Ma'al (מַעַל) is the Hebrew noun for sacrilege, the faithless misappropriation of what belongs to YHWH for personal use. The verbal form ma'al ma'al (מָעַל מַעַל) is a cognate accusative construction that intensifies the offense, often rendered "to commit a trespass" or "to act unfaithfully in a sacred trust." BDB defines the root מ-ע-ל as "to act unfaithfully, treacherously"; HALOT extends to "to commit sacrilege, to be faithless against sacred things." The semantic field combines two ideas: breach of covenant fidelity, and misappropriation of holy property.

The Torah introduces ma'al as a technical category in Vayikra 5:14-16, where the asham (guilt) offering is prescribed specifically for one who has committed ma'al against the holy things of YHWH. The offender restores the misappropriated holy property in full, adds a fifth, and brings a ram without blemish to the kohen. The category is bounded: ma'al is what happens when sacred things are treated as common.

Three Torah-narrative instances establish the pattern. Achan kept silver, gold, and a Babylonian garment from the cherem of Yericho (Yehoshua 7:1, 7:11, 22:20). The text uses the cognate accusative: he committed ma'al with ma'al. The whole assembly bled at Ai until the ma'al was named, identified, and removed. Uzziah HaMelech entered the Beit HaMikdash with a censer and burned incense on the altar that belonged to the kohanim (2 Divrei HaYamim 26:16). The text: "he trespassed against YHWH his God." YHWH struck him with leprosy on his forehead before the eighty kohanim who opposed him. Korach (Bamidbar 16) gathered 250 princes and presented his coalition as if seeking community-wide holiness while in fact seizing the priestly office. The earth opened. The fire fell. The 250 censers became a perpetual covering on the altar as a sign that the priesthood is not seized.

The diagnostic continues in the prophets. Yechezkel 14:13 uses ma'al as the trigger for divine famine, sword, beast, and plague. Daniel 9:7 attributes the exile to "the ma'al that they have committed against You." Ma'al is the Tanakh's diagnosis when sacred trust is broken from the inside. It is not the sin of the outsider attacking the sanctuary. It is the sin of the insider who treats what belongs to YHWH as a personal asset.

The Brit Chadashah carries the category forward without softening. Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) misappropriate from a consecrated gift and fall dead. The seven sons of Sceva (Acts 19) borrow the Name without standing in covenant and are stripped and beaten by the very spirit they invoked. The Tanakh's diagnostic category does not vanish when the Mishkan and Beit HaMikdash physical sites do. The category is structural to how YHWH guards sacred trust, and the Brit Chadashah confirms that the guard did not retire when the buildings changed.