Proverbs 28 Bible study: Whoever confesses finds mercy

The chapter's best-known saying sets two ways with the same sins side by side: "He who conceals his sins doesn’t prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy" (28:13) (tap conceals, sins, confesses). Renounces is azav, the verb of "Those who forsake the law praise the wicked" (28:4) (tap renounces). Here is what almost everyone misses. Sins is pesha', and the chapter has it three times. The first is of a land: "In rebellion, a land has many rulers" (28:2). The third is in a man's own mouth: "Whoever robs his father or his mother and says, “It’s not wrong,” is a partner with a destroyer" (28:24). In Hebrew his words are two, ein pesha': there is no pesha'. The man of 28:13 conceals his pesha'; the man of 28:24 says there isn't any. Finds mercy is one Hebrew word, in a form Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "be shewn compassion" (tap mercy), and the saying doesn't say who shows it, or when. The notes on Psalm 32 show that hide, confess and transgressions in Psalm 32:5 are the Hebrew words of 28:13's conceals, confesses and sins; the notes on Leviticus 5 follow confession from the law, through that psalm and this saying, into the New Testament; and the notes on Proverbs 10 set 28:13 beside the covering the book praises (Proverbs 10:12, 17:9). The chapter names no one, and these notes apply 28:24 to no one's family.

פֶּשַׁעpesha'say PE-sha

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "transgression". Strong's: "a revolt (national, moral or religious)". The chapter has it three times, and the WEB gives it three ways: rebellion in "In rebellion, a land has many rulers" (28:2), sins in "He who conceals his sins doesn’t prosper" (28:13), and wrong in "Whoever robs his father or his mother and says, “It’s not wrong,”" (28:24). In 28:24 the man's words are ein pesha', there is no pesha'. Strong's gives pesha' as "from 6586", the verb of "yet a man will do wrong for a piece of bread" (28:21). Proverbs has pesha' 12 times in Hebrew.