LEVITICUS 5 COMMENTARYEDITED BY GLENN PEASE

1 “‘If anyone sins because they do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify regarding something they have seen or learned about, they will be held responsible.

BARNES, "Special occasions are mentioned on which sin-offerings are to be made with a particular confession of the offence for which atonement is sought Lev_5:5.Lev_5:1

Swearing - Adjuration. The case appears to be that of one who has been put upon his oath as a witness by a magistrate, and fails to utter all he has seen and heard (compare the marginal references. and Pro_29:24; Num_5:21).CLARKE, "If a soul sin - It is generally supposed that the case referred to here is

that of a person who, being demanded by the civil magistrate to answer upon oath, refuses to tell what he knows concerning the subject; such a one shall bear his iniquity -shall be considered as guilty in the sight of God, of the transgression which he has endeavored to conceal, and must expect to be punished by him for hiding the iniquity to which he was privy, or suppressing the truth which, being discovered, would have led to the exculpation of the innocent, and the punishment of the guilty.

GILL, "And if a soul sin,.... The soul is put for the person, and is particularly mentioned, as Ben Melech says, because possessed of will and desire: and hear the voice of swearing; or cursing, or adjuration; not of profane swearing, and taking the name of God in vain, but either of false swearing, or perjury, as when a man hears another swear to a thing which he knows is false; or else of adjuration, either the voice of a magistrate or of a neighbour adjuring another, calling upon him with an oath to bear testimony in such a case; this is what the Jews (r) call the oath of testimony or witness, and which they say (s) is binding in whatsoever language it is heard: and is a witness; is able to bear witness to the thing he is adjured about:

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whether he hath seen or known of it; what he has seen with his eyes, or knows by any means: of such a case, the Jews observe (t), that there may be seeing without knowing, or knowing without seeing, and in either case a man ought to bear witness: if he do not utter it; tell the truth, declare what he has seen or known: then he shall bear his iniquity; he shall be charged with sin, and be obliged to acknowledge his offence, and bring a trespass offering for it: it is said (u), that the witnesses are not guilty of the oath of the testimony, but in these ten cases; if they are required; if the testimony is concerning goods; if the goods are movable; if he that requires binds himself to pay for their testimony only, in case they bear witness; if they refuse after required; if they refuse in the sanhedrim; if the adjuration or oath is made there by the name of God, or his titles; if knowledge of the testimony goes before the oath; if he particularizes his witnesses in the time of the oath, or at the time of the requirement; and if the oath is in a language they understood.

HENRY 1-4, "I. The offences here supposed are, 1. A man's concealing the truth when he was sworn as a witness to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Judges among the Jews had power to adjure not only the witnesses, as with us, but the person suspected (contrary to a rule of our law, that no man is bound to accuse himself), as appears by the high priest adjuring our Saviour, who thereupon answered, though before he stood silent, Mat_26:63, Mat_26:64. Now (Lev_5:1), If a soul sin (that is, a person, for the soul is the man), if he hear the voice of swearing (that is, if he be adjured to testify what he knows, by an oath of the Lord upon him, 1Ki_8:31), if in such a case, for fear of offending one that either has been his friend or may be his enemy, he refuses to give evidence, or gives it but in part, he shall bear his iniquity. And that is a heavy burden, which, if some course be not taken to get it removed, will sink a man to the lowest hell. He that heareth cursing (that is, that is thus adjured) and betrayeth it not (that is, stifles his evidence, and does not utter it), he is a partner with the sinner, and hateth his own soul; see Pro_29:24. Let all that are called out at any time to bear testimony think of this law, and be free and open in their evidence, and take heed of prevaricating. An oath of the Lord is a sacred thing, and not to be dallied with. 2. A man's touching any thing that was ceremonially unclean, Lev_5:2, Lev_5:3. If a man, polluted by such touch, came into the sanctuary inconsiderately, or if he neglected to wash himself according to the law, then he was to look upon himself as under guilt, and must bring his offering. Though his touching the unclean thing contracted only a ceremonial defilement, yet his neglect to wash himself according to the law was such an instance either of carelessness or contempt as contracted a moral guilt. If at first it be hidden from him, yet when he knows it he shall be guilty. Note, As soon as ever God by his Spirit convinces our consciences of any sin or duty we must immediately set in with the conviction, and prosecute it, as those that are not ashamed to own our former mistake. 3. Rash swearing. If a man binds himself by an oath that he will do or not do such a thing, and the performance of his oath afterwards proves either unlawful or impracticable, by which he is discharged from the obligation, yet he must bring an offering to atone for his fully in swearing so rashly, as David that he would kill Nabal. And then it was that he must say before the angel that it was an error, Ecc_5:6. He shall be guilty in one of these (Lev_5:4), guilty if he do not perform his oath, and yet, if the matter of it were evil, guilty if he do. Such wretched dilemmas as these do some men

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bring themselves into by their own rashness and folly; go which way they will their consciences are wounded, sin stares them in the face, so sadly are they snared in the words of their mouth. A more sad dilemma this is than that of the lepers, “If we sit still, we die; if we stir, we die.” Wisdom and watchfulness beforehand would prevent these straits.JAMISON, "Lev_5:1. Trespass offerings for concealing knowledge.if a soul ... hear the voice of swearing — or, according to some, “the words of adjuration.” A proclamation was issued calling any one who could give information, to come before the court and bear testimony to the guilt of a criminal; and the manner in which witnesses were interrogated in the Jewish courts of justice was not by swearing them directly, but adjuring them by reading the words of an oath: “the voice of swearing.” The offense, then, for the expiation of which this law provides, was that of a person who neglected or avoided the opportunity of lodging the information which it was in his power to communicate.

K&D, "There follow here three special examples of sin on the part of the common Israelite, all sins of omission and rashness of a lighter kind than the cases mentioned in Lev_4:27.; in which, therefore, if the person for whom expiation was to be made was in needy circumstances, instead of a goat or ewe-sheep, a pair of doves could be received as a sacrificial gift, or, in cases of still greater poverty, the tenth of an ephah of fine flour. The following were the cases. The first (Lev_5:1), when any one had heard the voice of an oath (an oath spoken aloud) and was a witness, i.e., was in a condition to give evidence, whether he had seen what took place or had learned it, that is to say, had come to the knowledge of it in some other way. In this case, if he did not make it known, he was to bear his offence, i.e., to bear the guilt, which he had contracted by omitting to make it known, with all its consequences. אלה does not mean a curse in general, but an oath, as an imprecation upon one's self (= the “oath of cursing” in Num_5:21); and the sin referred to did not consist in the fact that a person heard a curse, imprecation, or blasphemy, and gave no evidence of it (for neither the expression “and is a witness,” nor the words “hath seen or known of it,” are in harmony with this), but in the fact that one who knew of another's crime, whether he had seen it, or had come to the certain knowledge of it in any other way, and was therefore qualified to appear in court as a witness for the conviction of the criminal, neglected to do so, and did not state what he had seen or learned, when he heard the solemn adjuration of the judge at the public investigation of the crime, by which all persons present, who knew anything of the matter, were urged to come forward as witnesses (vid., Oehler in Herzog's Cycl.). ן ע_to bear the offence or sin, i.e., to take away and endure its consequences (see Gen ,נשא4:13), whether they consisted in chastisements and judgments, by which God punished the sin (Lev_7:18; Lev_17:16; Lev_19:17), such as diseases or distress (Num_5:31; Num_14:33-34), childlessness (Lev_20:20), death (Lev_22:9), or extermination (Lev_19:8; Lev_20:17; Lev_9:13), or in punishment inflicted by men (Lev_24:15), or whether they could be expiated by sin-offerings (as in this passage and Lev_5:17) and other kinds of atonement. In this sense חמא נשא is also sometimes used (see at Lev_19:17).

CALVIN, "1.And if a soul sin. The three kinds of offense, to which Moses refers in 3

the beginning of the chapter, seem to differ much from each other; for the first, when a person concealed a matter which he knew, could not arise from error, yet I include this concealment of which he treats under the head of error, by supposing it to have been when a person should be induced by shame or fear to connive at any crime or offense respecting which he might be interrogated, and so, without any design of perjuring himself, but by blinding himself, should withhold what he would have said, if he had duly examined the matter. Yet these words must be more narrowly discussed, respecting the meaning of which men are not well agreed. Some think that the word (266) ,אלה alah, is put for “execration,” as though it were said, if any shall have heard a misdoing or detestable crime worthy of execration; yet their gloss is contradicted by what immediately follows,“Whether he hath seen or known it.” Others indeed interpret it to mean an oath, yet improperly confine it to perjury, as if Moses stated that he was guilty who had heard a man perjuring himself, and had not opposed him, but had rather covered the perjury by his own connivance or silence. I rather subscribe, then, to their opinion who expound it as meaning “adjuration;” for the words will thus combine very well, “If any one, being summoned as a witness, shall have heard the voice of adjuration, whereby he shall be required in God’s name to answer truly as to the matter proposed, and from favor, or good nature, or any other false pretext, as if he were enveloped in a cloud of error, shall conceal what, if he had paid diligent attention, he well knew, he shall be guilty.” We must then here render the disjunctive particle as the conditional. Literally it is, “If any shall have heard the voice of adjuration, and (is) himself a witness.” But wherefore should he say, “if he hath been a witness,” and then add, “or have known it,” as if he referred to different things? What I have said squares very well, that a person becomes himself guilty, who, when summoned as a witness, does not answer to a matter of which he is cognizant. Now, what does hearing the voice of adjuration mean, unless you understand that he is adjured by the mouth of a judge? We must observe, too, that the three kinds of sin which are first enumerated have a connection with each other, since they speak of sinners who are infected by the uncleanness of others; for, after Moses had commanded generally that offenses committed in error should be expiated, he now adds what had not been stated explicitly enough, that those also required atonement who had been polluted by the defilements of others. Thus this first will accord very well with the other two, i.e., that if any should make himself an accomplice in the offense of another, by indirect

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perjury, he should be unclean until he had offered a propitiation; for this is what the expression “bear his iniquity” conveys; as if Moses had said that he contracts guilt who shall have concealed a crime, respecting which he had been interrogated as a witness.COFFMAN, "Verse 1The first thirteen verses of this chapter are a continuation of the divine instructions regarding sin-offerings outlined in the previous chapter. Special situations in which sin-offerings were required are listed as follows:(1) the failure to give testimony (Leviticus 5:1);(2) incurring uncleanness by touching an unclean object or an unclean person (Leviticus 5:2,3);(3) making a rash vow (Leviticus 5:4). The required sin-offering is outlined (Leviticus 5:5,6).Leviticus 5:7-13 are a kind of appendix in which special provisions were given for the benefit of persons wishing to comply with the law but who, through poverty, were unable to bring the prescribed offerings.The trespass-offering is presented in Leviticus 5:14-19, being formally introduced by the solemn formula, "And Jehovah spake unto Moses ... etc." The principal difference between the sin-offering and the trespass-offering (which are sometimes confused) was that in the latter, restitution was required whenever possible and a twenty percent penalty was added. Another difference is seen in that confession was required. There were three particular cases where this offering was required, two of them in this chapter, and a third one in Leviticus 6:2-7. The two in this chapter are: (1) failure to discharge religious duties (Leviticus 5:14-16), and (2) unintentional, ignorant violations of God's law in situations where no restitution was required (Leviticus 5:17-19).

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The trespass-offering featured in this chapter is also called the guilt-offering, but we shall use the designation in our version (American Standard Version). The use of "trespass-offering" in Leviticus 5:7 is not sufficient reason to include that paragraph as part of the instructions beginning in Leviticus 5:14, because the formal pronouncement, "And Jehovah spake unto Moses ... etc." identifies that verse as the place where instructions on the trespass-offering actually begin. It was closely connected with the sin-offering, and the two appear together in the Word of God.This chapter and also Leviticus 4 show how haphazard the common division into chapters and verses actually is. If any logical system had been followed, Leviticus 5 should have started at Leviticus 5:14 and ended at Leviticus 6:7. Chapter divisions, of course, are purely man-made devices that were introduced six or eight centuries ago."And if any one sin, in that he heareth the voice of adjuration, he being a witness, whether he hath seen or known, if he do not utter it, then he shall bear his iniquity. Or if any one touch any unclean thing, whether it be the carcass of an unclean beast, or the carcass of unclean cattle, or the carcass of unclean creeping things, and it be hidden from him, and he be unclean, then he shall be guilty. Or if he touch the uncleanness of man, whatsoever his uncleanness be wherewith he is unclean, and it be hid from him; when he knoweth of it, then he shall be guilty. Or if any one swear rashly with his lips to do evil, or to do good, whatsoever it be that a man utter rashly with an oath, and it be hid from him; when he knoweth it, then he shall be guilty in one of these things. And it shall be, when he shall be guilty in one of these things, that he shall confess that wherein he hath sinned: and he shall bring his trespass-offering unto Jehovah for his sin which he hath sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin-offering: and the priest shall make atonement for him as concerning his sin.""He that heareth the voice of adjuration ... etc." (Leviticus 5:1) Our version (American Standard Version) here makes the offense to be that of failure to come forward and give testimony in a court procedure following a public "adjuration" with the pronouncement of a curse upon any one having

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pertinent knowledge needed by the court, which knowledge is in the possession of the witness who fails to divulge it. The Revised Standard Version also follows this rendition. Noth disputed this meaning and rendered it so as to say, "He that hears someone curse publicly" is the offender.[1] Ronald E. Clements also accepted that understanding of the passage,[2] but Keil effectively refuted such ideas by pointing out that the word here rendered "adjuration" does not mean a curse in general, but an oath (a judicial oath equal to the oath of cursing in Numbers 5:21). The sin referred to did not consist in the fact that a person heard a curse, or blasphemy, and gave no evidence of it."[3] Keil is most certainly correct in this, because the N.T. usage of "adjuration" places it, not on the street, but in a court of law. In Matthew 26:63, Jesus is said to have answered Caiaphas not a word, until the high priest placed Jesus under judicial oath by the accepted formula, saying, "I adjure thee, by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou art the Christ, the Son of God." The illegal usage of this type of adjuration by the sons of Sceva (Acts 19:13), and by the demons who addressed Jesus (Mark 5:7) does not nullify the identification of "adjuration" with court proceedings.The principle enunciated in these verses is profoundly important. Any person having vital information regarding either the innocence or the guilt of an accused person, when placed under judicial oath, is required to divulge it under penalty of the wrath of God for failure, and, despite the fact of the old law having long ago been nailed to the cross of Christ, the moral kernel around which the law was built still exists and is binding today.Both the old schools of commentators and modern Jewish scholars accept without reservation the position which we are attempting to maintain regarding this transgression. Jamieson wrote: "A proclamation was issued, calling any one who could give information to come before the court and bear testimony to the guilt of a criminal. The manner in which witnesses were interrogated in Jewish courts of justice was not by swearing them in directly, but by adjuring them. The offence, then, for the expiation of which this law provides, was that of a person who neglected

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or avoided the opportunity to testify."[4]Also, Bernard J. Bamberger, a recent Jewish writer, gives this:Someone engaged in a lawsuit (or perhaps the court) publicly calls on those who have information about the case to appear and testify, and a curse is invoked on any one (having knowledge of it) who fails to respond.[5]A second specific situation in which a sin-offering was required (Leviticus 5:2,3) was that of a person who unwittingly, or without his knowledge, became polluted by touching either an unclean object or an unclean person. Some have expressed wonder as to how such violations could have occurred, but it was quite common. For example, if one stepped upon a grave unintentionally, he was unclean by virtue of that action. In those times, when graves were not to be found exclusively in cemeteries, there were many who violated without any intention of it. From this arose the custom of white-washing graves, as was done extensively in the days of Jesus Christ, a custom to which he referred when he called the Pharisees, "whited sepulchres!" (Matthew 23:27-29). Also, in the case of unclean animals, the touch could have come about through the movement or action of the animal, not by the one touched, being therefore an unintentional violation.The third violation requiring a sacrifice (Leviticus 5:4-6) was that of failing to fulfill or discharge the obligation incurred in making a rash vow. The purpose of this was to guard the devout worshipper against the folly of loose or foolish talk, especially when accompanied by an oath. It will be remembered that in Jonah's prayer from the belly of the great fish, he promised, "I will pay that which I have vowed" (Jonah 2:9).The appearance of the word "trespass-offering (or guilt-offering)" in Leviticus 5:6, here, has led some to classify these regulations (Leviticus 5:1-13) with the trespass-offerings announced in Leviticus 5:14, but we believe that to be a mistake. "The Hebrew word here does not mean trespass-offering, but as his guilt (or as his trespass) and refers to the trespass or guilt of the violator, not to his offering."[6] This fact is noted in the American Standard Version

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margin, where the alternate rendition "for his guilt" is given, and despite the fact of Allis' calling this "doubtful,"[7] there is actually no alternative to the acceptance of it. The formal announcement of the trespass-offering in Leviticus 5:14 requires this understanding of it. Not to accept this would be to make the words trespass-offering and sin-offering (in the same Leviticus 5:6) to be understood as synonyms, "which is very unlikely, when they are immediately afterward carefully distinguished (Leviticus 5:14)."[8]COKE, "Leviticus 5:1. And if a soul sin, &c. — This verse maybe translated in the following manner, which clearly explains it: If any person, being adjured as a witness, shall offend in not discovering what he has seen or known, he shall bear his iniquity. Houbigant, however, is of opinion, that this is not a just interpretation; and, accordingly, he translates it thus: If any man shall sin, using words of execration, and if any one shall hear him using them, or shall be a proper witness, whether he himself hath heard, or hath certainly known, and shall not discover the matter, he shall be esteemed guilty of the iniquity; see Matthew 26:63.EBC, "Verses 1-13THE RITUAL OF THE SIN OFFERINGLeviticus 4:4-35; Leviticus 5:1-13; Leviticus 6:24-30ACCORDING to the Authorised Version, {Leviticus 5:6-7} it might seem that the section, Leviticus 5:1-13, referred not to the sin offering, but to the guilt offering, like the latter part of the chapter; but, as suggested in the margin of the Revised Version, in these verses we may properly read, instead of "guilt offering," "for his guilt." That the latter rendering is to be preferred is clear when we observe that in Leviticus 5:6, Leviticus 5:7, Leviticus 5:9 this offering is called a sin offering; that, everywhere else, the victim for the guilt offering is a ram; and, finally, that the estimation of a money value for the victim, which is the most characteristic feature of the guilt offering, is absent from all the offerings described in these verses. We may safely take it therefore as certain that the marginal reading should be adopted in Leviticus 5:6, so that it will read, "he shall bring for his guilt unto the Lord"; and understand the section to contain a further development of the law of the sin offering. In the law of the preceding chapter we have the direction for the

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sin offering as graded with reference to the rank and station of the offerer; in this section we have the law for the sin offering for the common people, as graded with reference to the ability of the offerer.The specifications {Leviticus 5:1-5} indicate several cases under which one of the common people was required to bring a sin offering as the condition of forgiveness. As an exhaustive list would be impossible, those named are taken as illustrations. The instances selected are significant as extending the class of offences for which atonement could be made by a sin offering, beyond the limits of sins of inadvertence as given in the previous chapter. For however some cases come under this head, we cannot so reckon sins of rashness (Leviticus 5:4), and still less, the failure of the witness placed under oath to tell the whole truth as he knows it. And herein it is graciously intimated that it is in the heart of God to multiply His pardons; and, on condition of the presentation of a sin offering, to forgive also those sins in palliation of which no such excuse as inadvertence or ignorance can be pleaded. It is a faint foreshadowing, in the law concerning the type, of that which should afterward be declared concerning the great Antitype, {1 John 1:7} "The blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin."When we look now at the various prescriptions regarding the ritual of the offering which are given in this and the foregoing chapter, it is plain that the numerous variations from the ritual of the other sacrifices were intended to withdraw the thought of the sinner from all other aspects in which sacrifice might be regarded, and centre his mind upon the one thought of sacrifice as expiating sin, through the substitution of an innocent life for the guilty. In many particulars, indeed, the ritual agrees with that of the sacrifices before prescribed. The victim must be brought by the guilty person to be offered to God by the priest; he must, as in other cases of bloody offerings, then lay his hand on the head of the victim, and then (a particular not mentioned in the other cases) he must confess the sin which he has committed, and then and thus entrust the victim to the priest, that he may apply its blood for him in atonement before God. The priest then slays the victim, and now comes that part of the ceremonial which by its variations from the law of other offerings is emphasised as the most central and significant in this sacrifice.

