132Cut Off
karat — Hebrew
karat (H3772) — to cut, to cut off; the karet penalty of covenant severance.
One root H3772: the covenant cut (Cut), the marriage bond cut (Divorce), and here the covenant-breaker cut off (karet).
A severance-sentence term — the penalty of being cut off from the covenant people.
The covenant that is cut into force can cut its breaker out: karath is that sentence. To be cut off is not a light expulsion but a severance from the covenant community, its promises, and its life. It is the gravest sanction of the covenant court — and it stands behind the reading of death itself as severance, the transgressor cut off from the life the covenant carried until the cutting is answered.
Genesis 17:14 “That soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.” The severance-sentence for breach.
Leviticus 20:3 “I will cut him off from among his people.” The covenant court’s ultimate sanction.
Exodus 31:14 “That soul shall be cut off from among his people.” Severance for profaning the sign.
Psalm 37:9 “Evildoers shall be cut off.” The sentence of severance on the wicked.
Karath is the sentence of being ‘cut off’ — severed from the covenant people, its promises, and its life. It is not a mild expulsion but the covenant court’s gravest penalty. And it is the same verb by which a covenant is ‘cut’: the cutting that makes a covenant is the cutting that removes its breaker.
The same word that makes a covenant — to ‘cut’ it — is the word for its ultimate penalty: to be ‘cut off.’ The covenant-breaker is severed, cut away from the people, the promise, and the life the covenant held. That is karath: the death-sentence of severance, the sharpest edge of the covenant court.
- Yahuah (the Judge) pronounces the sentence of severance.
- The covenant-breaker (the condemned) cut off from the people and the life of the covenant.
- The covenant (the bond) whose breach the cutting-off answers.
Movement VII — The Bench Convenes. The ruling is read, and each party is paid exactly what the record assigns.