The One Who Lifts What You Can't Carry

nāsāʾ · H5375 · HEBREW

The Hebrew word nāsāʾ (נָשָׂא) means to lift up and carry — to physically take up a weight and bear it, as a man hoists a heavy burden from the ground and holds it on his shoulders, bear away to a distant place — to carry something off so completely that it is no longer present where it was, and pardon and forgive — to cancel the weight of guilt and sin by taking it upon oneself. When God forgives in the Old Testament, He is often performing a nāsāʾ — not issuing a verdict but doing something physical: lifting what crushed you and carrying it out of reach.