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Verse 9

THE SPRINKLING OF THE BLOODLeviticus 4:6-7; Leviticus 4:16-18; Leviticus 4:25; Leviticus 4:30; Leviticus 5:9"And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle of the blood seven times before the Lord, before the veil of the sanctuary. And the priest shall put of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord, which is in the tent of meeting; and all the blood of the bullock shall he pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering, which is at the door of the tent of meeting And the anointed priest shall bring of the blood of the bullock to the tent of meeting, and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord, before the veil. And he shall put of the blood upon the horns of the altar which is before the Lord, that is in the tent of meeting, and all the blood shall he pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering, which is at the door of the tent of meeting And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and the blood thereof shall he pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering And the priest shall take of the blood thereof with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and all the blood thereof shall he pour out at the base of the altar And he shall sprinkle of the blood of the sin offering upon the side of the altar; and the rest of the blood shall be drained out at the base of the altar; it is a sin offering."In the case of the burnt offering and of the peace offering, in which the idea of expiation, although not absent, yet occupied a secondary place in their ethical intent, it sufficed that the blood of the victim, by whomsoever brought, be applied to the sides of the altar. But in the sin offering, the blood must not only be sprinkled on the sides of the altar of burnt offering, but, even in the case of the common people, be applied to the horns of the altar, its most conspicuous and, in a sense, most sacred part. In the case of a sin committed by the whole congregation, even this is not enough; the blood

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must be brought even into the Holy Place, be applied to the horns of the altar of incense, and be sprinkled seven times before the Lord before the veil which hung immediately before the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies, the place of the Shekinah glory. And in the great sin offering of the high priest once a year for the sins of all the people, yet more was required. The blood was to be taken even within the veil, and be sprinkled on the mercy seat itself over the tables of the broken law.These several cases, according to the symbolism of these several parts of the tabernacle, differ in that atoning blood is brought ever more and more nearly into the immediate presence of God. The horns of the altar had a sacredness above the sides; the altar of the Holy Place before the veil, a sanctity beyond that of the altar in the outer court; while the Most Holy Place, where stood the ark, and the mercy seat, was the very place of the most immediate and visible manifestation of Jehovah, who is often described in Holy Scripture, with reference to the ark, the mercy seat, and the overhanging cherubim, as the God who "dwelleth between the cherubim."From this we may easily understand the significance of the different prescriptions as to the blood in the case of different classes. A sin committed by any private individual or by a ruler, was that of one who had access only to the outer court, where stood the altar of burnt offering; for this reason, it is there that the blood must be exhibited, and that on the most sacred and conspicuous spot in that court, the horns of the altar where God meets with the people. But when it was the anointed priest that had sinned, the case was different. In that he had a peculiar position of nearer access to God than others, as appointed of God to minister before Him in the Holy Place, his sin is regarded as having defiled the Holy Place itself; and in that Holy Place must Jehovah therefore see atoning blood ere the priest ’s position before God can be reestablished.And the same principle required that also in the Holy Place must the blood be presented for the sin of the whole congregation. For Israel in its corporate unity was "a kingdom of priests," a priestly nation: and the priest in the Holy Place represented the nation in that capacity. Thus because of this priestly

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office of the nation, their collective sin was regarded as defiling the Holy Place in which, through their representatives, the priests, they ideally ministered. Hence, as the law for the priests, so is the law for the nation. For their corporate sin the blood must be applied, as in the case of the priest who represented them, to the horns of the altar in the Holy Place, whence ascended the smoke of the incense which visibly symbolised accepted priestly intercession, and, more than this, before the veil itself; in other words, as near to the very mercy seat itself as it was permitted to the priest to go; and it must be sprinkled there, not once, nor twice, but seven times, in token of the reestablishment, through the atoning blood, of God ’s covenant of mercy, of which, throughout the Scripture, the number seven, the number of sabbatic rest and covenant fellowship with God, is the constant symbol.And it is not far to seek for the spiritual thought which underlies this part of the ritual. For the tabernacle was represented as the earthly dwelling place, in a sense, of God; and just as the defiling of the house of my fellow man may be regarded as an insult to him who dwells in the house, so the sin of the priest and of the priestly people is regarded as, more than that of those outside of this relation, a special affront to the holy majesty of Jehovah, criminal just in proportion as the defilement approaches more nearly the innermost shrine of Jehovah’s manifestation.But though Israel is at present suspended from its priestly position and function among the nations of the earth, the Apostle Peter {1 Peter 2:5} reminds us that the body of Christian believers now occupies Israel ’s ancient place, being now on earth the "royal priesthood, the holy nation." Hence this ritual solemnly reminds us that the sin of a Christian is a far more evil thing than the sin of others; it is as the sin of the priest, and defiles the Holy Place, even though unwittingly committed; and thus, even more imperatively than other sin, demands the exhibition of the atoning blood of the Lamb of God, not now in the Holy Place, but more than that, in the true Holiest of all, where our High Priest is now entered. And thus, in every possible way, with this elaborate ceremonial of sprinkling of blood does the sin offering emphasise to our own consciences, no less than for ancient Israel, the solemn fact affirmed in the Epistle to the Hebrews, {Hebrews 9:22} "Without

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shedding of blood there is no remission of sin."Because of this, we do well to meditate much and deeply on this symbolism of the sin offering, which, more than any other in the law, has to do with the propitiation of our Lord for sin. Especially does this use of the blood, in which the significance of the sin offering reached its supreme expression, claim our most reverent attention. For the thought is inseparable from the ritual, that blood of the slain victim must be presented, not before the priest, or before the offerer, but before Jehovah. Can anyone mistake the evident significance of this? Does it not luminously hold forth the thought that atonement by sacrifice has to do, not only with man, but with God?There is cause enough in our day for insisting on this. Many are teaching that the need for the shedding of blood for the remission of sin, lies only in the nature of man; that, so far as concerns God, sin might as well have been pardoned without it; that it is only because man is so hard and rebellious, so stubbornly distrusts the Divine love, that the death of the Holy Victim of Calvary became a necessity. Nothing less than such a stupendous exhibition of the love of God could suffice to disarm his enmity to God and win him back to loving trust. Hence the need of the atonement. That all this is true, no one will deny; but it is only half the truth, and the less momentous half, -which indeed is hinted in no offering, and in the sin offering least of all. Such a conception of the matter as completely fails to account for this part of the symbolic ritual of the bloody sacrifices, as it fails to agree with other teachings of the Scriptures. If the only need for atonement in order to pardon is in the nature of the sinner, then why this constant insistence that the blood of the sacrifice should always be solemnly presented, not before the sinner, but before Jehovah? We see in this fact most unmistakably set forth, the very solemn truth that expiation by blood as a condition of forgiveness of sin is necessary, not merely because man is what he is, but most of all because God is what He is. Let us then not forget that the presentation unto God of an expiation for sin, accomplished by the death of an appointed substitutionary victim, was in Israel made an indispensable condition of the pardon of sin. Is this, as many urge, against the love of God? By no means! Least of all will it so appear, when we remember who

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appointed the great Sacrifice, and, above all, who came to fulfil this type. Goal does not love us because atonement has been made, but atonement has been made because the Father loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.God is none the less just, that He is love; and none the less holy, that He is merciful: and in His nature, as the Most Just and Holy One, lies this necessity of the shedding of blood in order to the forgiveness of sin, which is impressively symbolised in the unvarying ordinance of the Levitical law, that as a condition of the remission of sin, the blood of the sacrifice must be presented, not before the sinner, but before Jehovah. To this generation of ours, with its so exalted notions of the greatness and dignity of man, and its correspondingly low conceptions of the ineffable greatness and majesty of the Most Holy God, this altar truth may be most distasteful, so greatly does it magnify the evil of sin; but just in that degree is it necessary to the humiliation of man’s proud self-complacency, that, whether pleasing or not, this truth be faithfully held forth.Very instructive and helpful to our faith are the allusions to this sprinkling of Blood in the New Testament. Thus, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, {Hebrews 12:24} believers are reminded that they are come "unto the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better than that of Abel." The meaning is plain. For we are told, {Genesis 4:10} that the blood of Abel cried out against Cain from the ground; and that its cry for vengeance was prevailing; for God came down, arraigned the murderer, and visited him with instant judgment. But in these words we are told that the sprinkled blood of the holy Victim of Calvary, sprinkled on the heavenly altar, also has a voice, and a voice which "speaketh better than that of Abel"; better, in that it speaks, not for vengeance, but for pardoning mercy; better, in that it procures the remission even of a penitent murderer’s guilt; so that, "being now justified through His blood" we may all be saved from wrath through. {Romans 5:9} And, if we are truly Christ’s, it is our blessed comfort to remember also that we are said {1 Peter 1:2} to have been chosen of God unto the sprinkling of this precious blood of Jesus Christ; words which remind us, not only that the blood of a Lamb "without blemish and without spot" has been presented unto

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God for us, but also that the reason for this distinguishing mercy is found, not in us, but in the free love of God, who chose us in Christ Jesus to this grace.And as in the burnt offering, so in the sin offering, the blood was to be sprinkled by the priest. The teaching is the same in both cases. To present Christ before God, laying the hand of faith upon His head as our sin offering, this is all we can do or are required to do. With the sprinkling of the blood we have nothing to do. In other words, the effective presentation of the blood before God is not to be secured by some act of our own; it is not something, to be procured through some subjective experience, other or in addition to the faith which brings the Victim. As in the type, so in the Antitype, the sprinkling of the atoning blood-that is, its application God-ward as a propitiation-is the work of our heavenly Priest. And our part in regard to it is simply and only this, that we entrust this work to Him. He will not disappoint us; He is appointed of God to this end, and He will see that it is done.In a sacrifice in which the sprinkling of the blood occupies such a central and essential place in the symbolism, one would anticipate that this ceremony would never be dispensed with. Very strange it thus appears, at first sight, to find that to this law an exception was made. For it was ordained (ver. 11) that a man so poor that "his means suffice not" to bring even two doves or young pigeons, might bring, as a substitute, an offering of fine flour. From this, some have hastened to infer that the shedding of the blood, and therewith the idea of substituted life, was not essential to the idea of reconciliation with God; but with little reason. Most illogical and unreasonable it is to determine a principle, not from the general rule, but from an exception; especially when, as in this case, for the exception a reason can be shown, which is not inconsistent with the rule. For had no such exceptional offering been permitted in the case of the extremely poor man, it would have followed that there would have remained a class of persons in Israel whom God had excluded from the provision of the sin offering, which He had made the inseparable condition of forgiveness. But two truths were to be set forth in the ritual; the one, atonement by means of

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a life surrendered in expiation of guilt; the other, -as in a similar way in the burnt offering, -the sufficiency of God’s gracious provision for even the neediest of sinners. Evidently, here was a case in which something must be sacrificed in the symbolism. One of these truths may be perfectly set forth; both cannot be, with equal perfectness; a choice must therefore be made, and is made in this exceptional regulation, so as to hold up clearly, even though at the expense of some distinctness in the other thought of expiation, the unlimited sufficiency of God’s provision of forgiving grace.And yet the prescriptions in this form of the offering were such as to prevent anyone from confounding it with the meal offering, which typified consecrated and accepted service. The oil and the frankincense which belonged to the latter are to be left out (Leviticus 5:11); incense, which typifies accepted prayer, -thus reminding us of the unanswered prayer of the Holy Victim when He cried upon the cross, "My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?" and oil, which typifies the Holy Ghost, -reminding us, again, how from the soul of the Son of God was mysteriously withdrawn in that same hour all the conscious presence and comfort of the Holy Spirit, which withdrawment alone could have wrung from His lips that unanswered prayer. And, again, whereas the meal for the meal offering had no limit fixed as to quantity, in this case the amount is prescribed-"the tenth part of an ephah" (Leviticus 5:11); an amount which, from the story of the manna, appears to have represented the sustenance of one full day. Thus it was ordained that if, in the nature of the case, this sin offering could not set forth the sacrifice of life by means of the shedding of blood, it should at least point in the same direction, by requiring that, so to speak, the support of life for one day shall be given up, as forfeited by sin.All the other parts of the ceremonial are in this ordinance made to take a secondary place, or are omitted altogether. Not all of the offering is burnt upon the altar, but only a part; that part, however, the fat, the choicest; for the same reason as in the peace offering. There is, indeed, a peculiar variation in the case of the offering of the two young pigeons, in that, of the one, the blood only was used in the sacrifice, while the other was wholly burnt like a burnt offering. But for this variation the reason is evident

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enough in the nature of the victims. For in the case of a small creature like a bird, the fat would be so insignificant in quantity, and so difficult to separate with thoroughness from the flesh, that the ordinance must needs be varied, and a second bird be taken for the burning, as a substitute for the separated fat of larger animals. The symbolism is not essentially affected by the variation. What the burning of the fat means in other offerings, that also means the burning of the second bird in this case.PARKER, "For All Gleaners"... the holy things of the Lord."— Leviticus 5:15Are we not told that "the earth is the Lord"s, and the fulness thereof"? Do not all things belong to Heaven? Has not God himself said "All souls are mine"? Has he not also said the "silver and the gold are mine," and "the cattle upon a thousand hills?" To these inquiries there can be but one reply. Still, the separation of things into special relations to the Most High is perfectly compatible with the universal proprietorship of God.—It is not always implied that one thing is holy and another sinful.—The term holy often means separated; that is to say, set apart for special and exclusive purposes.—Taken in this sense, the Lord has from the beginning made special claims in his own name.—He has claimed one day in the week for rest and worship.—He has claimed offerings from the flock upon the field in acknowledgment of divine ownership.—He has set apart occasions for fast or festival, that the soul might address itself properly to the heavenly mercy.—Self-deception upon all such matters is very easy.—There is a piety which is void by generality.—When men say they give all they have to God, and, therefore, need not set aside particular sums, they confuse things that differ.—The man who lays claim to this entire consecration without having gone through a period of education shows the insidious nature of self-conceit.—Where is the man who has been enabled all at once, without training and without experience, to give all his time and store to the service of God? No such man has yet been discovered in history.—To claim to be such a man is to set up a claim for idolatry.—To regard all things, times, and places as holy is a leap of the imagination which is likely to involve impiety.—It is well for us to begin with one day in seven; one pound in ten; one church in a town, or a district of a town; from these partial appointments and sacrifices we may rise into the higher consecration.—To say that we have found some other way to that consecration than the way which God himself has marked out, is to have anticipated Omniscience and invented a new theory of human nature.—We are called upon to begin at distinct points, and to contribute of time, money, and influence, according to a measure; not, indeed, that we may stop there, but that, having tasted of the goodness of God"s dispensation, we may go forward steadily and loyally to perfection and rest.—Even with regard to the body and the mind, as they are known

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to us, some portions of them may be spoken of as being more peculiarly holy unto the Lord than are others.—Specially should we guard the conscience: the imagination, too, should be bent in worship at the holy altar: the will should be watched as fire is guarded. Errors of judgment may be venial, but when the conscience is bribed or stupefied who can prophesy good of the whole life?—To have some things marked as holy things of the Lord is to show at least the beginning of religious character and aspiration.PARKER 1-19, "Verses 1-19Moral ContagionLeviticus 5In reading this chapter take notice of the expression, "if a soul touch any unclean thing, whether it be a carcase of an unclean beast, or a carcase of unclean cattle, or the carcase of unclean creeping things, and if it be hidden from him; he also shall be unclean, and guilty." Why this continual dread of uncleanness? Call these, if you please, merely sanitary arrangements, yet why this early care about matters connected with human health? Is not the provision totally in excess of the occasion? Is not this an instance of much ado about nothing? Do men require all these instructions and the continual supervision of all this judgment in matters connected with the health and purity of the body? Let that be granted, and nothing whatever is taken from the urgency and solemnity of the spiritual appeal; on the contrary, the very circumstance that so much ado is made about fleshly cleanliness increases the poignancy of the appeal dealing with spiritual health and vigour. Those who suppose that the whole ritual of the Jews related to sanitation must not imagine that even if their position could be proved —which from my point of view is impossible—they have at all impaired the cogency and completeness of any appeal which may be addressed to the moral sense. The fact Isaiah , that man could not be made apart from the moral sense to comprehend even such an appeal were it restricted to the body. In other words, we could not be really cleanly in body and soundly in earnest about physical sanitation except through the medium of the conscience as well as through the action of the judgment The judgment is often but an impotent director of human conduct. We may say with the ancient poet, "We see the right, and yet the wrong pursue." It is really only when the moral sense is thoroughly aroused and inspired that the judgment itself is lifted to its right level and brought into complete action in all practical matters. We will not, therefore, be

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turned aside from the spiritual appeal which may be founded upon these exhortations by being told that in the first instance the exhortation was related to matters that were purely sanitary. This avoidance of unclean animals and places is not without practical illustration in our own personal experience and action. To-day, for example, we avoid places that are known to be fever-stricken. We are alarmed lest we should bring ourselves within the influence of contagion. The strongest man might fear if he knew that a letter were put into his hand which had come from a house where fever was fatally raging. However heroic he might be in sentiment, and however inclined to boast of the solidity of his nervous system, it is not impossible that even the strongest man might shrink from taking the hand of a fever-stricken friend. All this is natural and all this is justifiable, and, in fact, any defiance of this would be unnatural and unjustifiable. Is there, then, no suggestion in all such rational caution that there may be moral danger from moral contagion? Can a body emit pestilence and a soul dwell in all evil and riot in all wantonness without giving out an effluvium fatal to moral vigour and to spiritual health? Thesuggestion is preposterous. They are the unwise and most reprehensible men who being afraid of a fever have no fear of a moral pestilence; who running away in moral terror from influences leading towards small-pox, cholera, and other fatal diseases, rush into companionships, and actions, and servitudes which are positively steeped and saturated with moral pollution. That we are more affected by the one than by the other only shows that we are more body than soul. The man who is careful about his body and careless about his soul does not prove the littleness of the soul in itself or in the purpose of God: he simply proves that in his case the flesh is overgrown and has acquired excessive importance. It would be the merest conceit did it not also involve deep moral injury to imagine that human life can be lived without any exposure to moral contagion. This is a mystery which has no words. The temptation does not always come to us in some violent form which can be measured, estimated, and physically or substantially resisted either in action or in argument The elements which poison the air are of the subtlest kind, and can only be detected by the most advanced chemistry. This is true in the moral atmosphere. What a suggestion may do it is impossible always to foretell. At first it may seem to be of little weight, or it may actually appear to be forgotten, to sink wholly out of memory and consciousness; but it is impossible to tell how long it may lie in the soul latently and under what circumstances it may begin to bear evil fruit in the spirit and the life. Strange, indeed, if such things are possible in nature and impossible in morals! A truly wonderful thing if after all it should be found that physical conditions involve greater mysteries than spiritual possibilities and destinies! This would be an inversion of thought—a turning upside down of all that has been customary in intellectual conception and representation. The Christian whilst protesting against such inversion as irrational and unnatural will accept every mystery that is hidden in nature as indicating a still greater mystery that is to be found in the kingdom of thought and of spiritual activity. It seems to be impossible to escape contagion of a moral kind. All contagion is so wide-sweeping in its influence,—that is to say, it operates at points so far distant from any visible and tangible centre, that we easily dissociate the effect from the cause and imagine harmlessness in the very centres of most active and pestilent mischief. It is of the

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nature of moral contagion that it operates with equal vigour at every point along the line over which it stretches. It loses nothing by distance; it loses nothing by time. The evil book written a century ago may be bearing fruit to-day, though its author is not only dead but forgotten. Sometimes evil lies a hundred years or more without showing signs of vitality or effectiveness, and then under peculiar conditions is awakened and becomes most active and disastrous. As we grow in moral capacity and in the sensitiveness which accompanies spiritual culture we shall come to acknowledge that stains may be worse than wounds; that one speck upon the honour is infinitely worse than the deepest gash that could be inflicted by the cruellest sword upon the flesh. This is a matter which cannot be taught abstractly or in a moment; it comes after long years of study, thought, experience, and those reciprocal actions which make up the mystery of social life. At first we are affected by a crime; then we are unsettled by the suggestion of an offence; then, still advancing in spiritual culture and sensitiveness, we come to see that though the crime itself may never be done, yet the motive which even for a moment suggested it is a deadlier thing than the crime itself: for the crime is a mere vulgarity which might be partially excused by passion, but the motive is a condition of the heart which indicates the apostasy and utter badness of the soul. A singular thing this, that unclean things may be touched by the soul itself. Literally, the text does not refer in all probability to a purely spiritual action, yet not the less is the suggestion justified by experience that even the soul considered in its most spiritual sense may touch things that are unclean and may be defiled by them. A poor thing indeed that the hand has kept itself away from pollution and defilement if the mind has opened wide all the points of access to the influence of evil. Sin may not only be in the hand, it may be rolled as a sweet morsel under the tongue. There may be a chamber of imagery in the heart. A man may be utterly without offence in any social acceptation of that term—actually a friend of magistrates and Judges , and himself a high interpreter of the law of social morality and honour, and yet all the while may be hiding a very perdition in his heart. It is the characteristic mystery of the salvation of Jesus Christ that it does not come to remove stains upon the flesh or spots upon the garments, but to work out an utter and eternal cleansing in the secret places of the soul, so that the heart itself may in the event be without "spot or wrinkle or any such thing,"—pure, holy, radiant, even dazzling with light, fit to be looked upon by the very eye of God.This is the ideal of Christ: how far we may be from its accomplishment is not the immediate question. It is of the highest consequence to remember what the ultimate purpose of the Son of God Isaiah , and then to bring to bear upon that purpose all the instruments and methods, all the ministries and influences which are utilised by the living Spirit. Between the one and the other the happiest harmony will be seen to exist. It is by his own precious blood that Jesus Christ seeks to remove the stain, not of crime but of sin, not of the hand but of the soul. The adoption of such means to such ends involves an inscrutable philosophy No wonder that eternity gone and eternity to come are both charged with this sacred mystery. The Lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world, and the song which celebrates his praise is to be continued long after the earth and all its tragedies have passed away. This

