Err

Err - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

ERR, v.i. [L. erro.]

1. To wander from the right way; to deviate from the true course or purpose.

But errs not nature from this gracious end,

From burning suns when livid deaths descend?

2. To miss the right way, in morals or religion; to deviate from the path or line of duty; to stray by design or mistake.

We have erred and strayed like lost sheep.

3. To mistake; to commit error; to do wrong from ignorance or inattention. Men err in judgment from ignorance, from want of attention to facts, or from previous bias of mind.

4. To wander; to ramble.

A storm of strokes, well meant, with fury flies,

And errs about their temples,ears, and eyes.

Error - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

ER'ROR, n. [L. error, from erro, to wander.] A wandering or deviation from the truth; a mistake in judgment, by which men assent to or believe what is not true. Error may be voluntary, or involuntary. Voluntary, when men neglect or pervert the proper means to inform the mind; involuntary, when the means of judging correctly are not in their power. An error committed through carelessness or haste is a blunder.

Charge home upon error its most tremendous consequences.

1. A mistake made in writing or other performance. It is no easy task to correct the errors of the press. Authors sometimes charge their own errors to the printer.

2. A wandering; excursion; irregular course.

Driv'n by the winds and errors of the sea.

[This sense is unusual and hardly legitimate.]

3. Deviation from law, justice or right; oversight; mistake in conduct.

Say not, it was an error. Eccl 5.

4. In scripture and theology, sin; iniquity; transgression.

Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Psa 19.

5. In law, a mistake in pleading or in judgment. A writ of error, is a writ founded on an alleged error in judgment, which carries the suit to another tribunal for redress. Hence the following verb,

ER'ROR, v.t. To determine a judgment of court to be erroneous.

[The use of this verb is not well authorized.]

ur, er'-er:

To err is in the Old Testament the translation of shaghah, and ta`ah, both of which mean literally,. "to wander," "to go astray." We have shaghah in 1Sa 26:21, "I have played the fool, and have erred"; Job 19:4, "Mine error remaineth with myself," i.e. "is my own concern," or, perhaps, "only injures myself"; Ps 119:118; Isa 28:7 the King James Version (thrice); ta`ah, Ps 95:10; Pr 14:22; Isa 35:8. It means also "to cause to err" (Isa 3:12; 30:28, "a bridle that causeth to err"; Jer 23:13,12; "Their lies (i.e. the unreal deities, creatures of their own imagination) have caused them to err," Am 2:4).

In the New Testament the word is generally planaomai, "to wander" (Mr 12:24,27; Heb 3:10; Jas 5:19); astocheo, "to miss the mark," "to swerve," occurs twice (1Ti 6:21; 2Ti 2:18).

Error in the Old Testament represents various words: sheghaghah, "mistake," "oversight" (Ec 5:6; compare Pr 20:25 and see INQUIRE); meshughah, with the same meaning, "wandering" (Job 19:4; compare Ps 19:12); shal, "rashness," "mistake" (2Sa 6:7, "God smote him there for his error," the Revised Version, margin "rashness"); shalu, Aramaic "mistake" (Da 6:4); to`ah, "injury" (Isa 32:6).

In the New Testament we have plane, "wandering" (Ro 1:27; Jas 5:20; 1 Joh 4:6; Jude 1:11, "the error of Balaam"); agnoema, "ignorance" (Heb 9:7, margin, Greek "ignorances"). For "is deceived" (Pr 20:1) the Revised Version (British and American) has "erreth," margin "or reeleth"; for "them that are out of the way" (Heb 5:2), "the ignorant and erring"; for "deceit" (1Th 2:3), "error."

The English word "error" has the same original meaning as the Hebrew and Greek main words, being derived from erro, "to wander." "To err is human," but there are errors of the heart as well as of the head. The familiar phrase just quoted seems to have its equivalent in the marginal rendering of Ge 6:3, "in their going astray they are flesh." Errors through ignorance are in the Bible distinguished from errors of the heart and willful errors (Le 5:18; Nu 15:22; Eze 45:20).

W. L. Walker