sets "the altars of shame you have set up" beside "the altars to burn incense to Baal" (Jeremiah 11:13), and Hosea says that at Baal-peor Israel "consecrated themselves to Shame" (Hosea 9:10).
Three men of the families of Saul and Gideon bear names in two forms. Saul's son is Ish-bosheth in 2 Samuel 2:8 and Esh-baal in 1 Chronicles 8:33. Jonathan's son is Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 9:6 and Merib-baal in 1 Chronicles 8:34. Gideon is Jerubbaal in Judges 6:32 and Jerubbesheth in 2 Samuel 11:21.
Albert Barnes, in his Notes on 2 Samuel 9:6, took each pair as one name, "Bosheth, shame, being the equivalent for Baal". Neither book says why the two forms stand, so the reading rests on the pairs themselves and on the verses of Jeremiah and Hosea.
Aischýnē and Its Verbs in the New Testament
Luke, Paul and the letter to the Hebrews each use the noun.
In Jesus' parable of the wedding guest the noun aischýnē stands in Luke 14:9, where the guest moved down must take the last place "in humiliation". Paul uses it of those whose "glory is in their shame" (Philippians 3:19). Hebrews 12:2 uses it of the cross.
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek.Paul uses epaischýnomai of the gospel, and his reason is that it is God's power to save everyone who believes.
For this reason, even though I suffer as I do, I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day.It stands beside Romans 1:16 because in it Paul uses the same verb of his own imprisonment.
The same verb stands twice more in that chapter. Paul tells Timothy, "do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me, His prisoner" (2 Timothy 1:8), and he says that Onesiphorus "was unashamed of my chains" (2 Timothy 1:16).
Romans 9:33 quotes Isaiah 28:16 with kataischýnō, "will never be put to shame". In the Hebrew of Isaiah 28:16 the verb is yachish, glossed "he will make haste", and the Berean Standard Bible reads "will never be shaken". The Commentary of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown (1871) explains that "the quotation is from the Septuagint". It calls the Septuagint's "shall not be put to shame", set where the Hebrew speaks of haste, a rendering "which comes to the same thing".
From Eden to the Promise
Peter and Paul both read Isaiah 28:16 as a promise against shame.
For it stands in Scripture: “See, I lay in Zion a stone, a chosen and precious cornerstone; and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame.”It stands at the close because it gives the promise in the words the New Testament uses for shame.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible TBESH and TBESG glosses (Tyndale House, Cambridge, CC BY 4.0), with the definitions of James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1890)
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament, the tagged texts (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Genesis 2:25.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical (1832 to 1869), on 2 Samuel 9:6.
- Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Romans 10:11.
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