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mystery is not confined within the bounds of time; those bounds, in fact, do but show one aspect of the mystery; it belongs to eternity on both sides of time, and we shall require eternity for its elucidation, and our comprehension of its gracious meaning. The one thing to be borne in mind at present is that the soul is still exposed to the contagion of uncleanness. We fight against the prince of the power of the air; we fight with ourselves; sometimes we seem to be our own tempters, and to have within us all the mystery of hell. A wonderful thing is this matter of touch. Who can touch pitch and not be defiled? It has not been given to us so to encase ourselves, even so far as the body is concerned, that we shall be impervious to evil influences working in the air. Where, then, is our defence against the evil that is in the world? Jesus Christ does not pray that we may be taken out of the world, but that we may be kept from the evil that is in the world; he will have us here as the light of the world, as the salt of the earth, as a city set upon a hill; he will not operate in any spirit of cowardice and fear, withdrawing us from temporal regions and temporal activities lest the wind should be too cold for us, or the enemy should surprise us into some new lapse, and so spoil our integrity and turn our prayers to confusion. Christ will have us live the heroic life,—a heroism that is often carried to the point of defiance, as if we could not only merely overcome the enemy but actually and absolutely trample him underfoot, in excess of triumph and in redundance of divinely-given strength. We must not altogether take the view of contagion which is full of unhappy and dispiriting suggestions. There is another view, and that we are bound as Christian men to adopt—namely, that good may be as contagious as evil. It is difficult to believe this. Human nature seems to be so constituted that evil outruns good and has altogether an easier task than virtue to accomplish. It is easier to go downhill than to go uphill. It seems to suit human nature better not to do duty than to discharge it, not to submit to discipline than to accept it. This is indeed a practical mystery which can only be accounted for completely and satisfactorily by the provision which has been made on the divine side to meet it and overcome it. Still there does remain the sacred and happy impression that even good has its contagious effect upon society. Men may be shamed into withholding part of their strength at least from evil service. Such restraints may not end in a very high type of virtue; in the meantime the very suspension of active evil may prepare the way for something better. The force of example must never be under-estimated. If we once begin to think that evil is predominant over good, and that the bad man alone is influential, we may relax in our efforts and underlive the great purpose of our vocation in Christ Rather let us hear the Master"s voice saying,—"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." The very argument of Christ in the Sermon upon the Mount is that good men are the light of the world and the salt of the earth.In the fourteenth verse of this chapter there is a remarkable expression, bearing upon a certain type of sin. The law was that if a soul committed trespass and sinned through ignorance in the holy things of the Lord, he was to bring for his trespass unto the Lord a ram without blemish, out of the flocks, and other offerings,—"and he shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in the holy thing, and shall

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add the fifth part thereto." The ritual was not, therefore, merely sanitary. Those who would limit it to merely sanitary matters will find it difficult to reconcile the mere details of sanitation with such arrangements as were imposed upon the Jewish people or the Israelites with regard to restitution. What is the law in this case? Whatever harm was done was, as far as possible, to be undone. That being the case one would suppose that the property having been restored, nothing further could be attempted. This is not the case. Not only was restitution to be completed, but twenty per cent was to be added by way of penalty on the one side, and compensation on the other. It is not enough to prove that a man who has been injured has been unjustly injured. It is not the law that a man having been proved not to have committed some offence charged against him, shall simply accept the acquittal. Acquittal must be followed by compensation. Where injury has been done it cannot be met by a mere apology—except, indeed, by the grace and courtesy of the man upon whom the injury has been inflicted. Society by its very constitution must go further, and demand that the person who has been unjustly accused shall be compensated for the injury which he has sustained in the estimation of his fellow-men, and, indeed, in his own complacency and conscious integrity. Morality of this kind is most acceptable in any book professing to be a revelation of the divine mind. It is at such points especially that we can lay hold of the purposes of the book, and by keeping them steadily in mind, can wait further light and broadening Revelation , conscious that a morality so pure and so just must be the beginning of a dispensation that shall vindicate its own spirituality and broader claim. It is peculiarly characteristic of the Bible that it insists upon justice between man and Prayer of Manasseh , that it will not excuse the great man or the small Prayer of Manasseh , but it will have an equal law, and will bring to bear its spirit of discipline upon every soul, whatever may be the conditions and characteristics which give it partiality and preference amongst its fellows. This is a claim of the Bible to human trust and reception. It can never be set aside by criticism, by casuistry, by speculative unbelief; it appeals to the conscience of mankind, and it says to that conscience—Whatever difficulties or mysteries I may yet address to your imagination, hold fast by these plain and substantial truths; if my purpose is absolutely unimpeachable in morality, the very spirit of justice, and honour, and truth; and in proportion as you appreciate the social side of the revelation will every other side be made luminous, and ultimately vindicate itself by its equally practical beneficence.God will have nothing to do with uncleanness. "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings"—is the continual voice of God to the human soul. He will pity weakness; he will not be offended by ungainliness; he understands all the meaning of poverty;—in all these directions we have nothing to fear; but when we hide uncleanness, or endeavour to make excuse for sin, all heaven burns against us with unquenchable anger. This is another aspect of the morality of the Bible. Even when Christ sat down to meat with publicans and sinners, he recognised their character and did not seek to confound their manhood and their merely official position. This must be the clear understanding everywhere: that the Bible will have no immorality, no trifling with righteousness, no compromises with the wicked

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spirit. The Bible insists upon holiness in the inward parts—a morality that can bear the criticism of the divine righteousness—and how great soever its compassion for weakness, poverty, frailty, and all the various characteristics of fallen humanity that do not involve consent to that which is evil, the Bible can hold no intercourse or parleying whatsoever with any soul that would cling to its uncleanness, and yet expect to enjoy the fellowship or complacency of God. This is not only an anomaly, but a miracle which lies beyond the omnipotence of Heaven.PETT. "Verses 1-4The Guilt Or Trespass Offering - ’asam (Leviticus 5:1-11).The essence of the Guilt Offering is that it appears to be in respect of fixed types of sins which make the person guilty in the eyes of others who may have suffered because of their failures, or guilty in the eyes of the sanctuary. In both cases recompense is usually needed. But it is not a case here of either a purification for sin offering or a guilt offering. This Guilt Offering is also a purification for sin offering, in one case also combined with a whole burnt offering.This final offering in this whole section from Leviticus 4:1 to Leviticus 5:11 is with respect to very specific offences committed in ignorance; 1) failing to give witness in official courts under adjuration, 2) the touching of what is unclean because its uncleanness results from death, or because it is the uncleanness of Prayer of Manasseh 1:3) or the making of a rash oath by a man when not in possession of his full senses (and therefore presumably drunk) which he cannot keep. They are grave matters, but ameliorated in the last two cases by the doing of them in ignorance. Yet nevertheless they have brought impurity on Israel and must be publicly confessed and atoned for.It should be noted that this is the first mention of public confession of sin, and the confession is clearly seen as an important part of the process of making the offering. These are sins that have directly affected others. They have thus made the perpetrators guilty, not only before God, but before each other.The Sins For Which This Guilt Offering Is Required (Leviticus 5:1-4).

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Leviticus 5:1‘ And if any one sin, in that he hears the voice of adjuration, he being a witness, whether he has seen or known, if he does not utter it, then he shall bear his iniquity.’The voice of adjuration here meant a witness being put under a charge by the courts as to whether they had heard or seen anything with regard to the case in hand, with the indication that they must speak the truth under pain of blasphemy. Here the person has not lied. They have simply failed to declare the truth. But in a position like this, silence is a sin. Once it is known, they will bear as their punishment whatever the courts decide (bear their iniquity), but they are also guilty before God and require atonement, and must make public confession. They have sinned against both man and God. This is in order to bring out the seriousness of the offence. In this case silence is not golden. It is an offence against God and His justice. Unless true men are willing to assist the courts and see justice done, justice will be continually perverted. See Proverbs 29:24.PULPIT, "Verses 1-13EXPOSITIONTHE SIN OFFERING—continued (Leviticus 5:1-13). The subject of the next thirteen verses is still the sin offering, not the trespass offering, as has been supposed by some. The first six verses state three specific cases for which sin offerings are required, and the remaining seven verses detail the concessions made to poverty in respect to the offerings required. The cases are those of a witness, of one ceremonially defiled, and of one who had sworn thoughtlessly. The concessions granted are two: two turtledoves or young pigeons are allowed instead of a lamb, and the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour, without oil or frankincense, is allowed instead of the two turtle-doves or young pigeons. The latter concession is the more remarkable as the sacrifice by its means changes its character from a bloody to an unbloody offering.Leviticus 5:1

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The case of a witness on oath. If a man hear the voice of swearing, that is, if he was one of a number of persons adjured to speak according to the manner in which oaths were administered in Jewish courts of justice (see Matthew 26:63; 2 Chronicles 18:15), and he did not give evidence of what he had seen or heard, he had to bear his iniquity, that is, he was regarded as guilty; and as this was an offense which could be atoned for by a sacrifice, he was to offer as a sin offering a ewe lamb, or a female kid, or two turtle-doves, or two pigeons, or the tenth part of an ephah of flour. This injunction is a direct condemnation of the approved teaching of Italian moral theologians of paramount authority throughout the Roman Church, who maintain that, in case a crime is not known to others, a witness in a court of justice "may, nay, he is bound to, say that the accused has not committed it" (St. Alfonso de' Liguori, 'Theol. Mor.,' 4:154).

2 “‘If anyone becomes aware that they are guilty—if they unwittingly touch anything ceremonially unclean (whether the carcass of an unclean animal, wild or domestic, or of any unclean creature that moves along the ground) and they are unaware that they have become unclean, but then they come to realize their guilt;

BARNES, "Lev_5:2-3Hid from him - Either through forgetfulness or indifference, so that purification had

been neglected. In such a case there had been a guilty negligence, and a sin-offering 26

was required. On the essential connection between impurity and the sin-offering, see Lev_12:1.

CLARKE, "Any unclean thing - Either the dead body of a clean animal, or the living or dead carcass of any unclean creature. All such persons were to wash their clothes and themselves in clean water, and were considered as unclean till the evening, Lev_11:24-31. But if this had been neglected, they were obliged to bring a trespass-offering. What this meant, see in the notes on Leviticus 7 (note).

GILL, "Or if a soul touch any unclean thing,.... Meaning an Israelite, for only such were bound by this law, which pronounced a person unclean that touched anything that was so in a ceremonial sense; this is the general, including whatsoever by the law was unclean; the particulars follow: whether it be a carcass of an unclean beast, as the camel, the coney, the hare, and the swine, Lev_11:2. or a carcass of unclean cattle; as the horse, and the ass, which were unclean for food, and their dead carcasses not to be touched, Lev_11:26. or the carcass of unclean creeping things: such as are mentioned in Lev_11:29. and if it be hidden from him; that he has touched them; or the uncleanness contracted by touching, he having inadvertently done it; or being ignorant of the law concerning such uncleanness: he also shall be unclean; in a ceremonial sense, by thus touching them: and guilty; of a breach of the command which forbids the touching of them: this is by way of prolepsis or anticipation; for as yet the law concerning unclean beasts, and creeping things, and pollution by touching them, was not given: Jarchi and Gersom interpret this guilt, of eating of holy things, and going into the sanctuary when thus defiled: in the Jewish Misnah (w) it is said, the word "hidden" is twice used, to show that he is guilty, for the ignorance of uncleanness, and for the ignorance of the sanctuary.

JAMISON, "Lev_5:2, Lev_5:3. Touching any thing unclean.if a soul touch any unclean thing — A person who, unknown to himself at the time, came in contact with any thing unclean, and either neglected the requisite ceremonies of purification or engaged in the services of religion while under the taint of ceremonial defilement, might be afterwards convinced that he had committed an offense.

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K&D, "Lev_5:2-3The second was, if any one had touched the carcase of an unclean beast, or cattle,

or creeping thing, or the uncleanness of a man of any kind whatever (“with regard to all his uncleanness, with which he defiles himself,” i.e., any kind of defilement to which a man is exposed), and “it is hidden from him,” sc., the uncleanness or defilement; that is to say, if he had unconsciously defiled himself by touching unclean objects, and had consequently neglected the purification prescribed for such cases. In this case, if he found it out afterwards, he had contracted guilt which needed expiation.CALVIN, "2.Or if a soul touch any unclean thing. This precept seems not only to be superfluous but also absurd; for Moses had already shewn sufficiently how uncleanness contracted by touching a dead body, or any other unclean thing, was to be purged, and had prescribed an easy and inexpensive mode of purification. This repetition appears, therefore, to be useless. But to impose a heavier punishment on an offense which is extenuated by the pretext of error, than where there is no allusion to error, is unjust. But we must remember that not only is the uncleanness itself here punished, but; the inadvertence, from whence it arose that he who was polluted omitted the purification. For it may be that those who thus lie torpid in their sins pollute for a season the service of God. No wonder, then, that a heavier punishment is inflicted, where error, springing from supine and gross security, begets still more sins, that thus believers may be aroused to greater vigilance. Let the reader, therefore, recollect that the offense which is now adverted to did not consist in the mere touching of a dead body, but in the thoughtlessness itself; for if all would diligently meditate on the Law of God, forgetfulness would not so easily steal over them, whereby the distinction between right and wrong is lost. The same is the reason for the following ordinance, where Moses subjects to the same punishment any one who shall have touched an unclean or defiled man: thus the very contact of a woman at a particular period produces pollution.PETT, "Leviticus 5:2‘Or if any one touch any unclean thing, whether it be the carcase of an

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unclean beast, or the carcase of unclean cattle, or the carcase of unclean creeping things, and it be hidden from him, and he be unclean, then he shall be guilty.’In this case the person has unknowingly touched something that was dead, either the carcase of a wild animal, or of a domestic animal, or of a small creature. He or she had not realised it, possibly through carelessness, but they have been rendered unclean by it. Yet because they did not realise it or think about it they have not undergone ‘cleansing’, and may well even have approached the sanctuary, entering the court of the tabernacle, while unclean. Once they know of it they must confess it and seek purification and atonement. This could especially come about through picking up a bone without realising what it was, or something similar. Or it may have happened while out hunting or fighting and have been forgotten for a while. Later all contact with death is seen as unclean, but this is the early foundation teaching concerning this.The avoidance of dead animals was a sensible precaution for they may have died of some disease, or have been infected by carrion. The only safe way was not to touch them but to leave them to the scavengers. ‘Unclean’ wild animals would include the camel, the coney, the hare, and the swine (Leviticus 11:2-3), ‘unclean’ domestic animals would include the horse and especially the ass (Leviticus 11:26-28). For unclean creeping things see Leviticus 11:29-31. Their dead carcases were not to be touched. The idea of clean and unclean animals went back as far as Noah (Genesis 7:2) where it was seemingly in regard to animals that could be offered as offerings to God. This law would later be expanded in some detail. By being made a religious ordinance that came between man and God it ensured that it was mainly observed.For it was not only a sensible precaution, it was a command of Yahweh. The dead of these creatures must be left to Him. By coming in physical contact with the carcase of these unclean creatures and not taking action to obtain the appropriate cleansing they have sinned against God either through carelessness or ignorance. It is therefore necessary to seek forgiveness.

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PULPIT. "Leviticus 5:2, Leviticus 5:3Two eases of a man ceremonially defiled. If he had touched a dead body or any other substance conveying uncleanness, and it were hidden from him, that is, if he had done it unwittingly, or from forgetfulness or neglect, had failed to purify himself immediately, he must offer his sin offering, as above.

3 or if they touch human uncleanness (anything that would make them unclean) even though they are unaware of it, but then they learn of it and realize their guilt;

GILL, "Or if he touch the uncleanness of man,.... The dead body of a man, or the bone of a dead body, or a grave, or any profluvious or menstruous person: whatsoever uncleanness it be that a man shall be defiled withal: not morally, but ceremonially: and it be hid from him; he is not sensible that he has touched any thing ceremonially unclean: when he knoweth of it, then he shall be guilty: acknowledge his guilt, and offer a sacrifice for it, as after directed.

PETT, "Leviticus 5:3‘Or if he touch the uncleanness of man, whatever his uncleanness be wherewith he is unclean, and it be hidden from him; when he knows of it, then he shall be guilty.’

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In this case the person has touched man’s uncleanness in one way or another. This could include among other things touching their grave, or a man’s waste left in the wilderness, or a menstruating woman. The first could occur where he learned afterwards that it was a grave, the second if he discovered it on his clothes or his skin on returning from the field or the wilderness, and the third could happen anywhere.In both of these last two examples of ‘uncleanness’ in Leviticus 5:2-3 the point is that they have only discovered it too late to go through the process of ritual cleansing. Thus they have mixed freely with others and may even have gone to the tabernacle.

4 or if anyone thoughtlessly takes an oath to do anything, whether good or evil (in any matter one might carelessly swear about) even though they are unaware of it, but then they learn of it and realize their guilt—

BARNES, "Lev_5:4Pronouncing - Idly speaking Psa_106:33. The reference is to an oath to do something uttered in recklessness or passion and forgotten as soon as uttered.

CLARKE, "To do evil, or to do good - It is very likely that rash promises are here intended; for if a man vow to do an act that is evil, though it would be criminal to keep such an oath or vow, yet he is guilty because he made it, and therefore must offer the trespass-offering. If he neglect to do the good he has vowed, he is guilty, and must in both cases confess his iniquity, and bring his trespass-offering.

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GILL, "Or if a soul swear,.... A rash or vain oath: pronouncing with his lips; not in his heart, as Jarchi notes; not saying within himself that he would do this, or that, or the other thing, but expressing his oath plainly and distinctly, with an audible voice: to do good, or to do evil; which was either impossible or unlawful for him to do; whether the good or evil he swears to do is to himself or to another; whether he swears to do good to himself, and evil to another, or, good to another, and evil to himself, see Psa_15:4. The Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it,"whatsoever a man expresses, whether of anything present or future;''as if he swears he has done such and such a thing, whether good or evil; or that he will do it, be it what it will, and it is not in the power of his hands to do it, or, if he did it, it would be doing a wrong thing: whatsoever it be that a man shall pronounce with an oath, and it be hid from him; he has forgot that he ever swore such an oath: and when he knoweth of it, then he shall be guilty in one of these; when he is told of it, and it is made clearly to appear to him, that he did at such a time, and in such a place, deliver out a rash oath concerning this, or the other thing, then he shall be chargeable with guilt in one of these; either in rashly swearing to do good when it was not in his power, or to do evil, which would have been unlawful. The Targum of Jonathan is,"if he knows that he has falsified, and repents not, he is guilty.''

JAMISON, "Lev_5:4-19. For swearing.if a soul swear — a rash oath, without duly considering the nature and consequences of the oath, perhaps inconsiderately binding himself to do anything wrong, or neglecting to perform a vow to do something good. In all such cases a person might have transgressed one of the divine commandments unwittingly, and have been afterwards brought to a sense of his delinquency.

K&D, "\Lev_5:4The third was, if any one should “swear to prate with the lips,” i.e., swear in idle,

empty words of the lips, - “to do good or evil,” i.e., that he would do anything whatever (Num_24:13; Isa_41:23), - “with regard to all that he speaks idly with an oath,” i.e., if it related to something which a man had affirmed with an oath in thoughtless conversation, - “and it is hidden from him,” i.e., if he did not reflect that he might commit sin by such thoughtless swearing, and if he perceived it afterwards and discovered his sin, and had incurred guilt with regard to one of the things which he had thoughtlessly sworn.

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CALVIN, "4.Or if a soul shall swear. The Gulf is also ascribed to error and ignorance, when a person does inconsiderately what he has promised not to do; for the oath is not in that case violated, which would be criminal; (267) but in this very carelessness there is enough of wrong, because sound religion would renew the recollection of the vow. Consequently, where no anxiety (to fulfill it) is shewn, there is no serious desire to do so. But this commandment was necessary, because it might often happen that men who had pledged their faith in a vow, and had broken it in thoughtlessness, would deem themselves released from every, and would in future give themselves up to indulgence, whereas they who arrive at such a pitch of licentiousness, harden themselves more and more, until at length they throw off all reverence for God. God would therefore have vows kept faithfully, lest those who despised them should thus rush into impiety. If then any one had thoughtlessly broken faith, he is commanded to make atonement to God; not on account of his levity, as some think, as if he had rashly promised what he might not, but on account of his neglect, because he had not given diligence to remember the vow at the proper time. Now if the Papists stupidly wrest this text after their custom, in order to establish the obligation of all kinds of vows, their confutation is easy; viz., that God requires this stedfastness only with respect to lawful vows duly made. We have already understood from the teaching of Moses, what is the rule of pious vow-making; whence we gather, that those which profane God ’s name are by no means to be kept; for if we set out with doing wrong, obstinacy in it is doubly wicked. In this passage, therefore, “to do evil” is not to perform any improper action, but to undertake something which would otherwise be disagreeable and burdensome to the flesh; such as to diminish domestic expenditure, or to deprive one’s self of luxuries, or to determine upon abstinence from something which would gratify or profit us.COKE, "Verse 4Leviticus 5:4. Or if a soul shall swear, pronouncing with his lips to do evil, &c.— This seems to refer to the case of rash or hasty vows or oaths; as the word which we render pronouncing, signifies to speak rashly, foolishly, or unadvisedly. If

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a man forgot such rash oaths or vows, yet at length recollected them, he was to bear the guilt of them, and to acknowledge it by a trespass-offering. Then he shall be guilty in one of these, at the end of the verse, signifies, according to Houbigant, in either or any one of those matters specified in the preceding verses; see Leviticus 5:17.PETT, "Leviticus 5:4‘Or if any one swear rashly with his lips to do evil, or to do good, whatever it be that a man shall utter rashly with an oath, and it be hid from him; when he knows of it, then he shall be guilty in one of these things. ’“To do evil or to do good” is a phrase meaning ‘to do anything over a wide range of things’ looking from one extreme to the other, the two opposites signalling the bounds not the content. Clearly an oath to do evil would not be binding, even though the swearing of it would be a sin in itself. The swearing rashly and not knowing about it must suggest that the person was under the influence of alcohol. The point, of course, is that he has not fulfilled his vow because he has forgotten it, and then learns it from someone and finds that it is beyond him, or is something that he feels he cannot do. The purpose here is to bring out the seriousness of a vow. It cannot just be dismissed, even when made in a drunken state. It must be publicly confessed, and atoned for.PULPIT, "The ease of a man who had neglected to fulfill a thoughtless oath. If he sware to do evil, or to do good, that is, to do anything whatever, good or bad (see Numbers 24:13), and failed to fulfill his oath from carelessness or negligence, he too must bring his offering, as above.

