Leviticus 5:17 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Leviticus 5:17
And if a soul sin, and commit any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the LORD; though he wist it not, yet is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity.
to do or make · verb, niphal imperfect, 3rd person feminine plural
commandments
מִצְוֹ֣תmitz.Vot
H4687
a command · noun, common feminine plural construct
LORD
יְהוָ֔הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
wist
יָדַ֥עya.Da'
H3045
to know (properly · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
guilty
וְאָשֵׁ֖םve.'a.Shem
H816
to be guilty · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
bear
וְנָשָׂ֥אve.na.Sa'
H5375
to lift · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
iniquity
עֲוֹנֽוֹa.vo.No
H5771
perversity · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Leviticus 4:27 And if any one of the common people sin through ignorance, while he doeth somewhat against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning th…
Leviticus 4:13 And if the whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done somewh…
Leviticus 4:2-4 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning thin…
Psalms 19:12 Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.
Leviticus 4:22 When a ruler hath sinned, and done somewhat through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD his God concerning things which sh…
Leviticus 5:15 If a soul commit a trespass, and sin through ignorance, in the holy things of the LORD; then he shall bring for his trespass unto the LORD a…
Leviticus 5:1-2 And if a soul sin, and hear the voice of swearing, and is a witness, whether he hath seen or known of it; if he do not utter it, then he sha…
Luke 12:48 But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him s…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Leviticus 5:14–end
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 entrust…
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 doubtful cases,--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]. Th…
Shall make amends - Make restitution for the wrong he had done according to what is laid down in the preceding verse.
John Gill on Leviticus 5:17
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 Luke 12:48.
The Church Fathers
Whoever sins and does something that should not be done against any precept of the Lord and does not realize and become guilty and accept his sin, and offer a ram of the flock, without defect, according to the price of money, as a sacrifice for the crime to the priest; and the priest will make atonement for him because of the mistake he made without realizing it and he will be forgiven, because, indeed, he committed a crime before the Lord. Except for the unusual density of expressions, which must already be totally familiar by the continuous repetition of them, the whole meaning of this passage is obscure, because we can ask how this kind of sin is distinguished from those that the author mentioned before a general way The sense seems to require that for a certain kind of sins some kind of sacrifices must be used to atone for them. But what I have just said does not specifically express sin, but seems to remain in that generality, according to which, speaking before the subject, the Lord established that a bull be offered as a sacrifice for the priest, and a bull also for all the assembly, a goat for the chief, and a goat or, if you prefer, a sheep, female cattle, for any soul, that is, for any man (Cf Lv 4). Afterwards, some kinds of sins were excepted, and to expressly say what sacrifice had to be offered for each of the sins, such as, for example, the perjury, heard and hidden, of someone; touching a corpse or an impure thing; the false oath by inadvertence, by which it was necessary to offer a sheep of the sheep, or a goat of the goats, or a pair of turtledoves, or a pair of pigeon pigeons, or the tenth part of a measure of flour of flour . For the one who had sinned, usurping by forgetfulness something of the holy things, the Lord ordered to offer a ram and the restitution of the thing, adding a fifth more. Now, without expressly saying the kind of sin, it is added in a general way: Whoever sins and does something that should not be done against any precept of the Lord - in that general statement it said: Something that will not be done against the precepts of the Lord -And do not realize and become guilty, that is, sin by ignorance without wanting to, offers to offer a ram, not a goat or a female sheep, as he had previously ordered, when speaking of sins in that general way. What does this mixture then mean? When saying here: Because he committed a…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Ignorance · SINS OF — SINS OF
Offerings · Different kinds of: Trespass — Different kinds of: Trespass
Trespass Offering · To be offered: For any sin of ignorance — To be offered: For any sin of ignorance
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Calvin on Leviticus 5:14–end
Leviticus 5:14-19
14. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
14. Loquutus est insuper Jehova ad Mosen, dicendo:
15. If a soul commit a trespass, and sin through ignorance, in the holy things of the LORD; then he shall bring for his trespass unto the LORD a ram without blemish out of the flocks, with thy estimation by shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering:
15. Anima quum praevaricata fuerit praevaricationem, et peccaverit per errorem in una re ex sanctificationibus Jehovae, adducat oblationem pro delicto suo Jehovae, arietem perfectum de pecudibus, secundum aestimationem tuam argenti siculorum, secundum siculum sanctitatis pro delicto.
16. And he…
(Ch. 5:14-6:7)
(Note: In the original the division of verses in the Hebrew text is followed; but we have thought it better to keep to the arrangement adopted in our English version. - Tr.)
The Trespass-Offerings. - These were presented for special sins, by which a person had contracted guilt, and therefore they are not included in the general festal sacrifices. Three kinds of offences are mentioned in this section as requiring trespass-offerings. The first is, "if a soul commit a breach of trust, and sin in going wrong in the holy gifts of Jehovah." מעל, lit., to cover, hence מעיל the cloak, over-coat, signifies to act secretly, unfaithfully, especially against Jehovah, either by falling awa…
This paragraph provides general principles for the guilt offering. Even if unaware of the infraction, an individual was guilty and had to provide the appropriate guilt offering. This applied to both sacred and secular property (5:14-16; 6:1-7).
Rashi on Leviticus 5:17
ולא ידע ואשם … והביא [AND IF A SOUL SIN, AND DO ANY OF THESE THINGS WHICH SHOULD NOT BE DONE …] AND HE DOES NOT DISCOVER THAT HE IS GUILTY … HE SHALL BRING [A RAM … FOR A GUILT OFFERING] — This paragraph (vv. 17—19) is speaking of a person to whom there has occurred a כרת ספק (i. e. it is speaking of a person who is doubtful whether he has inadvertently committed an act of such a character as to be punishable with כרת if done willfully), and he does not know whether he has actually committed a sinful act or not. For instance: חלב (fat forbidden to be eaten under the penalty of כרת) and permitted fat (שומן) lay before him, and he believed that both were permissible food (i. e. that both were…