5 when anyone becomes aware that they are guilty in any of these matters, they must confess in what way they have sinned.

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CLARKE, "He shall confess that he hath sinned - Even restitution was not sufficient without this confession, because a man might make restitution without being much humbled; but the confession of sin has a direct tendency to humble the soul, and hence it is so frequently required in the Holy Scriptures, as without humiliation there can be no salvation.

GILL, "And it shall be, when he shall be guilty in one of these things,.... Before expressed in the preceding verses; the Targum of Jonathan is,"in one of the four things,''which Ben Gersom particularly mentions in the oath of witness, or the pollution of the sanctuary, or the pollution of its holy things, or a vain oath: that he shall confess that he hath sinned in that thing; not make confession of sin in general, but of that particular sin he is guilty of; and this he was to do before he brought his offering, or at least at the time of his bringing it; for without confession his offering would be of no avail; and which he made, as Ben Gersom says, by laying his hand on the head of the offering, thereby signifying and declaring his guilt, and that he deserved to die as the creature would about to be sacrificed for him; or he might make a verbal confession and acknowledgment of his offence. Fagius, from the Jewish writers, has given us the form of it, which was this;"I beseech thee, O Lord, I have sinned, I have done wickedly, I have transgressed before thee, so and so have I done; and, lo, I repent, and am ashamed of what I have done, and I will never do the same again.''Though perhaps this form may be of too modern a date, yet doubtless somewhat like this was pronounced; and they make confession of sin necessary to all sacrifices, and say (x), atonement is not made by them without repentance and confession.

HENRY 5-6, " Now in these cases, 1. The offender must confess his sin and bring his offering (Lev_5:5, Lev_5:6); and the offering was not accepted unless it was accompanied with a penitential confession and a humble prayer for pardon. Observe, The confession must be particular, that he hath sinned in that thing; such was David's confession (Psa_51:4), I have done this evil; and Achan's (Jos_7:20), Thus and thus have I done. Deceit lies in generals; many will own in general they have sinned, for that all must own, so that it is not any particular reproach to them; but that they have sinned in this thing they stand too much upon their honour to acknowledge: but the way to be well assured of pardon, and to be well armed against sin for the future, is to be particular in our penitent confessions. 2. The priest must make atonement for him. As the atonement was not accepted without his repentance, so his repentance would not justify him without the atonement. Thus, in our reconciliation to God,

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Christ's part and ours are both needful.

JAMISON, "it shall be, when he shall be guilty ... that he shall confess that he hath sinned in that thing — make a voluntary acknowledgment of his sin from the impulse of his own conscience, and before it come to the knowledge of the world. A previous discovery might have subjected him to some degree of punishment from which his spontaneous confession released him, but still he was considered guilty of trespass, to expiate which he was obliged by the ceremonial law to go through certain observances.

K&D, "Lev_5:5-6If any one therefore (the three cases enumerated are comprehended under the one

expression כי for the purpose of introducing the apodosis) had contracted guilt ,והיהwith reference to one of these (the things named in Lev_5:1-4), and confessed in what he had sinned, he was to offer as his guilt (trespass) to the Lord, for the sin which he had sinned, a female from the flock-for a sin-offering, that the priest might make atonement for him on account of his sin. אשם (Lev_5:6) does not mean either guilt-offering or debitum (Knobel), but culpa, delictum, reatus, as in Lev_5:7 : “as his guilt,” i.e., for the expiation of his guilt, which he had brought upon himself.COKE, "Leviticus 5:5. It shall be, when he shall be guilty in one of these— Read, when he shall be sensible of his guilt in any one of these things, he shall confess, &c. To the confession, the Hebrew rabbis say, the usual forms in sacrifice were added: and Maimonides acquaints us, that the words of confession were these "O God! I have sinned, I have done perversely; I have trespassed before thee, and have done so and so! Lo! I repent, and am ashamed of my doings, and will no more act after the same manner."PETT, "Verse 5-6The Guilt Offering of An Animal (Leviticus 5:5-6).Leviticus 5:5-6‘And it shall be, when he shall be guilty in one of these things, that he shall confess that wherein he has sinned, and he shall bring his guilt offering to Yahweh for his sin which he has sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin-offering, and the priest shall make atonement for him as concerning his sin.’So if he is guilty as a result of any of these four things, he must first confess to the truth about the matter. It may be that the situation can be put right. And even if not any who have been offended or hurt by them should be informed. Then he must

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make his sin offering as a ‘trespass/guilt offering’ in accord with the usual practise. Here the guilt offering is also described as a purification for sin offering. But the point is that he is seen as guilty towards others as well as towards God. PULPIT, "Leviticus 5:5, Leviticus 5:6In the four cases last mentioned there is first to be an acknowledgment of guilt, he shall confess that he hath sinned in that thing, and then the sin offering is to be made. Confession of sin probably preceded or accompanied all sin offerings. The use of the word asham, translated trespass offering in Leviticus 5:6, and the character of the four cases have led many commentators to regard Leviticus 5:1-13 as dealing with the trespass offering rather than the sin offering. But if this were so, the words trespass offering and sin offering would be used synonymously in this verse, which is very unlikely, when they are immediately afterwards carefully distinguished. It is best to render asham "for his trespass," that is, in expiation of his guilt, as in the next verse, in place of a trespass offering.BI, "He shall confess that he hath sinned in that thing.Sin must be fully confessedCover sin over as much as we may, and smother it down as carefully as we can, it will break out. Many years ago the packet ship Poland was bound for Havre, with a cargo of cotton on board. By some singular accident the cotton took fire clear down in the hold. The captain, finding that he could not reach the fire, undertook to smother it; but in vain. Then he caulked down the hatchways; but the deck grew so hot that neither passengers nor crew could stand on it. At length he fired a signal gun in distress, put all his people into the boats, and left the doomed ship to her fate. He watched her as she ploughed gallantly through the waves, with all her canvas on; but ere she sunk below the horizon, the fire burst forth in a sheet of flame to the mast-head. That ill-fated packet, carrying the fatal fire in her own hold, is a vivid picture of the moral condition of thousands of men and women. They cover their sins by all manner of concealments; they batten down the hatchways with a show of respectability, and, alas! sometimes with an outward profession of religion; but the deadly thing remains underneath in the heart, and if it does not burst forth in this world, it will in the next. Probably this reveals the reason why some Church members are so constantly halting and stumbling and fall so easily into backsliding. Their “first works” of repentance and confession to God were shallow. (T. L. Cuyler.)

Particular sins must be confessedPhysicians meeting with diseased bodies, when they find a general distemperature, they labour by all the art they can to draw the humour to another place, and then they break it, and bring out all the corruptions that way; all which is done for the better ease of the patient. Even so must all of us do when we have a general and confused sorrow for our sins; i.e., labour as much as may be to draw them into particulars; as to say, In this and in this, at such and such a time, on such an occasion, and in such a place, I have sinned against my God; for it is not enough for a man to be sorrowful in the general, because he

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is a sinner; but he must draw himself out into particulars, in what manner, and with what sins he hath displeased God, otherwise he may deceive his own soul. (J. Spencer.)

6 As a penalty for the sin they have committed, they must bring to the Lord a female lamb or goat from the flock as a sin offering[a]; and the priest shall make atonement for them for their sin.

BARNES, "Lev_5:6His trespass offering - Rather, as his forfeit, that is, whatever is due for his offence. The term “trespass-offering” is out of place here, since it has become the current designation for a distinct kind of sin-offering mentioned in the next section (see Lev_5:14 note).A lamb or a kid of the goats - A sheep Lev_4:32 or a shaggy she-goat Lev_4:23.

GILL, "And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord, for the sin which he hath sinned,.... To make atonement for it; this was typical of the sacrifice of Christ, whose soul was made an offering for sin, אשם, "Asham" a trespass offering, Isa_53:10 where the same word is used as here: a female from the flock, a lamb, or kid of the goats, for a sin offering; it is generally thought there was a difference between a trespass offering and a sin offering; but it is not easy to say wherein the difference lies; and what has been observed by learned men is not very satisfactory: and certain it is, that the same offering is here called both a trespass offering and a sin offering; and such as were men of substance, and capable of it, were to bring a female lamb or kid; it being for sins of ignorance, a sacrifice of a less value was admitted; yet it must be a lamb, typical of Christ the Lamb of God; and atonement cannot be made, even for sins of ignorance, but by the blood and sacrifice of Christ: and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his sin; that is, by offering his sacrifice for him, which was a type of the atonement made by the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without spot and blemish.

JAMISON 6-14, "he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord for his sins which he hath sinned — A trespass offering differed from a sin offering in the following respects: that it was appointed for persons who had either done evil

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unwittingly, or were in doubt as to their own criminality; or felt themselves in such a special situation as required sacrifices of that kind [Brown]. The trespass offering appointed in such cases was a female lamb or kid; if unable to make such an offering, he might bring a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons - the one to be offered for a sin offering, the other for a burnt offering; or if even that was beyond his ability, the law would be satisfied with the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour without oil or frankincense.CALVIN, "6.And he shall bring his trespass-offering. He proceeds with what we have already been considering, as to the removal of guilt by sacrifice; but he begins to make a distinction between the poor and the rich, which distinction applies also to what has gone before; hence it appears that the order is not exactly observed by Moses, since the cases which he inserts seem to interrupt the thread of his discourse; yet the fact remains clear, that whosoever have fallen through error are unclean until they have offered an atonement. But what had been before omitted is here inserted, that the poor and needy are not to be pressed beyond the extent of their means; nay, the different grades of offering are appointed, so that he to whom it was not convenient to offer two turtle-doves, or pigeons, might be quit for a small measure of flour. Hence we infer that God’s only design was to shew the one true means of reconciliation to the people, that they might have recourse to the Mediator and His sacrifice; for the poor are here commanded to offer either two turtle-doves, or a small quantity of meal, which would propitiate God towards them, just as much as would the victim required of the rich. The citation, (268) however, which our interpreters make from the poet is a lame one; viz., “Whoever shall have brought integrity of mind into the temples, makes a sacrifice of corn;” since this blind man did not see what was the object of sacrifices, and thus despised all kinds of propitiations, as if purity and innocency alone recommended men to God. We must remember, then, that the victims of themselves were of no importance, and yet that the ancient people were exercised in these ceremonies, to teach them that God can only be appeased by the payment of a ransom.The reference is probably to Persius, Sat 2, in finem —" Composttum jus, fasque animi, sanctosque recessusMentis, et incoctum generoso pectus honesto,Hoc cedo ut admoveam templis, etfarre litabo."Horace has nearly the same idea, Od. 3:23, 17-20 —" Immunis aram si tetigit manus,Non sumptuosa blandior hostiaMollivit aversos PenatesFarre pio, et saliente mica ." COKE, "Leviticus 5:6. His trespass-offering— The original word אשם asham, trespass, extends further than חטא cheit, sin, even to sins against knowledge: but the

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precise difference between them it is not easy to settle: we refer to Outram de Sacrificiis, as before. Dr. Beaumont observes, that "these trespass-offerings were for sins of less importance, as omission of some duties, and not observing the legal washings and purifications, &c. whereas the sin-offerings in ch. 4 were for greater offences, in doing of things forbidden of God: and, therefore, these oblations for trespasses of this kind were made less, if the sinner were poor, (see Leviticus 5:11.) which, in the former, were never lessened; see ch. 4"REFLECTIONS.—Three instances of trespass are mentioned; 1. Concealing the truth, when adjured by the judges. In all cases of an oath, we must speak the whole truth, as well as nothing but the truth: to hide it, is as criminal as to add to it. 2. Contracting ceremonial uncleanness, and not washing according to law before they came to the tabernacle. When it came to their knowledge, they were to confess their sin, and bring their offering. Note; When God's spirit awakens the conscience, we begin to see ourselves guilty, where we never suspected harm. 3. Rashly swearing, either to do what is unlawful or impracticable. Though a rash vow may be better broken than kept, yet, like a two-edged sword, it cuts both ways. No member needs stricter government than the tongue.An offering in these cases must be brought, accompanied with humble and particular confession of the sin. True penitents never deal in merely general acknowledgments, but in a distinct and particular enumeration of their sins. Then the priest made the atonement, and the sin was pardoned. Though our repentance be not the cause of our acceptance, but Christ's blood alone, yet they are inseparable: true faith ever produces true penitence.

7 “‘Anyone who cannot afford a lamb is to bring two doves or two young pigeons to the Lord as a penalty for their sin—one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering.

BARNES, "Lev_5:7A lamb - One of the flock, either a sheep or a goat.

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For his trespass, which he hath committed - As his forfeit for the sin he hath committed.

CLARKE, "If he be not able to bring a lamb - See the conclusion at Lev_1:16(note).

GILL, "And if he be not able to bring a lamb,.... He is not possessed of a lamb, nor able to purchase one: then he shall bring for his trespass which he hath committed, two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, unto the Lord; either the one or the other; these were common, and in great plenty in the land of Israel, as Maimonides (y)observes, which was the reason of their being ordered, since to be had cheap. The turtledoves were larger, as the Targum of Jonathan calls them, being older, and the pigeons lesser, being young; or the one were grown, and not little, and the other little, and not grown, as the Jewish writers (z) observe; and either of them were proper emblems of Christ in his purity, innocence, and meekness, by whom an atonement is made both for the rich and poor: one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering; one of the turtle doves or pigeons, whichsoever were brought, was offered up as a sin offering, and the other that remained was offered up as a burnt offering; so that the poor man had two sorts of offerings out of what he brought, when the rich had but one; and may denote the completeness of his sacrifice, and the full atonement made by it.

HENRY, "Provision is here made for the poor of God's people, and the pacifying of their consciences under the sense of guilt. Those that were not able to bring a lamb might bring for a sin-offering a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons; nay, if any were so extremely poor that they were not able to procure these so often as they would have occasion, they might bring a pottle of fine flour, and this should be accepted. Thus the expense of the sin-offering was brought lower than that of any other offering, to teach us that no man's poverty shall ever be a bar in the way of his pardon. The poorest of all may have atonement made for them, if it be not their own fault. Thus the poor are evangelized; and no man shall say that he had not wherewithal to bear the charges of a journey to heaven. Now,

I. If the sinner brought two doves, one was to be offered for a sin-offering and the other for a burnt-offering, Lev_5:7. Observe, 1. Before he offered the burnt-offering, which was for the honour and praise of God, he must offer the sin-offering, to make atonement. We must first see to it that our peace be made with God, and then we may expect that our services for his glory will be accepted. The sin-offering must

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make way for the burnt-offering. 2. After the sin-offering, which made atonement, came the burnt-offering, as an acknowledgment of the great mercy of God in appointing and accepting the atonement.K&D, "Lev_5:7-10

“But if his hand does not reach what is sufficient for a sheep,” i.e., if he could not afford enough to sacrifice a sheep (“his hand” is put for what his hand acquires), he was to bring two turtle-doves or two young pigeons, one for the sin-offering, the other for the burnt-offering. The pigeon intended for the sin, i.e., for the sin-offering, he was to bring first of all to the priest, who was to offer it in the following manner. The head was to be pinched off from opposite to its neck, i.e., in the nape just below the head, though without entirely severing it, that is to say, it was to be pinched off sufficiently to kill the bird and allow the blood to flow out. He was then to sprinkle of the blood upon the wall of the altar, which could be effected by swinging the bleeding pigeon, and to squeeze out the rest of the blood against the wall of the altar, because it was a sin-offering; for in the burnt-offering he let all the blood flow out against the wall of the altar (Lev_1:15). What more was done with the pigeon is not stated. Hence it cannot be decided with certainty, whether, after the crop and its contents were removed and thrown upon the ash-heap, the whole of the bird was burned upon the altar, or whether it fell to the priest, as the Mishnah affirms (Seb. vi. 4), so that none of it was placed upon the altar. One circumstance which seems to favour the statement in the Talmud is the fact, that in the sin-offering of pigeons, a second pigeon was to be offered as a burnt-offering, and, according to Lev_5:10, for the purpose of making an atonement; probably for no other purpose than to burn it upon the altar, as the dove of the sin-offering was not burned, and the sacrifice was incomplete without some offering upon the altar. In the case of sin-offerings of quadrupeds, the fat portions were laid upon the altar, and the flesh could be eaten by the priest by virtue of his office; but in that of pigeons, it was not possible to separate fat portions from the flesh for the purpose of burning upon the altar by themselves, and it would not do to divide the bird in half, and let one half be burned and the other eaten by the priest, as this would have associated the idea of halfness or incompleteness with the sacrifice. A second pigeon was therefore to be sacrificed as a burnt-offering, כמשפט, according to the right laid down in Lev_1:14., that the priest might make atonement for the offerer on account of his sin, whereas in the sin-offering of a quadruped one sacrificial animal was sufficient to complete the expiation.

(Note: From the instructions to offer two pigeons in order to obtain expiation, it is perfectly evident that the eating of the flesh of the sin-offering on the part of the priest formed an essential part of the act of expiation, and was not merely a kind of honourable tribute, which God awarded to His servants who officiated at the

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sacrifice.)COFFMAN, "Verse 7"And if his means suffice not for a lamb, then he shall bring his trespass-offering (margin: for his guilt) for that wherein he hath sinned, two turtle doves, or two young pigeons, unto Jehovah; one for a sin-offering, and the other for a burnt-offering. And he shall bring them unto the priest, who shall offer that which is for the sin-offering first, and wring off its head from its neck, but shall not divide it asunder: and he shall sprinkle of the blood of the sin-offering upon the side of the altar; and the rest of the blood shall be drained out at the base of the altar; it is a sin-offering. And he shall offer the second for a burnt-offering, according to the ordinance; and the priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven. But if his means suffice not for two turtle doves, or two young pigeons, then he shall bring his oblation for that wherein he hath sinned, the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a sin-offering: he shall put no oil upon it, neither shall he put any frankincense thereon; for it is a sin-offering. And he shall bring it to the priest, and the priest shall take his handful of it as the memorial thereof, and burn it on the altar, upon the offering of Jehovah made by fire: it is a sin-offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him as touching the sin that he hath sinned in any of these things, and he shall be forgiven; and the remnant shall be the priest's as the meal-offering."In these verses, it is clear that the sin-offering is the topic and not the trespass-offering. The minimal gift of a tenth of an ephah is not a specific amount, due to the uncertainty as to the amount in an ephah, which is usually accounted as something more or less than a bushel. Meyrick calculated the amount of the minimal sacrifice as "either three pints and a half or three quarts and a half, accordingly as whether we adopt the larger or smaller estimate of the amount of an ephah."[9]The regulation forbidding any oil or frankincense upon the flour distinguishes it from the meal-offering, for reasons that are not fully discernible to us. It could have been a means of further reducing the cost for a poor man, or as Bamberger believed, it meant that the offering "must not have a festive character; oil and frankincense are therefore omitted."[10]Before proceeding to the study of the trespass-offering, a word about the number and diversity of all these offerings is in order. There were all kinds of sacrifices for all kinds of circumstances and sins, with different regulations pertaining to each. What a complicated mass of religious regulations were involved! No wonder an apostle called the law a "yoke of bondage" (Acts 15:10). The glory of Christianity is that Christ cleanses us from "all sin" (1 John 1:7). Clements' noble words on this are worthy of repeating: "Different types of sacrifices are not needed for different types of sin, nor is there

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need to fear that there are some kinds of sin which have not been covered by the sacrifice which God has provided in Jesus Christ. All sin is atoned for by him, so that he fulfills the O.T. demand for sacrifice as the way of atonement and forgiveness with God."[11]There was a similar uncertainty to that caused by the multiple sacrifices for different kinds of sins (as in the Mosaic covenant) which marked the ancient paganism. There was a different god for every type of transgression, and even when a devout pagan had propitiated all the gods that he had knowledge of, he still feared that perhaps he might have overlooked one who would destroy him. This was the dilemma poised forever over the ancient pagans that caused some of them to erect a statue "To an Unknown God" (Acts 17:23). Thus, Christianity rises far above the Mosaic law with its multiple sacrifices, and above paganism with its multiple gods! Of course, the Jews, having preserved and kept alive the conception of monotheism from the days of Melchizedek, Job, Jethro, Noah and other ancient monotheists, had a profound advantage over paganism; but the "Light that lighteth every man coming into the world" would reveal truth infinitely beyond both.COKE, "Leviticus 5:7. One for a sin-offering, and the other for a burnt-offering— It appears from the following verses, that the sin-offering was first to be offered, in order to reconcile the sinner with God: and then the burnt-offering or gift might be accepted. In Matthew 5:23-24 our Saviour refers to this custom. PETT, "Verses 7-10The Alternative Guilt Offering of Birds (Leviticus 5:7-10).Leviticus 5:7‘And if his means suffice not for a lamb, then he shall bring his guilt offering for that in which he has sinned, two turtle-doves, or two young pigeons, to Yahweh, one for a sin-offering, and the other for a burnt-offering.’For this type of offering there is the alternative, as with the burnt offering, of offering birds, two turtle-doves or two young pigeons ‘if his means suffice not for a lamb’. In this case one bird will be offered as a sin offering, and the other as a whole burnt offering in the way described in Leviticus 1. For once the sin has been forgiven as a result of the one shedding of blood a further sin offering is unnecessary. What is now required is the rededication offering.There is an important lesson here on the need to accept forgiveness. Once we have brought our sin to God in line with His terms through the blood of Christ we must accept the forgiveness and not keep harping back to it, and not go over it again and again. Then we must dedicate ourselves to Him in total surrender. PULPIT, "Leviticus 5:7-13

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If he be not able to bring a lamb. Sin offerings being not voluntary sacrifices but required of all that were guilty, and the four last-named cases being of common occurrence amongst the poor and ignorant, two concessions are made to poverty: two birds (one to be offered with the ritual of the sin offering, the other with that of the burnt offering), or even some flour (either three pints and a half or three quarts and a half, according as we adopt the larger or smaller estimate of the amount of the ephah), are allowed when the offerer cannot provide a lamb or a kid. There is thus typically set forth the freedom with which acceptance through the great propitiation is offered to all without respect of persons. The non-bloody substitute, being permitted only as an exception for the benefit of the very poor and only in the four cases above specified, does not invalidate the general rule that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.

8 They are to bring them to the priest, who shall first offer the one for the sin offering. He is to wring its head from its neck, not dividing it completely,

CLARKE, "But shall not divide it - See Clarke’s note on Lev_1:16.

GILL, "And he shall bring them unto the priest,.... Either two turtledoves, or two young pigeons: who shall offer that which is for the sin offering first; that which is chosen for it, as the Targum of Jonathan; and this choice was made, not by the priest, but by the man that brought the offering, who separated it, and said, lo, this is a sin offering, and after that said, lo, this is a burnt offering (a); the sin offering was offered first, which was to make atonement for sin, and then the burnt offering, to denote the divine acceptance of it; and so Ben Gersom observes, it was proper to offer the sin offering first, to atone for his sin, that after he (God) was appeased this way, he might receive his gift; for the burnt offering was as a gift. Jarchi compares it to an advocate, who first goes in to appease, and when he has appeased, the gift goes in after him: and wring off his head from his neck, but shall not divide it asunder: be it a

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turtledove or a young pigeon, so it was to be served; the head was not to be separated from the body, but was nipped by the nail of the priest "in" the neck, as it might be rendered (b); over against the neck, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan render it; the hinder part, or what is behind the throat, as Jarchi and Ben Molech interpret it; so that the part which was nipped was the neck; and this nip was made so large, as that the blood was let out by it, as appears from the following verse Lev_5:9, and yet the head was not divided from the body; the head hung by a piece of skin on the back part; of the manner of performing this, and the mystery of it; see Gill on Lev_1:15. PETT, "Leviticus 5:8-10‘And he shall bring them to the priest, who shall offer that which is for the sin-offering first, and wring off its head from its neck, but shall not divide it asunder: and he shall sprinkle of the blood of the sin-offering on the side of the altar; and the rest of the blood shall be drained out at the base of the altar: it is a sin-offering. And he shall offer the second for a burnt-offering, according to the ordinance; and the priest shall make atonement for him as concerning his sin which he has sinned, and he shall be forgiven.’With the sin offering the priest wrings the bird’s neck. Whether he removes the head depends on whether we see ‘but he shall not divide it asunder’ as referring to the neck or the whole bird (compare Leviticus 1:17).We are probably to see what now happens to the blood as being a general statement, taking into account that it is almost certainly the offering in Leviticus 5:6 that is in mind as well as the bird offering. The account is very much abbreviated. Nothing has been said there about the application of the blood, and the terminology is that usually for an animal offering. This suggestion must be so. The bird would not have sufficient blood to do what is described here (contrast Leviticus 1:15). The blood is applied to the side altar and the remainder drained out at the base of the altar.This is a combination of what happens to a whole burnt offering and to a purification for sin offering. In the one the blood is sprinkled on the sides of the altar, in the other the remainder of the blood is flung at the base of the altar (to sanctify it and make atonement for it). This is because it is a purification for sin offering, but only for an individual sin. But it is unlike the purification for sin offering in that the horns of the altar are not daubed with the blood to purify the altar. The one sin is not as all pervasive as the many. The second bird is dealt with in accordance with ‘the ordinance’, that is in the same way as in the whole burnt offering (Leviticus 1:14-17).“And the priest shall make atonement for him as concerning his sin which he has sinned, and he shall be forgiven.” Thus will the priest make atonement for the one who has sinned, and he will be forgiven. Note the repetition in ‘the sin which he has sinned’. Sin is no light matter.

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9 and is to splash some of the blood of the sin offering against the side of the altar; the rest of the blood must be drained out at the base of the altar. It is a sin offering.

GILL, "And he shall sprinkle of the blood of the sin offering upon the side of the altar,.... Or "wall" (c) it is asked (d),"what is the wall at which the rest of the blood is wrung out? this is the lower wall, namely, the half of the height of the altar below, under the thread (of scarlet that goes round the middle of the altar) that the rest of the blood may be squeezed at the bottom of the altar, and because of this the sin offering of the fowl is below,''that is, the sprinkling of its blood. And so Ben Gersom observes; from hence we learn, says he, that the sprinkling of the sin offering of the fowl was in the lower part of the altar; and I think this sprinkling, adds he, was not in the length, but in the breadth: and the rest of the blood shall be wrung out at the bottom of the altar; the blood sprinkled was that which dropped from it when nipped by the priest; this here was squeezed out by him, and was shed at the foot of the altar; so that the altar had all the blood, and nothing but the blood of the fowl, all the rest belonged to the priest (e): this might be an emblem both of the drops of blood which fell from Christ in the garden, and of the shedding of his blood upon the cross, whereby remission of sin was obtained, and atonement made: it is a sin offering; an offering whereby sin was typically expiated and stoned.

10 The priest shall then offer the other as a burnt offering in the prescribed way and make atonement for them for the sin they have committed, and they will be forgiven.47

CLARKE, "He shall offer the second for a burnt-offering - The pigeon for the burnt-offering was wholly consumed, it was the Lord’s property; that for the sin-offering was the priest’s property, and was to be eaten by him after its blood had been partly sprinkled on the side of the altar, and the rest poured out at the bottom of the altar. See also Lev_6:26.

GILL, "And he shall offer the second for a burnt offering, according to the manner,.... That is, the second turtledove or young pigeon, after the other was made a sin offering; and the manner according to which this was offered was not according to the rite or manner of the bird chosen first for a sin offering, as the Targum of Jonathan, but according to the burnt offering of the fowl in Lev_1:15 so Jarchi and Ben Gersom: and the priest shall make an atonement for him, for his sin which he had sinned, and it shall be forgiven him; upon the atonement made; and so forgiveness of sin with God proceeds upon the atonement made by the blood of Christ, Heb_9:22. God never took one step towards it, without a regard to Christ the propitiation for sin; he promised it with a view to him; there is no instance of pardon under the Old Testament but in this way, and God always has respect to Christ in pardon, it is for his sake; and this way of forgiveness best provides for the glory of the divine perfections; there can be no better way, or infinite wisdom would have used it; there could be no other way, considering the council and covenant of peace; to pardon, without atonement and satisfaction, is not consistent with the purity, justice, and veracity of God; and to observe this great truth, the phrase is afterwards frequently repeated,COKE, "Leviticus 5:10. According to the manner— "The manner or ordinance," says Dr. Beaumont. Heb. the judgment; which word is here, and often elsewhere, used for the manner or rite of doing a thing, and has reference to the law in ch. Leviticus 1:15. EBC, "Verse 10THE EATING AND THE BURNING OF THE SIN OFFERING WITHOUT THE CAMPLeviticus 4:8-12; Leviticus 4:19-21; Leviticus 4:26; Leviticus 4:31;, Leviticus 5:10; Leviticus 5:12"And all the fat of the bullock of the sin offering he shall take off from it; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the loins, and the caul upon the liver, with the kidneys, shall he take away, as it is taken off from the ox of the

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sacrifice of, peace offerings: and the priest shall burn them upon the altar of burnt offering. And the skin of the bullock, and all its flesh, with its head, and with its legs, and its inwards, and its dung, even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn it on wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall it be burnt And all the fat thereof shall he take off from it, and burn it upon the altar. Thus shall he do with the bullock; as he did with the bullock of the sin offering, so shall he do with this: and the priest shall make atonement for them, and they shall be forgiven. And he shall carry forth the bullock without the camp, and burn it as he burned the first bullock: it is the sin offering for the assembly. And all the fat thereof shall he burn upon the altar, as the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall make atonement for him as concerning his sin, and he shall be forgiven. And all the fat thereof shall he take away, as the fat is taken away from off the sacrifice of peace offerings; and the priest shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour unto the Lord and the priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven. And he shall offer the second for a burnt offering according to the ordinance: and the priest shall make atonement for him as concerning his sin which he hath sinned, and he shall be forgiven. And he shall bring it to the priest, and the priest shall take his handful of it as the memorial thereof, and burn it on the altar, upon the offerings of the Lord made by fire: it is a sin offering."In the ritual of the sin offering, sacrificial meal, such as that of the peace offering, wherein the offerer and his house, with the priest and the Levite, partook together of the flesh of the sacrificed victim, there was none. The eating of the flesh of the sin offerings by the priests, prescribed in Leviticus 6:26, had, primarily, a different intention and meaning. As set forth elsewhere, {Leviticus 7:35} it was "the anointing portion of Aaron and his sons"; an ordinance expounded by the Apostle Paul to this effect, {1 Corinthians 9:13} they which wait upon the altar should "have their portion with the altar." Yet not of all the sin offerings might the priest thus partake. For when he was himself the one for whom the offering was made, whether as an individual, or as included in the congregation, then it is plain that he for the time stood in the same position before God as the private individual who had sinned. It was a universal principle of the law that because of the peculiarly near and solemn relation into which the expiatory victim had been brought to God, it was "most holy," and therefore he for whose sin it is offered could not eat of its flesh. Hence the general law is laid down: {Leviticus 6:30} "No sin offering, whereof any of the blood is brought into the tent of meeting to make atonement in the holy place, shall be eaten; it shall be burnt with fire."And yet, although, because the priests could not eat of the flesh, it must be burnt, it could not be burnt upon the altar; not, as some have fancied, because it was regarded as unclean, which is directly contradicted by the statement that it is "most holy," but because so to dispose of it would have been to confound the sin offering with the burnt offering, which had, as we have seen, a specific symbolic meaning, quite distinct from that of the sin offering. It must be so disposed of that nothing shall divert the mind of the worshipper from the fact that, not sacrifice as

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representing full consecration, as in the burnt offering, but sacrifice as representing expiation, is set forth in this offering. Hence it was ordained that the flesh of these sin offerings for the anointed priest, or for the congregation, which included him, should be "burnt on wood with fire without the camp." {Leviticus 4:11-12; Leviticus 4:21} And the more carefully to guard against the possibility of confounding this burning of the flesh of the sin offering with the sacrificial burning of the victims on the altar, the Hebrew uses here, and in all places where this burning is referred to, a verb wholly distinct from that which is used of the burnings on the altar, and which, unlike that, is used of any ordinary burning of anything for any purpose.But this burning of the victim without the camp was not therefore empty of all typical significance. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews calls our attention to the fact that in this part of the appointed ritual there was also that which prefigured Christ and the circumstances of His death. For we, {Hebrews 13:10-12} after an exhortation to Christians to have done with the ritual observances of Judaism regarding meats:-"We," that is, we Christian believers, "have an altar,"-the cross upon which Jesus suffered, -"whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle"; i.e., they who adhere to the now effete Jewish tabernacle service, the unbelieving Israelites, derive no benefit from this sacrifice of ours. "For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the Holy Place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned without the camp"; the priesthood are debarred from eating them, according to the law we have before us. And then attention is called to the fact that in this respect Jesus fulfilled this part of the type of the sin offering, thus: "Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the camp." That is, as Alford interprets (Comm. sub. loc.), in the circumstance that Jesus suffered without the gate, is seen a visible adumbration of the fact that He suffered outside the camp of legal Judaism, and thus, in that He suffered for the sin of the whole congregation of Israel, fulfilled the type of this sin offering in this particular. Thus a prophecy is discovered here which perhaps we had not else discerned, concerning the manner of the death of the antitypical victim. He should suffer as a victim for the sin of the whole congregation, the priestly people, who should for that reason be debarred, in fulfilment of the type, from that benefit of His death which had else been their privilege. And herein was accomplished to the uttermost that surrender of His whole being to God, in that, in carrying out that full consecration, "He, bearing His cross, went forth," not merely outside the gate of Jerusalem, -in itself a trivial circumstance, -but, as this fitly symbolised, outside the congregation of Israel, to suffer. In other words, His consecration of Himself to God in self-sacrifice found its supreme expression in this, that He voluntarily submitted to be cast out from Israel, despised and rejected of men, even of the Israel of God.And so this burning of the flesh of the sin offering of the highest grade in two places, the fat upon the altar, in the court of the congregation, and the rest of the victim outside the camp, set forth prophetically the full self-surrender of the Son to the Father, as the sin offering, in a double aspect: in the former, emphasising simply, as

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in the peace offering, His surrender of all that was highest and best in Him, as Son of God and Son of man, unto the Father as a Sin offering; in the latter, foreshowing that He should also, in a special manner, be a sacrifice for the sin of the congregation of Israel, and that His consecration should receive its fullest exhibition and most complete expression in that He should die outside the camp of legal Judaism, as an outcast from the congregation of Israel.Accordingly we find that this part of the type of the sin offering was formally accomplished when the high priest, upon Christ’s confession before the Sanhedrim of His Sonship to God, declared Him to be guilty of blasphemy; an offence for which it had been ordered by the Lord {Leviticus 24:14} that the guilty person should be taken "without the camp" to suffer for his sin.In the light of these marvellous correspondences between the typical sin offering and the self offering of the Son of God, what a profound meaning more and more appears in those words of Christ concerning Moses: "He wrote of Me."

11 “‘If, however, they cannot afford two doves or two young pigeons, they are to bring as an offering for their sin a tenth of an ephah[b] of the finest flour for a sin offering. They must not put olive oil or incense on it, because it is a sin offering.

BARNES, "Lev_5:11tenth part of an ephah i. e. - “the tenth deal;” probably less than half a gallon. See

Lev_19:36 note. This sin-offering of meal was distinguished from the ordinary מנחה mınchāh Lev_2:1 by the absence of oil and frankincense.

CLARKE, "Tenth part of an ephah - About three quarts. The ephah contained a little more than seven gallons and a half.

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GILL, "But if he be not able to bring two turtledoves, or two young pigeons,.... Which is supposing a man to be in the poorest circumstances he can well be; and such is the grace and goodness of God, that he has provided for the atonement and forgiveness of the poorest, as well as of the rich: then he that hath sinned shall bring for his offering the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering; which is an omer, Exo_16:36 and is as much as a man can eat in one day, as Aben Ezra remarks: he shall put no oil upon it, neither shall he put any frankincense thereon; to distinguish it from the common meat offering, which had both, Lev_3:1 and to make it as easy, and as little chargeable to the poor as possible, both oil and frankincense being things of value; and some think that these were prohibited, to show that atonement and forgiveness, and even the salvation of men, are not owing to grace in them, comparable to oil, or to their prayers, signified by frankincense, and so to any or all of their duties, but to Christ alone, and his atoning sacrifice: or these were forbidden, because emblems of joy and gladness, and therefore not so proper at a confession of sin, and humiliation for it: or rather to show how disagreeable and offensive sin was to the Lord, being contrary to grace, of which oil was an emblem, and far from being acceptable to him, which frankincense might signify; and therefore being prohibited, might denote how unacceptable, yea nauseous, sin is to him; which agrees with the reason given: for it is a sin offering, and therefore must not be honoured, as Jarchi, or must have everything removed from it that is beautiful and amiable, as Ben Gersom, such as oil and frankincense.

HENRY, "If he brought fine flour, a handful of it was to be offered, but without either oil or frankincense (Lev_5:11), not only because this would make it too costly for the poor, for whose comfort this sacrifice was appointed, but because it was a sin-offering, and therefore, to show the loathsomeness of the sin for which it was offered, it must not be made grateful either to the taste by oil or to the smell by frankincense. The unsavouriness of the offering was to intimate that the sinner must never relish his sin again as he had done. God by these sacrifices did speak, 1. Comfort to those that had offended, that they might not despair, nor pine away in their iniquity; but, peace being thus made for them with God, they might have peace in him. 2. Caution likewise not to offend any more, remembering what an expensive troublesome thing it was to make atonement.

K&D, "Lev_5:11-13But if any one could not afford even two pigeons, he was to offer the tenth of an ephah

of fine flour as a sin-offering. יד תשיג for יד תגיע (Lev_5:7): his hand reaches to anything, is able to raise it, or with an accusative, obtains, gets anything (used in the same sense in Lev_14:30, Lev_14:31), or else absolutely, acquires, or gets rich (Lev_25:26, Lev_25:47). But it was to be offered without oil and incense, because it was a sin-offering, that is to say, “because it was not to have the character of a minchah” (Oehler). But the reason why it was not to have this character was, that only those who were in a

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state of grace could offer a minchah, and not a man who had fallen from grace through sin. As such a man could not offer to the Lord the fruits of the Spirit of God and of prayer, he was not allowed to add oil and incense, as symbols of the Spirit and praise of God, to the sacrifice with which he sought the forgiveness of sin. The priest was to take a handful of the meal offered, and burn it upon the altar as a memorial, and thus make atonement for the sinner on account of his sin. - On “his handful” and “a memorial” (Azcarah), see Lev_2:2. “In one of these” (Lev_5:13 as in Lev_5:5): cf. Lev_4:2. “And let it (the remainder of the meal offered) belong to the priest like the meat-offering:” i.e., as being most holy (Lev_2:3).

COKE, "Leviticus 5:11. Tenth part of an ephah of fine flour— That is, an omer. No oil or frankincense was to be put upon this gift, as these were appropriated to joyful occasions; and, consequently, unfit for offerings expressive of humiliation and grief; see Numbers 5:15. Note: Sin must be as unsavoury to the soul, as this offering was on the altar. PETT, "Verses 11-13The Second Alternative A Guilt Offering of Grain (Leviticus 5:11-13).Leviticus 5:11‘But if his means suffice not for two turtle-doves, or two young pigeons, then he shall bring his oblation for that in which he has sinned, the tenth part of an ephah of milled grain for a purification for sin-offering: he shall put no oil on it, neither shall he put any frankincense on it; for it is a purification for sin-offering.’For the very poor another alternative is offered. Nothing must be allowed to prevent a purification for sin offering from being made. In this case the offering is of milled grain. At first sight this appears not to involve the shedding of blood. But note how carefully the writer says that it is to be offered ‘on the offerings of Yahweh made by fire’. For the very poor God graciously combines his offering with those of others.No oil or frankincense is added to it. For this is not a positive expression of dedication, praise and thanksgiving, (and one who was so poor could not afford it). It is a purification for sin offering. Thus the bare grain is offered alone. Its full content is absorbed from the previous offerings made by fire. The person has given all that he can afford without embellishment and without pretence, and God does the rest.

12 They are to bring it to the priest, who shall 53

take a handful of it as a memorial[c] portion and burn it on the altar on top of the food offerings presented to the Lord. It is a sin offering.

GILL, "Then shall he bring it to the priest,.... The flour just as it was, not kneaded and made into a cake, as appears by what follows: and the priest shall take his handful of it; as much of the flour as he could hold in one hand: even a memorial thereof; to bring to mind his sin, and the goodness of God in admitting of an offering for it, and forgiving it upon that: and burn it on the altar, according to the offerings made by fire unto the Lord; in the same manner as other burnt offerings were made: it is a sin offering; or an expiatory sacrifice for sin.PETT, "Leviticus 5:12‘And he shall bring it to the priest, and the priest shall take his handful of it as its memorial, and burn it on the altar, on the offerings of Yahweh made by fire: it is a purification for sin-offering.’The priest takes from his offering the memorial portion as described in Leviticus 2, and he burns it on the altar on the offerings of Yahweh made by fire. Note the change in wording, ‘the offerings of Yahweh made by fire’. They were now Yahweh’s offerings and He has provided through them what was lacking in the poor man’s offering. Note that it is no more a grain offering but a purification for sin offering.

13 In this way the priest will make atonement for them for any of these sins they have committed, and they will be forgiven. The rest of the offering will belong to the priest, as in the case of the grain 54

offering.’”

GILL, "And the priest shall make an atonement for him,.... By burning the handful of flour brought by him, as an emblem of the painful sufferings of Christ, whereby he made atonement for the sins of his people: as touching his sin that he hath sinned in one of these; for whatsoever sin he had committed in any of the above cases, Lev_5:1, and it shall be forgiven him; upon the foot of the atonement made; See Gill on Lev_5:10, and the remnant shall be the priest's as a meat offering; the whole tenth part of an ephah of fine flour was the priest's, excepting the handful he took and burnt, just as in the case of a common meat offering, Lev_2:3.PETT, "Leviticus 5:13‘And the priest shall make atonement for him as touching his sin that he has sinned in any of these things, and he shall be forgiven: and the remnant shall be the priest's, as with the grain offering.’Thus will the priest make atonement for him with regard to any of these sins that he has committed. He shall be forgiven as much as will the ruler with his he-goat. And what is left of the grain is the priest’s as with the grain offering. His holiness will absorb the holiness of the offering.So do we learn that God’s forgiveness comes equally to all, whether to priest, or whole congregation, or ruler, or commoner, or poor man or destitute. God’s forgiveness is offered to all equally. For in the end all these offerings obtained their efficacy from the one great offering offered once-for-all at Golgotha.(What is more, so is His bounty. When it comes to rewards, one man may finance a cathedral, the other give a cup of cold water, but both are treated the same. Indeed the cup of cold water may well count for more than the cathedral (Mark 12:43-44)).We note as a postscript that once again the writer has provided his material about this guilt offering in a group of three. With this ends this session of Yahweh’s words to Moses.

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The Guilt Offering14 The Lord said to Moses:

BARNES, "(This comment exends through Lev_6:7). The trespass-offerings as they are described in this section and in Lev_7:1-7, are clearly distinguished from the ordinary sin-offerings in these particulars:

(1) They were offered on account of offences which involved an injury to some person (it might be the Lord Himself) in respect to property. See Lev_5:16; Lev_6:4-5.(2) they were always accompanied by a pecuniary fine equal to the value of the injury done, with the addition of one-fifth. Compare Num_5:5-8.(3) the treatment of the blood was more simple. Compare Lev_4:5.(4) the victim was a ram, instead of a female sheep or goat.(5) there was no such graduation of offerings to suit the rank or circumstances of the worshipper as is set forth in Lev_4:3, Lev_4:32, etc.

GILL, "And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... Out of the tabernacle of the congregation, Lev_1:1 he continued to speak to him: saying, as follows.

HENRY 14-19, "Hitherto in this chapter orders were given concerning those sacrifices that were both sin-offerings and trespass-offerings, for they go by both names, Lev_5:6. Here we have the law concerning those that were properly and peculiarly trespass-offerings, which were offered to atone for trespasses done against a neighbour, those sins we commonly call trespasses. Now injuries done to another may be either in holy things or in common things; of the former we have the law in these verses; of the latter in the beginning of the next chapter. If a man did harm (as it is Lev_5:16) in the holy things of the Lord, he thereby committed a trespass against the priests, the Lord's ministers, who were entrusted with the care of these holy things, and had the benefit of them. Now if a man did alienate or convert to his own use any thing that was dedicated to God, unwittingly, he was to bring this sacrifice; as suppose he had ignorantly made use of the tithes, or first-fruits, or first-born of his cattle, or (which, it should seem by Lev_22:14-16, is principally meant here) had eaten any of those parts of the sacrifices which were appropriated to the priests; this was a trespass. It is supposed to be done through mistake, or forgetfulness, for want either of care or zeal; for if it was done presumptuously, and in contempt of the law, the offender died without mercy, Heb_10:28. But in case of negligence and ignorance this sacrifice was appointed; and Moses is told, 1. What must be done in case the trespass appeared to be certain. The trespasser must bring an offering to the Lord, which, in all those that were purely trespass-offerings, must be a ram without blemish, “of the second year,” say the Jewish doctors. He must likewise make restitution to the priest, according to a just estimation of the thing which he had so alienated, adding a fifth part to it, that he might learn to take

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more heed next time of embezzling what was sacred to God, finding to his cost that there was nothing got by it, and that he paid dearly for his oversights. 2. What must be done in case it were doubtful whether he had trespassed or no; he had cause to suspect it, but he wist it not (Lev_5:17), that is, he was not very certain; in this case, because it is good to be sure, he must bring his trespass-offering, and the value of that which he feared he had embezzled, only he was not to add the fifth part to it. Now this was designed to show the very great evil there is in sacrilege. Achan, that was guilty of it presumptuously, died for it; so did Ananias and Sapphira. But this goes further to show the evil of it, that if a man had, through mere ignorance, and unwittingly, alienated the holy things, nay, if he did but suspect that he had done so, he must be at the expense, not only of a full restitution with interest, but of an offering, with the trouble of bringing it, and must take shame to himself, by making confession of it; so bad a thing is it to invade God's property, and so cautious should we be to abstain from all appearances of this evil. We are also taught here to be jealous over ourselves with a godly jealousy, to ask pardon for the sin, and make satisfaction for the wrong, which we do but suspect ourselves guilty of. In doubtful cases we should take and keep the safer side.

CALVIN, "14.And the Lord spake unto Moses. The difference of the victim clearly shews, that another kind of offense is here referred to; for God now requires a male instead of a female. Before, He had been contented with an ewe lamb or a female kid; but inasmuch as a ram is more valuable, it follows that punishment is now awarded to a heavier offense. The heinousness of the fault depends upon the quality of the act; i.e., when a person shall have wronged not a mortal man merely, but God Himself, nor shall have transgressed only one of the Commandments of the first Table, but shall not have paid a vow, or shall have offered a defective victim, or shall have defrauded God of His right in any oblation; since this is what is meant by the clause “in the holy things of the Lord.” In this expression Moses includes both vows voluntarily made, as well as the legitimate oblations, such as tithes, first-fruits, the offering of the first-born; since in all these things the Israelites were strictly charged to deal most faithfully with God. If by chance avarice had blinded any one, so that in pursuit of personal gain he paid God less than he ought, his recklessness justly received a heavier punishment. Yet it must be understood, that the offense here referred to is one in which no fraud or evil deceit had place; for if any one had designedly and craftily appropriated what was sacred, the impiety of this sacrilege was not so easily expiated. But inasmuch as it often happens that the covetous and grasping are too ready to spare themselves, God enjoins a sacrifice in such a case, where private advantage has through thoughtlessness prevailed over religious feeling. The words, “with thy estimation,” some refer to Moses, others to the priest; but I prefer taking it passively for the estimation prescribed by God; which is called the estimation of the people, because they were bound to acquiesce in the Law appointed by Him, and not arbitrarily to alter the value. Moses estimates the ram at two shekels of the sanctuary, equivalent to four common shekels, (269) amounting in French money to about twenty-eight sols, (asses.) COFFMAN. "Verse 14

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"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, If any one commit a trespass, and sin unwittingly, in the holy things of Jehovah; then he shall bring his trespass-offering unto Jehovah, a ram without blemish out of the flock, according to thy estimation in silver by shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass-offering: and he shall make restitution for that which he hath done amiss in the holy thing, and shall add the fifth part thereto, and give it unto the priest; and the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass-offering, and he shall be forgiven."The solemn formula, "And Jehovah spake unto Moses," occurs thirty-nine times in Leviticus. We deplore the high-handed manner in which some commentators ignore this declaration, pretending not even to see it, and then dare to assign whole sections of this book to unnamed, imaginary sources dated anywhere between the times of the Judges and the days following the exile. Such writings are in no sense Biblical commentary, but merely denials of what the Word of God says. Again, and again, this formal expression introduces sections and divisions in Leviticus, and the section beginning here deals with trespass-offerings."If one commit a trespass ... in the holy things of Jehovah ..." The careless neglect of paying tithes, or the inadvertent offering of an unsuitable animal for sacrifice, and other types of sins would fall under this category. The penalty was next to the largest imposed by the sacrifices, a ram of the flock being a property of considerable value.Furthermore, the appraisal of the ram was not left to the offerer but was to be made by the priests; and the mention of "shekels" in the plural indicated that it had to be of more than ordinary value. Two conditions were imposed in connection with this type of sacrifice, these being: (1) that a confession of sin was required, and (2) that restitution including a twenty percent penalty was demanded.Regarding the name of the sacrifice here called trespass-offering, it is called guilt-offering in some versions; and Wenham cited examples of its being called "reparation-offering" and "compensation-offering."[12] Although certain cases must have been very difficult to decide, as to whether a sin-offering or a trespass-offering was demanded, the vital distinction between the two sacrifices was primarily discernible in what each typified. "The sin-offering typified expiation wrought upon the cross of Jesus, and the trespass-offering typified the satisfaction for sin effected by the perfect life and voluntary death of the Saviour."[13] As Jamieson expressed it: "The leading idea symbolized by the trespass-offering was not expiation, but compensation, or restitution of a debt due to Jehovah as King of Israel. Not the subjective forgiveness, but the objective wrong done to God's possession here is under consideration."[14]It should not be overlooked that the type of trespasses here was primarily sins of

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omission."After the shekel of the sanctuary ..." This was heavier than the ordinary shekel and of more value. All money in those days was calculated by the weight of precious metals. "Coinage did not begin in Palestine prior to the fourth century B.C."[15]EBC, "Verse 14THE GUILT OFFERINGLeviticus 5:14; Leviticus 6:7; Leviticus 7:1-7As in the English version, so also in the Hebrew, the special class of sins for which the guilt offering is prescribed, is denoted by a distinct and specific word. That word, like the English "trespass," its equivalent, always has reference to an invasion of the rights of others, especially in respect of property or service. It is used, for instance, of the sin of Achan (Joshua 7:1), who had appropriated spoil from Jericho, which God had commanded to be set apart for Himself. Thus, also, the neglect of God’s service, and especially the worship of idols, is often described by this same word, as in 2 Chronicles 28:22; 2 Chronicles 29:6, and many other places. The reason is evident; for idolatry involved a withholding from God of those tithes and other offerings which He claimed from Israel, and thus became, as it were, an invasion of the Divine rights of property. The same word is even applied to the sin of adultery, {Numbers 5:12; Numbers 5:27} apparently from the same point of view, inasmuch as the woman is regarded as belonging to her husband, who has therefore in her certain sacred rights, of which adultery is an invasion. Thus, while every "trespass" is a sin, yet every sin is not a "trespass." There are, evidently, many sins of which this is not a characteristic feature. But the sins for which the guilt offering is prescribed are in every case sins which may, at least, be specially regarded under this particular point of view, to wit, as trespasses on the rights of God or man in respect of ownership; and this gives us the fundamental thought which distinguishes the guilt offering from all others, namely, that for any invasion of the rights of another in regard to property, not only must expiation be made, in that it is a sin, but also satisfaction, and, so far as possible, plenary reparation of the wrong, in that the sin is also trespass.From this it is evident that, as contrasted with the burnt offering, which preeminently symbolised full consecration of the person, and the peace offering, which symbolised fellowship with God, as based upon reconciliation by sacrifice; the guilt offering takes its place, in a general sense, with the sin offering, as, like that, specially designed to effect the reinstatement of an offender in covenant relation with God. Thus, like the latter, and unlike the former offerings, it was only prescribed with reference to specific instances of failure to fulfil some particular obligation toward God or man. So also, as the express condition of an acceptable offering, the formal confession of such sin was particularly enjoined. And, finally, unlike the burnt offering, which was wholly consumed upon the altar, or the peace

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offering, of the flesh of which, with certain reservations, the worshipper himself partook, in the case of the guilt offering, as in the sin offering, the fat parts only were burnt on the altar, and the remainder of the victim fell to the priests, to be eaten by them alone in a holy place, as a thing "most holy." The law is given in the following words: {Leviticus 7:3-7} "He shall offer of it all the fat thereof; the fat tail, and the fat that covereth the inwards, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the loins, and the caul upon the liver, with the kidneys, shall he take away: and the priest shall burn them upon the altar for an offering made by fire unto the Lord: it is a guilt offering. Every male among the priests shall eat thereof: it shall be eaten in a holy place: it is most holy. As is the sin offering, so is the guilt offering: there is one law for them: the priest that maketh atonement therewith, he shall have it."But while, in a general way, the guilt offering was evidently intended, like the sin offering, to signify the removal of sin from the conscience through sacrifice, and thus may be regarded as a variety of the sin offering, yet the ritual presents some striking variations from that of the latter. These are all explicable from this consideration, that whereas the sin offering represented the idea of atonement by sacrifice, regarded as an expiation of guilt, the guilt offering represented atonement under the aspect of a satisfaction and reparation for the wrong committed. Hence, because the idea of expiation here fell somewhat into the background, in order to give the greater prominence to that of reparation and satisfaction, the application of the blood is only made, as in the burnt offering and the peace offering, by sprinkling "on the altar (of burnt offering) round about". {Leviticus 7:1} Hence, again, we find that the guilt offering always had reference to the sin of the individual, and never to the congregation; because it was scarcely possible that every individual in the whole congregation should be guilty in such instances as those for which the guilt offering is prescribed.Again, we have another contrast in the restriction imposed upon the choice of the victim for the sacrifice. In the sin offering, as we have seen, it was ordained that the offering should be varied according to the theocratic rank of the offender, to emphasise thereby to the conscience gradations of guilt, as thus determined; also, it was permitted that the offering might be varied in value according to the ability of the offerer, in order that it might thus be signified in symbol that it was the gracious will of God that nothing in the personal condition of the sinner should exclude anyone from the merciful provision of the expiatory sacrifice. But it was no less important that another aspect of the matter should be held forth, namely, that God is no respecter of persons; and that, whatever be the condition of the offender, the obligation to plenary satisfaction and reparation for trespass committed, cannot be modified in any way by the circumstances of the offender. The man who, for example, has defrauded his neighbour, whether of a small sum or of a large estate, abides his debtor before God, under all conceivable conditions, until restitution is made. The obligation of full payment rests upon every debtor, be he poor or rich, until the last farthing is discharged. Hence, the sacrificial victim of the guilt offering is the same, whether for the poor man or the rich man, "a ram of the flock."

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It was "a ram of the flock," because, as contrasted with the ewe or the lamb, or the dove and the pigeon, it was a valuable offering. And yet it is not a bullock, the most valuable offering known to the law, because that might be hopelessly out of the reach of many a poor man. The idea of value must be represented, and yet not so represented as to exclude a large part of the people from the provisions of the guilt offering. The ram must be "without blemish," that naught may detract from its value, as a symbol of full satisfaction for the wrong done.But most distinctive of all the requisitions touching the victim is this, that, unlike all other victims for other offerings, the ram of the guilt offering must in each case be definitely appraised by the priest. The phrase is, {Leviticus 5:15} that it must be "according to thy estimation in silver by shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary." This expression evidently requires, first, that the offerer’s own estimate of the value of the victim shall not be taken, but that of the priest, as representing God in this transaction; and, secondly, that its value shall in no case fall below a certain standard; for the plural expression, "by shekels," implies that the value of the ram shall not be less than two shekels. And the shekel must be of full weight; the standard of valuation must be God’s, and not man’s, "the shekel of the sanctuary."Still more to emphasise the distinctive thought of this sacrifice, that full satisfaction and reparation for all offences is with God the universal and unalterable condition of forgiveness, it was further ordered that in all cases where the trespass was of such a character as made this possible, that which had been unjustly taken or kept back, whether from God or man, should be restored in full; and not only this, but inasmuch as by this misappropriation of what was not his own, the offender had for the time deprived another of the use and enjoyment of that which belonged to him, he must add to that of which he had defrauded him "the fifth part more," a double tithe. Thus the guilty person was not allowed to have gained even any temporary advantage from the use for a while of that which he now restored; for "the fifth part more" would presumably quite overbalance all conceivable advantage or enjoyment which he might have had from his fraud. How admirable in all this the exact justice of God! How perfectly adapted was the guilt offering, in all these particulars, to educate the conscience, and to preclude any possible wrong inferences from the allowance which was made, for other reasons, for the poor man, in the expiatory offerings for sin!The arrangement of the law of the guilt offering is very simple. It is divided into two sections, the first of which {Leviticus 5:14-19} deals with cases of trespass "in the holy things of the Lord," things which, by the law or by an act of consecration, were regarded as belonging in a special sense to Jehovah; the second section, on the other hand, {Leviticus 6:1-7} deals with cases of trespass on the property rights of man.The first of these, again, consists of two parts. Leviticus 5:14-16 give the law of the guilt offering as applied to cases in which a man, through inadvertence or unwittingly, trespasses in the holy things of the Lord, but in such manner that the

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nature and extent of the trespass can afterward be definitely known and valued; Leviticus 5:17-19 deal with cases where there has been trespass such as to burden the conscience, and yet such as, for whatsoever reason, cannot be precisely measured.By "the holy things of the Lord" are intended such things as, either by universal ordinance or by voluntary consecration, were regarded as belonging to Jehovah, and in a special sense His property. Thus, under this head would come the case of the man who, for instance, should unwittingly eat the flesh of the firstling of his cattle, or the flesh of the sin offering, or the shew bread; or should use his tithe, or any part of it, for himself. Even though he did this unwittingly, yet it none the less disturbed the man’s relation to God; and therefore, when known, in order to his reinstatement in fellowship with God, it was necessary that he should make full restitution with a fifth part added, and besides this, sacrifice a ram, duly appraised, as a guilt offering. In that the sacrifice was prescribed over and above the restitution, the worshipper was reminded that, in view of the infinite majesty and holiness of God, it lies not in the power of any creature to nullify the wrong God-ward, even by fullest restitution. For trespass is not only trespass, but is also sin; an offence not only against the rights of Jehovah as Owner, but also an affront to Him as Supreme King and Lawgiver.And yet, because the worshipper must not be allowed to lose sight of the fact that sin is of the nature of a debt, a victim was ordered which should especially bring to mind this aspect of the matter. For not only among the Hebrews, but among the Arabs, the Romans and other ancient peoples, sheep, and especially rams, were very commonly used as a medium of payment in case of debt, and especially in paying tribute.Thus we read, {2 Kings 3:4} that Mesha, king of Moab, rendered unto the king of Israel "a hundred thousand lambs, and a hundred thousand rams, with the wool," in payment of tribute; and, at a later day, Isaiah {Isaiah 16:1, R.V} delivers to Moab the mandate of Jehovah: "Send ye the lambs for the ruler of the land unto the mount of the daughter of Zion."And so the ram having been brought and presented by the guilty person, with confession of his fault, it was slain by the priest, like the sin offering. The blood, however, was not applied to the horns of the altar of burnt offering, still less brought into the Holy Place, as in the case of the sin offering; but {Leviticus 7:2} was to be sprinkled "upon the altar round about," as in the burnt offering. The reason of this difference in the application of the blood, as above remarked, lies in this, that, as in the burnt offering, the idea of sacrifice as symbolising expiation takes a place secondary and subordinate to another thought; in this case, the conception of sacrifice as representing satisfaction for trespass.The next section (Leviticus 5:17-19) does not expressly mention sins of trespass; for which reason some have thought that it was essentially a repetition of the law of the

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sin offering. But that it is not to be so regarded is plain from the fact that the victim is still the same as for the guilt offering, and from the explicit statement (Leviticus 5:19) that this "is a guilt offering." The inference is natural that the prescription still has reference to "trespass in the holy things of the Lord"; and the class of cases intended is probably indicated by the phrase, "though he knew it not." In the former section, the law provided for cases in which though the trespass had been done unwittingly, yet the offender afterward came to know of the trespass in its precise extent, so as to give an exact basis for the restitution ordered in such cases. But it is quite supposable that there might be cases in which, although the offender was aware that there had been a probable trespass, such as to burden his conscience, he yet knew not just how much it was. The ordinance is only in so far modified as such a case would make necessary; where there was no exact knowledge of the amount of trespass, obviously there the law of restitution with the added fifth could not be applied. Yet, none the less, the man is guilty; he "bears his iniquity," that is, he is liable to the penalty of his fault; and in order to the reestablishment of his covenant relation with God, the ram must be offered as a guilt offering.It is suggestive to observe the emphasis which is laid upon the necessity of the guilt offering, even in such cases. Three times, reference is explicitly made to this fact of ignorance, as not affecting the requirement of the guilt offering: (Leviticus 5:17) "Though he knew it not, yet is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity"; and again (Leviticus 5:18), with special explicitness, "The priest shall make atonement for him concerning the thing wherein he erred unwittingly and knew it not"; and yet again (Leviticus 5:19), "It is a guilt offering: he is certainly guilty before the Lord." The repetition is an urgent reminder that in this case, as in all others, we are never to forget that however our ignorance of a trespass at the time, or even lack of definite knowledge regarding its nature and extent, may affect the degree of our guilt, it cannot affect the fact of our guilt, and the consequent necessity for satisfaction in order to acceptance with God.The second section of the law of the guilt offering {Leviticus 6:1-7} deals with trespasses against man, as also, like trespasses against Jehovah, requiring, in order to forgiveness from God, full restitution with the added fifth, and the offering of the ram as a guilt offering. Five cases are named (Leviticus 6:2-3), no doubt as being common, typical examples of sins of this character.The first case is trespass upon a neighbour’s rights in "a matter of deposit"; where a man has entrusted something to another to keep, and he has either sold it or unlawfully used it as if it were his own. The second case takes in all fraud in a "bargain," as when, for example, a man sells goods, or a piece of land, representing them to be better than they really are, or asking a price larger than he knows an article to be really worth. The third instance is called "robbery"; by which we are to understand any act or process, even though it should be under colour of legal forms, by means of which a man may manage unjustly to get possession of the property of his neighbour, without giving him due equivalent therefore. The fourth instance is called "oppression" of his neighbour. The English word contains the same image as

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the Hebrew word, which is used, for instance, of the unnecessary retention of the wages of the employee by the employer; {Leviticus 19:13} it may be applied to all cases in which a man takes advantage of another’s circumstances to extort from him any thing or any service to which he has no right, or to force upon him something which it is to the poor man’s disadvantage to take. The last example of offences to which the law of the guilt offering applied, is the case in which a man finds something and then denies it to the rightful owner. The reference to false swearing which follows, as appears from Leviticus 6:5, refers not merely to lying and perjury concerning this last-named case, but equally to all cases in which a man may lie or swear falsely to the pecuniary damage of his neighbour. It is mentioned not merely as aggravating such sin, but because in swearing touching any matter, a man appeals to God as witness to the truth of his words; so that by swearing in these cases he represents God as a party to his falsehood and injustice.In all these cases, the prescription is the same as in analogous offences in the holy things of Jehovah. First of all, the guilty man must confess the wrong which he has done, {Numbers 5:7} then restitution must be made of all of which he has defrauded his neighbour, together with one-fifth additional. But while this may set him right with man, it has not yet set him right with God. He must bring his guilt offering unto Jehovah (Leviticus 6:6-7); "a ram without blemish out of the flock, according to the priest’s estimation, for a guilt offering, unto the priest: and the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, and he shall be forgiven: concerning whatsoever he doeth so as to be guilty thereby."And this completes the law of the guilt offering. It was thus prescribed for sins which involve a defrauding or injuring of another in respect to material things, whether God or man, whether knowingly or unwittingly. The law was one and unalterable for all; the condition of pardon was plenary restitution for the wrong done, and the offering of a costly sacrifice, appraised as such by the priest, the earthly representative of God, in the shekel of the sanctuary, "a ram without blemish out of the flock."There are lessons from this ordinance, so plain that, even in the dim light of those ancient days, the Israelite might discern and understand them. And they are lessons which, because man and his ways are the same as then, and God the same as then, are no less pertinent to all of us today.Thus we are taught by this law that God claims from man, and especially from His own people, certain rights of property, of which He will not allow Himself to be defrauded, even through man’s forgetfulness or inadvertence. In a later day Israel was sternly reminded of this in the burning words of Jehovah by the prophet Malachi: {Malachi 3:8-9} "Will a man rob God? yet ye rob me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with the curse: for ye rob me, even this whole nation." Nor has God relaxed His claim in the present dispensation. For the Apostle Paul charges the Corinthian Christians. {2 Corinthians 8:7} in the name of the Lord, with regard to their gifts, that as they

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abounded in other graces, so they should "abound in this grace also." And this is the first lesson brought before us in the law of the guilt offering. God claims His tithe, His first fruit, and the fulfilment of all vows. It was a lesson for that time; it is no less a lesson for our time.And the guilt offering further reminds us that as God has rights, so man also has rights, and that Jehovah, as the King and Judge of men, will exact the satisfaction of those rights, and will pass over no injury done by man to his neighbour in material things, nor forgive it unto any man, except upon condition of the most ample material restitution to the injured party.Then, yet again, if the sin offering called especially for faith in an expiatory sacrifice as the condition of the Divine forgiveness, the guilt offering as specifically called also for repentance, as a condition of pardon, no less essential. Its unambiguous message to every Israelite was the same as that of John the Baptist at a later day: {Matthew 3:8-9} "Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance: and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father."The reminder is as much needed now as in the days of Moses. How specific and practical the selection of the particular instances mentioned as cases for the application of the inexorable law of the guilt offering! Let us note them again, for they are not cases peculiar to Israel or to the fifteenth century before Christ. "If anyone deal falsely with his neighbour in a matter of deposit"; as, e.g., in the case of moneys entrusted to a bank or railway company, or other corporation; for there is no hint that the law did not apply except to individuals, or that a man might be released from these stringent obligations of righteousness whenever in some such evil business he was associated with others; the guilt offering must be forthcoming, with the amplest restitution, or there is no pardon. Then false dealing in a "bargain" is named, as involving the same requirement; as when a man prides himself on driving "a good bargain," by getting something unfairly for less than its value, taking advantage of his neighbour’s straits; or by selling something for more than its value, taking advantage of his neighbour’s ignorance, or his necessity. Then is mentioned "robbery"; by which word is covered not merely that which goes by the name in polite circles, but all cases in which a man takes advantage of his neighbour’s distress or helplessness, perhaps by means of some technicality of law, to "strip" him, as the Hebrew word is, of his property of any kind. And next is specified the man who may "have oppressed his neighbour," especially a man or woman who serves him, as the usage of the word suggests; grinding thus the face of the poor; paying, for instance, less for labour than the law of righteousness and love demands, because the poor man must have work or starve with his house. What sweeping specifications! And all such in all lands and all ages, are solemnly reminded in the law of the guilt offering that in these their sharp practices they have to reckon not with man merely, but with God; and that it is utterly vain for a man to hope for the forgiveness of sin from God, offering or no offering, so long as he has in his pocket his neighbour’s money. For all such, full restoration with the added fifth, according to the law of the theocratic kingdom, was the unalterable condition of the

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Divine forgiveness; and we shall find that this law of the theocratic kingdom will also be the law applied in the adjudications of the great white throne.Furthermore, in that it was particularly enjoined that in the estimation of the value of the guilt offering, not the shekel of the people, often of light weight, but the full weight shekel of the sanctuary was to be held the invariable standard; we, who are so apt to ease things to our consciences by applying to our conduct the principles of judgment current among men, are plainly taught that if we will have our trespasses forgiven, the reparation and restitution which we make must be measured, not by the standard of men, but by that of God, which is absolute righteousness.Yet again, in that in the case of all such trespasses on the rights of God or man it was ordained that the offering, unlike other sacrifices intended to teach other lessons, should be one and the same, whether the offender were rich or poor; we are taught that the extent of our moral obligations or the conditions of their equitable discharge are not determined by a regard to our present ability to make them good. Debt is debt by whomsoever owed. If a man have appropriated a hundred pounds of another man’s money, the moral obligation of that debt cannot be abrogated by a bankrupt law, allowing him to compromise at ten shillings in the pound. The law of man may indeed release him from liability to prosecution, but no law can discharge such a man from the unalterable obligation to pay penny for penny, farthing for farthing. There is no bankrupt law in the kingdom of God. This, too, is evidently a lesson quite as much needed by Gentiles and nominal Christians in the nineteenth century after Christ, as by Hebrews in the fifteenth century before Christ.But the spiritual teaching of the guilt offering is not yet exhausted. For, like all the other offerings, it pointed to Christ. He is "the end of the law unto righteousness," {Romans 10:4} as regards the guilt offering, as in all else. As the burnt offering prefigured Christ the heavenly Victim, in one aspect, and the peace offering, Christ in another aspect, so the guilt offering presents to our adoring contemplation yet another view of His sacrificial work. While, as our burnt offering, He became our righteousness in full self-consecration; as our peace offering, our life; as our sin offering, the expiation for our sins; so, as our guilt offering, He made satisfaction and plenary reparation in our behalf to the God on whose inalienable rights in us, by our sins we had trespassed without measure.Nor is this an over refinement of exposition. For in Isaiah 53:10, where both the Authorised and the Revised Versions read, "shall make his soul an offering for sin, " the margin of the latter rightly calls attention to the fact that in the Hebrew the word here used is the very same which through all this Levitical law is rendered "guilt offering." And so we are expressly told by this evangelic prophet, that the Holy Servant of Jehovah, the suffering Messiah, in this His sacrificial work should make His soul "a guilt offering." He became Himself the complete and exhaustive realisation of all that in sacrifice which was set forth in the Levitical guilt offering.A declaration this is which holds forth both the sin for which Christ atoned, and the

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Sacrifice itself, in a very distinct and peculiar light. In that Christ’s sacrifice was thus a guilt offering in the sense of the law, we are taught that, in one aspect, our sins are regarded by God, and should therefore be regarded by us, as debts which are due from us to God. This is, indeed, by no means the only aspect in which sin should be regarded; it is, for example, rebellion, high treason, a deadly affront to the Supreme Majesty, which must be expiated with the blood of the sin offering. But our sins are also of the nature of debts. That is, God has claims on us for service which we have never met; claims for a portion of our substance which we have often withheld, or given grudgingly, trespassing thus in "the holy things of the Lord." Just as the servant who is set to do his master’s work, if, instead, he take that time to do his own work, is debtor to the full value of the service of which his master is thus defrauded, so stands the case between the sinner and God. Just as with the agent who fails to make due returns to his principal on the moneys committed to him for investment, using them instead for himself, so stands the case between God and the sinner who has used his talents, not for the Lord, but for himself, or has kept them laid up, unused, in a napkin. Thus, in the New Testament, as the correlate of this representation of Christ as a guilt offering; we find sin again and again set forth as a debt which is owed from man to God. So, in the Lord’s prayer we are taught to pray, "Forgive us our debts; so, twice the Lord Himself in His parables" {Matthew 18:23-35 Luke 7:41-42} set forth the relation of the sinner to God as that of the debtor to the creditor; and concerning those on whom the tower of Siloam fell, asks, {Luke 13:4} "Think ye that they were sinners (Greek ‘debtors,’) above all that dwelt in Jerusalem?" Indeed so imbedded is this thought in the conscience of man that it has been crystallised in our word "ought," which is but the old preterite of "owe"; as in Tyndale’s New Testament, where we read, {Luke 7:41} "there was a certain lender, which ought him five hundred pence." What a startling conception is this, which forms the background to the great "guilt offering"! Man a debtor to God! a debtor for service each day due, but no day ever fully and perfectly rendered! in gratitude for gifts, too often quite forgotten, oftener only paid in scanty part! We are often burdened and troubled greatly about our debts to men; shall we not be concerned about the enormous and ever accumulating debt to God! Or is He an easy creditor, who is indifferent whether these debts of ours be met or not? So think multitudes; but this is not the representation of Scripture, either in the Old or the New Testament. For in the law it was required, that if a man, guilty of any of these offences for the forgiveness of which the guilt offering was prescribed, failed to confess and bring the offering, and make the restitution with the added fifth, as commanded by the law, he should be brought before the judges, and the full penalty of law exacted, on the principle of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!" And in the New Testament, one of those solemn parables of the two debtors closes with the awful words concerning one of them who was "delivered to the tormentors," that he should not come out of prison till he had "paid the uttermost farthing." Not a hint is there in Holy Scripture, of forgiveness of our debts to God, except upon the one condition of full restitution made to Him to whom the debt is due, and therewith the sacrificial blood of a guilt offering. But Christ is our Guilt offering.He is our Guilt offering, in that He Himself did that, really and fully, with respect to

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all our debts as sinful men to God, which the guilt offering of Leviticus symbolised, but accomplished not. His soul He made a guilt offering for our trespasses! Isaiah’s words imply that He should make full restitution for all that of which we, as sinners, defraud God. He did this by that perfect and incomparable service of lowly obedience such as we should render, but have never rendered; in which He has made full satisfaction to God for all our innumerable debts. He has made such satisfaction, not by a convenient legal fiction, or in a rhetorical figure, or as judged by any human standard. Even as the ram of the guilt offering was appraised according to "the shekel of the sanctuary," so upon our Lord, at the beginning of that life of sacrificial service, was solemnly passed the Divine verdict that with this antitypical Victim of the Guilt offering, God Himself was "well pleased". {Matthew 3:17} Not only so. For we cannot forget that according to the law, not only the full restitution must be made, but the fifth must be added thereto. So with our Lord. For who will not confess that Christ not only did all that we should have done, but, in the ineffable depth of His self-humiliation and obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, paid therewith the added fifth of the law. Said a Jewish Rabbi to the writer, "I have never been able to finish reading in the Gospel the story of the Jesus of Nazareth; for it too soon brings the tears to my eyes!" So affecting even to Jewish unbelief was this unparalleled spectacle, the adorable Son of God making Himself a guilt offering, and paying, in the incomparable perfection of His holy obedience, the added fifth in our behalf! Thus has Christ "magnified this law" of the guilt offering, and "made it honourable," even as He did all law. {Isaiah 42:21}And, as is intimated, by the formal valuation of the sacrificial ram, in the type, even the death of Christ as the guilt offering, in one aspect is to be regarded as the consummating act of service in the payment of debts Godward. Just as the sin offering represented His death in its passive aspect, as meeting the demands of justice against the sinner as a rebel under sentence of death, by dying in his stead, so, on the other hand, the guilt offering represents that same sacrificial death, rather in another aspect, no less clearly set forth in the New Testament; namely, the supreme act of obedience to the will of God, whereby He discharged "to the uttermost farthing," even with the added fifth of the law, all the transcendent debt of service due from man to God.This representation of Christ’s work has in all ages been an offence, "the offence of the cross." All the more need we to insist upon it, and never to forget, or let others forget, that Christ is expressly declared in the Word of God to have been "a guilt offering," in the Levitical sense of that term; that, therefore, to speak of His death as effecting our salvation merely through its moral influence, is to contradict and nullify the Word of God. Well may we set this word in Isaiah 53:10, concerning the Servant of Jehovah, against all modern Unitarian theology, and against all Socinianising teaching; all that would maintain any view of Christ’s death which excludes or ignores the divinely revealed fact that it was in its essential nature a guilt offering; and, because a guilt offering, therefore of the nature of the payment of a debt in behalf of those for whom He suffered.

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Most blessed truth this, for all who can receive it! Christ, the Son of God, our Guilt offering! Like the poor Israelite, who had defrauded God of that which was His due, so must we do; coming before God, confessing that wherein we have wronged Him, and bringing forth fruit meet for repentance, we must bring and plead Christ in the glory of His person, in all the perfection of His holy obedience, as our Guilt offering. And therewith the ancient promise to the penitent Israelite becomes ours, {Leviticus 6:7} "The priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, and he shall be forgiven; concerning whatsoever he doeth so as to be guilty thereby."PETT, "Verses 14-19Three Revelations Made By God To Moses All Related To Guilt/Compensation Offerings (Leviticus 5:14 to Leviticus 6:7).Three revelations are now made concerning the guilt offering and when it should be offered. Two of the three are introduced by the words, ‘And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying.’ They may have been given on two separate occasions. They were probably added here to connect with the previous reference to the Guilt Offering. In that instance no compensation was payable, although instead confession was required. In these examples the question of compensation raises its head.Guilt Offerings With Compensation For Sanctuary Offences (Leviticus 5:14-19).Reference is made here to two types of offence against the sanctuary.Leviticus 5:14‘And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,’This indicates a new revelation, rather than it being a continuation of what went before. It confirms that it is describing Yahweh’s requirements. It deals with offences against the Sanctuary. BI 14-19, "If a soul commit a trespass.The trespass-offeringI. As to the distinctive character of this offering.

1. It was not a “sweet savour” offering. Christ is here seen suffering for sins; the view of His work is expiatory.2. It was a trespass as distinct from a sin-offering. Not the person, but the act of wrong-doing, is the point noticed and dwelt upon. And how solemn is the truth here taught us, that neither our conscience, nor our measure of light, nor our ability, but the truth of God, is the standard by which both sin and trespass are to be measured. “Though he wist it not, yet is he guilty; he hath certainly trespassed against the Lord.” If man’s conscience or man’s light were the standard, each man might have a different rule. And, at this rate, right or wrong, good or evil, would depend, not upon

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God’s truth, but on the creature’s apprehension of it. At this rate, the filthiest of unclean beasts could not be convicted of uncleanness, while it could plead that it had no apprehension of that which was pure and seemly. But we do not judge thus in the things of this world; neither does God judge so in the things of heaven. Who argues that because swine are filthy, therefore the standard of cleanliness is to be set by their perceptions or ability; or that because they seem unconscious of their state, therefore the distinction between what is clean and unclean must be relinquished. No: we judge not by their perceptions, but our own; with our light and knowledge, not their ignorance, as our standard.3. In the trespass-offering we get restitution, furl restitution for the original wrong. The amount of the injury, according to the priest’s valuation of it, is paid in shekels of the sanctuary to the injured person. The thought here is not that trespass is punished, but that the injured party is repaid the wrong. The payment was in shekels: these “shekels of the sanctuary” were the appointed standard by which God’s rights were measured; as it is said, “And all thy estimation shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary.” Thus they represent the truest measure, God’s standard by which He weighs all things. By this standard the trespass is weighed, and then the value paid to the injured person. And God and man, though wronged by trespass, each receive as much again from man in Christ through the trespass-offering. Whether honour, service, worship, or obedience, whatever God could claim, whatever man could rob Him of, all this has He received again from man in Christ, “according to the priest’s estimation in shekels of the sanctuary.” But man also was injured by trespass; and he, too, receives as much again. Christ for man as offerer of the trespass-offering, must offer to injured man the value of the original injury. And such as accept His offering find their loss through man’s trespass more than paid. Has trespass wronged man of life, peace, or gladness, he may claim and receive through Christ repayment. For man to man, as for man to God, Christ stands the One in whom man’s wrongs are remedied.4. But this is not all. Not only is the original wrong paid, but a fifth part more is paid with it in the trespass-offering. Who would have thought that from the entrance of trespass, both God and man should in the end be gainers? But so it is. From man in Christ both God and man have received back more than they were robbed of. In this sense, “where sin abounded,” yea, and because sin abounded, “grace did more abound.”

II. The varieties or grades in this offering. These are fewer than in any other offering, teaching us that those who apprehended this aspect of Christ’s work, will apprehend it all very much alike. It will be remembered that in the sin-offering the varieties were most numerous and that because sin in us may be, and is, so differently apprehended; but trespass, the act of wrong committed, if seen at all, can scarce be seen differently. Accordingly, we find but one small variety in the trespass-offering, for I can scarce regard the two different aspects of trespass as varieties. These aspects are, first, trespasses against God, and then trespasses against our neighbour; but this distinction is more like the difference between the offerings than the varieties in different grades of the same. It simply points out distinct bearings of trespass, for which in each case the atonement seen is precisely similar. There is, however, one small yet remarkable difference between the two grades of the offering for wrongs in holy things. In the first grade, which gives us the fullest view of the offering, we read of the life laid down, the restitution made, and the fifth part added. But in the lower class, the last of these is 70

unnoticed: “the fifth part” is quite unseen. And how true this is in the experience of Christians. Where the measure of apprehension is full, there not only the life laid down, and the restitution made in the trespass-offering, but all the truth also which is caught in the “fifth part,” will be seen as a consequence of trespass and a part of the trespass-offering. Not so, however, where the apprehension is limited: here there is no addition seen beyond the amount of the original trespass. (A. Jukes.)

The trespass-offering; or, substitution and restitutionI. The trespass-offering (or guilt-offering, R.V.) refers more especially to the evil actions which are the outcome of our corrupt nature: while the sin that is inherent in that nature, as descendants of fallen Adam, is fully met in the sin-offering—last considered. The evil deeds, or sins, met by the trespass-offering may be thus divided—as against God and against man.II. “a trespass . . . through ignorance, in the holy things of the lord,” is the first mentioned. Here there is a similarity to the sin spoken of in chap. 4., for it is “through ignorance.” Who can measure the holiness of God, or know the extent of sin against such a Being? Perfect purity and holiness demand the same; but we are born in sin, “shapen in iniquity” (Psa_51:5); and “who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one” (Job_14:4). Hence, till the heart is changed by “the grace of God” (Rom_5:15; 1Co_15:10), the sin within is ever showing itself in evil actions; and even after we know the Lord we are apt to trespass in His “holy things.” In men’s very religion, too, there may be sin. How often do they invent a worship of their own, not in accordance with God’s Word; a way of salvation which dishonours Him; a way of approach to Him other than He has given! If living for self, the world, or other purpose than God’s glory, we are robbing God. It may be through ignorance, but “though he wist it not, yet he is guilty, and shall bear his iniquity” (Lev_4:17-19), saith the Lord. There is thus no hope for us in ourselves, but He has met this (as all) our need in His “Beloved Son,” as shown in type before us, for the sinning one is bidden to bring—

1. “A ram without blemish . . . for a trespass-offering” (guilt-offering, R.V.), “and the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his ignorance . . . ;” for “he hath certainly trespassed against the Lord.” Mark well the words “certainly trespassed,” though in ignorance. The same truth is here again shown, that no sin could be atoned for without the shedding of Jesu’s blood; but His was a full, perfect, and complete atonement, when He made “His soul a guilt-offering” (Isa_53:10, marg., R.V.; same word as verses 5:19, R.V.). He “was delivered up for our trespasses” (Rom_4:25; Rom_5:16, R.V.)2. “Shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary,” were also to be brought with the ram, to “make amends for the harm . . . done in the holy thing.” No lower standard than God’s could be accepted. Have we a just perception of God’s holiness?3. A fifth part added. Who could do this in its full meaning? None but Jesus. And He brought more glory to God by redemption than could have accrued from creation. Christ was perfect in His obedience to God’s holy law, and gave rich surplus. He—the Antitype of trespass-offering (both of ram and silver, 1Pe_1:18-19)—was also Priest who made atonement or reconciliation (Rom_5:10-11; 1Jn_2:2); and the blessed result is—

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4. Forgiveness (verses 16, 18) to “all that believe” (Act_13:38-39).III. Wrong done to a neighbour is equally described as “trespass against the Lord” (Lev_6:1-7). This the unregenerate heart fails to see, but God pronounces it to be “sin”; and the truth of Heb_9:22 is once more brought before us; but, in contrast to the trespass against the holy things, in the case of wrong done to a neighbour—restitution with addition of fifth part must be made, before bringing the trespass-offering of “a ram without blemish,” with the “estimation.” The former teaches that only on the ground of blood shed could God accept the offerer, or “the amends” He would have him make; whereas, in the case of wrong done to a neighbour, “amends” must first be made to that neighbour before pardon can be sought of God. This is the lesson enforced by our Lord (Mat_5:23-24; Mat_6:14-15). See, too, Zaccheus ready to “restore fourfold” (Luk_19:8). To approach God with a wrong against a neighbour unredressed will not bring acceptance; while in the case of trespass against the Lord in holy things, pardon through Jesus must first be sought before “amends for the harm” done, can be accepted. Each must be according to God’s ordering, and then there is the same gracious promise of forgiveness (verses 16, 18, 6:7; Eph_4:32; Col_3:13).IV. The law of the trespass-offering opens out some further details (Lev_7:1-7). It was to be—

1. Killed in the same place as the burnt-offering (Lev_1:5; Lev_1:11), that is, “on the side of the altar northward before the Lord.” It was the “same Jesus” in all, though different aspects and results of His death are presented in each.2. The blood was to be sprinkled “round about upon the altar.” Only in the sin-offering was it to be poured out, as that offering presented a more comprehensive view of the fulness of the atonement.3. The costliest parts were to be burned on the altar, as in the sin-offering, telling of the rich and intrinsic excellency of the Lord Jesus which could stand the searching fire of God’s holiness.4. “Most holy” (Lev_6:25; Lev_6:29; Lev_7:1; Lev_7:6). The use of such an expression, in connection with sin-offering and trespass-offering is most striking. The more we meditate thereon the more we learn how the heart’s affection, mind, inward parts, were all perfect in Jesus—hence He is a perfect Saviour. Lastly, the trespass-offering was—5. To be eaten in the Holy Place, by “every male among the priests,” typifying the Church, as partakers of Him who bare their “sins” (1Pe_2:24), while “the priest that maketh atonement” was type of Jesus, thus seen to identify Himself with His people. (Lady Beaujolois Dent.)

SacrilegeThe trespass here indicated is sacrilege—mistake and misappropriation in the use of sacred things: a culpable trespass, whether done wittingly or unwittingly. From this rite we are taught—I. The jealousy of Jehovah for the honour of his worship in the tabernacle.II. The influence this jealousy was calculated to exert upon the worshippers in the

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tabernacle.1. Sensitiveness of feeling.2. Tenderness of conscience.3. Scrupulousness of conduct. (F. W. Brown).

ReparationI. Sin is a wrong done to god.II. Sin is a wrong done to man. Amends must be made by—

1. Appropriate contrition.2. Personal sacrifice.3. Unreserved consecration: evincing itself in a holy, useful, Christly life. (F. W. Brown)

Error, though inadvertent, is guiltyI. A sophistry needing correction. This: that intention constitutes the quality of an action, whether conduct is criminal or not. But this declaration of “guilt,” though in the action he “wist it not,” testifies against a sweeping and all-inclusive application of that principle, viz., that intention qualifies action.

1. Ignorance may and does extenuate the guilt of an action. Knowledge deepens guilt (Joh_9:41; Joh_15:22). Ignorance alleviates it (Luk_23:34; Act_3:17; 1Ti_1:13).2. Yet ignorance cannot excuse guilt. A man is not excused for breaking the laws of the land because he was ignorant of them. Nor is he innocent who trespasses, through error, against any ordinance of the Lord. And, if so in respect of ceremonial observances, much more so in relation to moral duties. Hence the curse stands against “every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal_3:10).3. God Himself refuses to condone such ignorance. His Word declares that men “perish for lack of knowledge” (Hos_4:6); and that though “a people be of no understanding, He will not have mercy on them, and will show them no favour.”

II. Man’s uncomputed guilt.1. Reckon up our remembered sins. “They are more in number than the hairs of our head.”2. Add the sins realised at the time but now forgotten. Memory lets slip multitudinous trespasses.3. Yet what can represent the number of our unrecognised sins, done in ignorance, done in error?4. Deviations and defects also, which God’s eye alone detected, and which we too self-indulgently condoned.

III. Vast virtue needed in atonement.

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1. Under the ceremonial arrangements for expiation, how manifold and minute and numerous were the regulations and provisions necessary to make atonement for sin!2. When all sin had to be expiated by Christ’s one offering, what value it must needs possess! Yet “by one offering” the Saviour “purged our sins.”

(1) It summons us to faith. “Look unto Me and be ye saved.” “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”(2) It incites us to grateful adoration. “Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,” &c. (Rev_1:5-6).(3) It assures us of perfect redemption. “There remaineth no more offering for sin,” for “the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” (W. H. Jellie.)

Gain by redemptionIn the addition of “the fifth part,” as here set forth, we have a feature of the true trespass-offering, which, it is to be feared, is but little appreciated. When we think of all the wrong and all the trespass which we have done against the Lord; and, further, when we remember how God has been wronged of His rights in this wicked world, with what interest can we contemplate the work of the Cross as that wherein God has not merely received back what was lost, but whereby He is an actual gainer. He has gained more by redemption than ever He lost by the fall. “The sons of God” could raise a loftier song of praise around the empty tomb of Jesus than ever they raised in view of the Creator’s accomplished work. The wrong has not only been perfectly atoned for, but an eternal advantage has been gained by the work of the Cross. This is a stupendous truth. God is a gainer by the work of Calvary. Who could have conceived this? When we behold man, and the creation of which he was lord, laid in ruins at the feet of the enemy, how could we conceive that, from amid those ruins, God should gather richer and nobler spoils than any which our unfallen world could have yielded? Blessed be the name of Jesus for all this! It is to Him we owe it all. It is by His precious Cross that ever a truth so amazing, so divine, could be enunciated. (C. H. Mackintosh.)

15 “When anyone is unfaithful to the Lord by sinning unintentionally in regard to any of the Lord’s holy things, they are to bring to the Lord as a penalty a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value in silver, according to the sanctuary shekel.[d] It is a guilt offering. 74

BARNES, "Commit a trespass - Rather, here and in Lev_6:2, perpetrate a wrong. The word is different from that rendered trespass elsewhere in these chapters.Through ignorance - Through inadvertence. See Lev_4:2 note.

In the holy things of the Lord - The reference is to a failure in the payment of firstfruits, tithes or fees of any kind connected with the public service of religion by which the sanctuary suffered loss; compare Num_5:6-8.Shekel of the sanctuary - See Exo_38:24 note.

CLARKE, "In the holy things of the Lord - This law seems to relate particularly to sacrilege, and defrauds in spiritual matters; such as the neglect to consecrate or redeem the firstborn, the withholding of the first-fruits, tithes, and such like; and, according to the rabbins, making any secular gain of Divine things, keeping back any part of the price of things dedicated to God, or withholding what man had vowed to pay. See a long list of these things in Ainsworth.

With thy estimation - The wrong done or the defraud committed should be estimated at the number of shekels it was worth, or for which it would sell. These the defrauder was to pay down, to which he was to add a fifth part more, and bring a ram without blemish for a sin-offering besides. There is an obscurity in the text, but this seems to be its meaning.

GILL, "If a soul commit a trespass, and sin through ignorance in the holy things of the Lord,.... In the payment of tithes, or offering first fruits as he ought, by withholding them, or any part of them, or through eating of sacred things he ought not: then shall he bring for his trespass unto the Lord; for it being a trespass in holy things, it might be properly called a trespass to or against the Lord; unless this is rather to be understood of the offering brought to the Lord for his trespass as follows: a ram without blemish out of the flocks; out of the sheep and not the goats, as Ben Gersom observes; and this being for sacrifice, or for a trespass in holy things though ignorantly done, an offering of more value is required than for sins of ignorance in other cases, Lev_5:6 a type of Christ, who for his strength may be compared to a ram, and to one without blemish, for his purity and holiness, and to a choice one, selected out of the flock, for his being chosen out from among the people: with thy estimation by shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering; that is, either an estimation was to be taken of the damage done in the holy things, an account of which was to be brought along with the ram, and the cost paid; or else the ram brought was to be of the value of, or worth shekels of silver; and the least of many being two, as Aben Ezra and Ben Gersom observe, the sense is, that the ram brought for the trespass offering should be at least worth two shekels of silver; so Jarchi and Ben Gersom.

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JAMISON 15-16, "sin through ignorance, in the holy things of the Lord, etc. — This is a case of sacrilege committed ignorantly, either in not paying the full due of tithes, first-fruits, and similar tribute in eating of meats, which belonged to the priests alone - or he was required, along with the restitution in money, the amount of which was to be determined by the priest, to offer a ram for a trespass offering, as soon as he came to the knowledge of his involuntary fraud.COKE. "Leviticus 5:15. With thy estimation— Though the sin here mentioned may refer to the holy things in general, yet it is commonly thought to refer particularly to the eating that part of the sacrifice which belonged to the priest; at least, so we are led to think, from ch. Leviticus 22:14 as well as from the expression, with thy estimation by shekels of silver; whereby, it is supposed, the sacred writer means, that the priest should estimate the damage sustained by this trespass; in consequence whereof, the person trespassing should not only bring for his offering a ram, but the estimation or value of his trespass made by the priest, in shekels of silver: see the next verse. Though Moses is spoken of as the estimator, it is to be referred to the priests in general, who usually made these rates; see ch. Leviticus 27:8; Leviticus 27:12-13, &c. Houbigant renders this, at the estimation or value of two shekels of silver; in which he follows St. Jerome; with whom he thinks that this is a specification of the value of the ram; and he defends this interpretation very ably.PETT, "Leviticus 5:15-16‘If any one commit a breach of faith, and sin unwittingly, in the holy things of Yahweh, then he shall bring his guilt offering to Yahweh, a ram without blemish out of the flock, according to your estimation in silver by shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a guilt offering, and he shall make restitution for that which he has done amiss in the holy thing, and shall add the fifth part to it, and give it to the priest; and the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering, and he shall be forgiven.’The sins in question here are ‘unwitting’ sins with respect to the sanctuary, sins which might result from carelessness, or forgetfulness, or a false ‘shrewdness’, or pure lethargy. In some way the person has stepped out of line. It may be that they have failed to bring their offerings as due, or have brought lower level ones when they were well enough off to bring higher level ones, grain instead of birds, birds instead of a sheep. Or perhaps in some other way they have ‘profited’ from a failure to fulfil all their religious responsibilities according to the Law. But clearly the person’s conscience has now disturbed him, or he has been ‘found out’ and it is thus a question of making amends, paying restitution and offering the correct guilt offering.The offering he must bring is a ram, a male sheep and thus of a higher level than the female sheep of the purification for sin offering. Here there are no alternatives

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offered. This may suggest that a poor man would not be expected to commit this breach of faith, which could suggest that being parsimonious is what is mainly in mind. There has been a failure to meet proper dues. Indeed, as well as it being without blemish, the value of the ram necessary is to be calculated by the priest according to how much loss the sanctuary is considered to have suffered. Then a further one fifth of that value has to be paid to the priest to compensate the priest for what in most cases he would have lost. After that the ram is to be offered as a guilt offering. We are given no details but it is probable that it is offered in a similar way as that described in Leviticus 5:6-9, or it may be as a purification for sin offering (Leviticus 7:7).We have here an indication that when men have sinned against God in holy things by holding back from Him what is His due, the sacrifice has to be of sufficient value to cover the level of sin. We can therefore see clearly at what value God had assessed Jesus Christ Who was sufficient to meet the failures in this way of the whole world, and more, an incalculable amount.

16 They must make restitution for what they have failed to do in regard to the holy things, pay an additional penalty of a fifth of its value and give it all to the priest. The priest will make atonement for them with the ram as a guilt offering, and they will be forgiven.

CLARKE, "Shall make amends - Make restitution for the wrong he had done according to what is laid down in the preceding verse.

GILL, "And he shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in the holy thing,.... This seems to favour the sense of the word "estimation", in the preceding verse, as understood of the estimate of the damage done in the holy things, which belonged to the priests, for which recompense was to be made according as the damage was valued:

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and shall add the fifth part thereto, and give it unto the priest; besides paying the whole damage, he was to give a fifth part of the whole to the priest; which was ordered to show the evil nature of the sin of sacrilege, though done ignorantly, and to make men careful and cautious of committing it: the fifth part, according to the Jewish writers (f), is the fourth part of that of which a man eats, ("viz." of the holy things,) which is the fifth of the whole; thus, if he eats the value of a penny, he pays the penny and the fourth part of one, and so it is in all the fifths mentioned in the law; or, as Ben Gersom on the place expresses it, if he has had profit by the holy things to the value of four shekels, he pays five shekels; for the fifth of the shekels they add the fifth part to the four shekels; in this he observes, all are alike, the priest, the anointed, the prince, and a private person, for the law makes no difference between them in this: and the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering; by offering it up for him: and it shall be forgiven him; after he has paid the whole damage, and a fifth part besides, and offered the trespass offering for atonement; See Gill on Lev_5:10. CALVIN, "16.And he shall make amends for the harm. Hence it more plainly appears, as I have recently stated, that they, who withheld anything of God’s full right, are said to have sinned “in the holy thing;” since they are commanded to make restitution with the addition of a fifth part. Yet let my readers remember, that those who are compelled to make restitution, are not such as have fraudulently embezzled the sacred things, but those who under some vain pretext have flattered themselves for a time, so as to be unaffected by any conviction of their fault. The object therefore of this sacrifice, was to arouse the people to attention, so that postponing their private advantage, they should freely pay what was due to God. (270) Theirs is but foolish trifling who think that Moses, having before spoken of sins (peccata ), now prescribes the mode of making expiation for delinquencies (delicta ), since he uses the same words indifferently on all occasions, and also designates all the victims by the same name. But to make out a delinquency to be greater than a sin is a piece of gross ignorance; nor does it need a long refutation, since it manifestly appears that in this passage a special rule is delivered as to the means of obtaining pardon when a person through thoughtlessness has not reflected that he has omitted to discharge in full either his vows or oblations.

17 “If anyone sins and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands, even though they do not know it, they are guilty and will be held responsible. 78

BARNES, "Though he wist it not - Ignorance of the Law, or even of the consequences of the act at the time that it was committed, was not to excuse him from the obligation to offer the sacrifice.

GILL, "And if a soul sin, and commit any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord,.... Respecting holy things: though he wist it not; or did not know that he had transgressed a negative command: yet he is guilty, and shall bear the iniquity; be chargeable with guilt, and is liable to punishment, and must make an atonement and satisfaction for it; see Luk_12:48.

JAMISON 17-19, "if a soul sin ... though he wist it not, yet is he guilty — This also refers to holy things, and it differs from the preceding in being one of the doubtfulcases, - that is, where conscience suspects, though the understanding be in doubt whether criminality or sin has been committed. The Jewish rabbis give, as an example, the case of a person who, knowing that “the fat of the inwards” is not to be eaten, religiously abstained from the use of it; but should a dish happen to have been at table in which he had reason to suspect some portion of that meat was intermingled, and he had, inadvertently, partaken of that unlawful viand, he was bound to bring a ram as a trespass offering [Lev_5:16]. These provisions were all designed to impress the conscience with the sense of responsibility to God and keep alive on the hearts of the people a salutary fear of doing any secret wrong.

CALVIN, "17.And if soul sin. Although the expressions seem to be general, as if he briefly confirmed what he had said before, yet it is necessary to connect them with the last sentence, or at least to restrict them to certain cases. The former exposition appears to me to be the right one; nor is there any absurdity in the repetition, to cut off all occasion for subterfuge from the disobedient. Still I do not deny that the reason which is added at the end, applies to all the modes of expiation of which he has been treating; viz., that although he may pretend ignorance who has fallen into sin inconsiderately, or who has not intentionally sinned, or who through forgetfulness has contracted any defilement, still he is guilty before God until he makes reconciliation. When therefore he again commands that a ram without blemish, and of full value should be offered, he once more shews how they must purge themselves who have been too stingy in their oblations. Immediately after he adds a reason common to all the other errors; as if he had said, that they are not absolved before God who offer the excuse of ignorance as a cover for their fault.

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COFFMAN, ""And if any one sin, and do any of the things which Jehovah hath commanded not to be done; though he knew it not, yet he is guilty, and shall bear his iniquity. And he shall bring a ram without blemish out of the flock, according to thy estimation, for a trespass-offering unto the priest; and the priest shall make atonement for him for the things wherein he erred unwittingly and knew it not, and he shall be forgiven. It is a trespass-offering: he is certainly guilty before Jehovah.""This paragraph is vague and perplexing."[16] It seems that in this law a trespass-offering is required for exactly the same kind of sin that in Leviticus 4 was understood to be expiated by a sin-offering, at much less cost to the offender. The Jewish Rabbi Nachmanides gave what Bamberger called a "forced explanation" as follows: "Why should the doubtful trespass-offering be brought when possibly no offense had been committed? while for the undoubted transgression as in Leviticus 4, a ewe, two fowls, or even a measure of flour was all that the law required. It was because a man might not take seriously the mere possibility of sinning unless the Torah had thus shown the gravity of the matter."[17]In the absence of any better explanation, we shall accept this. There may be facts about this which were known to the ancient Hebrews which remain hidden from us, a view, which upon consideration must surely be correct. Allis wrote that what seems to be the difference here is that this type of transgression required restitution, thus distinguishing it from the sins recounted by the same words in Leviticus 4:2,13,22,27.[18] Allis' view is logical and explains fully why the heavier penalty was required here. Inherent in this also is the truth that any sin against one's fellow man is also a sin against God. Lofthouse identified this passage as an instance of "social morality" uncommon to that portion of the Pentateuch usually identified with "P."[19] Thus, we have another instance in which the artificial conception of various sources for the Pentateuch breaks down completely.PETT, "Leviticus 5:17‘And if any one sin, and do any of the things which Yahweh has commanded not to be done, though he knew it not, yet is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity.’This, due to its direct connection with Leviticus 5:15-16 would seem to refer to someone who has sinned against the Sanctuary in some other way than financial, otherwise it would be little different from Leviticus 4:27. They in one way or another consider that they have offended against holy things, they have done what Yahweh has commanded not to be done. Now their conscience has smitten them. This may well especially have in mind those with a tender conscience, who become concerned about small details, with the aim of enabling them to obtain peace of mind for their guilty conscience. But there would be others as well who had sinned in this way more certainly. Either way they accept their guilt and that they must be

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punished accordingly (must ‘bear their guilt’).

18 They are to bring to the priest as a guilt offering a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value. In this way the priest will make atonement for them for the wrong they have committed unintentionally, and they will be forgiven.

GILL, "And he shall bring a ram without blemish out of the flock,.... See Gill on Lev_5:15. with thy estimation for a trespass offering to the priest; along with the offering was to be brought an estimate of whatsoever damage had been done through the breach of any of the commands of God, where damage could take place, that so recompense be made as before directed; or else the ram brought was to be valued, and examined whether it was worth two shekels of silver, as before explained; see Gill on Lev_5:15 but no fifth was required as in the former cases: and the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his ignorance wherein he erred, and wist it not, and it shall be forgiven him; See Gill on Lev_5:10 this is what the Jews call "Asham Talui", doubtful trespass offering.PETT, "Leviticus 5:18-19‘And he shall bring a ram without blemish out of the flock, according to your estimation, for a guilt offering, to the priest, and the priest shall make atonement for him concerning the thing wherein he erred unwittingly and knew it not, and he shall be forgiven. It is a guilt offering. He is certainly guilty before Yahweh.’Again the offering is to be a ram without blemish, its required value to be estimated by Moses (‘your estimation’) according to the level of the failure. Its purpose is to remove the person’s guilt. Although the correct value ram has to be offered there is no extra compensation required. The sanctuary has not suffered financial loss. The priest will offer the ram as he would a purification for sin offering, and make atonement for the person in question, and he will be forgiven. It is a guilt offering.

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“He is certainly guilty before Yahweh.” This comment may reflect that because this is a sin against the sanctuary there can be no question that he is guilty before Yahweh.

19 It is a guilt offering; they have been guilty of[e] wrongdoing against the Lord.”

CLARKE, "He hath certainly trespassed - And because he hath sinned, therefore he must bring a sacrifice. On no other ground shall he be accepted by the Lord. Reader, how dost thou stand in the sight of thy Maker? On the subject of this chapter it may be proper to make the following reflections. When the infinite purity and strict justice of God are considered, the exceeding breadth of his commandment, our slowness of heart to believe, and our comparatively cold performance of sacred duties, no wonder that there is sinfulness found in our holy things; and at what a low ebb must the Christian life be found when this is the case! This is a sore and degrading evil in the Church of God; but there is one even worse than this, that is, the strenuous endeavor of many religious people to reconcile their minds to this state of inexcusable imperfection, and defend it zealously, on the supposition that it is at once both unavoidable and useful - unavoidable, for they think they cannot live without it; and useful, because they suppose it tends to humble them! The more inward sin a man has, the more pride he will feel; the less, the more humility. A sense of God’s infinite kindness to us, and our constant dependence on him, will ever keep the soul in the dust. Sin can never be necessary to the maintenance or extension of the Christian life, it is the thing which Jesus Christ came into the world to destroy; and his name is called Jesus or Savior because he saves his people from their sins. But how little of the spirit and influence of his Gospel is known in the world! He saves, unto the uttermost, them who come unto the Father through him. But alas! how few are thus saved! for they will not come unto him that they might have life. Should any Christian refuse to offer up the following prayer to God? “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name, through Christ our Lord. Amen.” - The Liturgy.

GILL, "It is a trespass offering,.... An offering for a trespass committed: he hath certainly trespassed against the Lord; though committed ignorantly, and

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therefore an offering must be brought; for no sin of any kind must be overlooked, passed by, or forgiven, without a sacrifice, or without atonement made by sacrifice: or, "he shall offer a trespass offering to the Lord", or before the Lord, as Onkelos; or before the Word of the Lord, as Jonathan; and Maimonides out of Siphri (g) observes, that whereas it is said, a trespass or trespass offering to the Lord, it was not lawful for the priests to eat of it. COKE, "Leviticus 5:19. It is a trespass-offering— Houbigant renders this, such shall be the trespass-offering: whosoever shall [thus] sin against the Lord, shall offer a trespass-offering. Those who refer to the Hebrew here, will not wonder to find a variety in the versions of it.REFLECTIONS.—As sacrilege is a very heinous sin, a more costly atonement is enjoined for it. Whoever through ignorance withheld the tythes or offerings due to the sanctuary, or any holy things dedicated to God;—when he found it out, he was required to bring a ram for an offering, and the whole value of the thing in money, and a fifth part over. Note; To make restitution for injustice, is a very mortifying exercise: but there can be no hope of pardon, while the wages of unrighteousness is kept back.

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