Matthew Henry on Numbers 15:22-29
We have here the laws concerning sacrifices for sins of ignorance; the Jews understand it of idolatry, or false worship, through the error of their teachers. The case here supposed is that they had not observed all these commandments, Num 15:22, Num 15:23. If they had failed in the offerings of their acknowledgment, and had not brought them according to the law, then they must bring an offering of atonement, yea, though the omission had been through forgetfulness or mistake. If they failed in one part of the ceremony, they must make it up by the observance of another part, which was in the nature of a remedial law. 1. The case is put of a national sin, committed through ignorance, and become…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Numbers 15:24
if aught be committed by ignorance--The Mosaic ritual was complicated, and the ceremonies to be gone through in the various instances of purification which are specified, would expose a worshipper, through ignorance, to the risk of omitting or neglecting some of them. This law includes the stranger in the number of those for whom the sacrifice was offered for the sin of general ignorance.
John Gill on Numbers 15:25
And the priest shall make an atonement for all the congregation of the children of Israel;.... By offering a sin offering for them, a type of Christ, the propitiation not only for the sins of the people among the Jews, but throughout the whole world, 1 John 2:2,
and it shall be forgiven them; as the sins of the Lord's people are forgiven them through the blood of Christ, and on account of his stoning sacrifice and satisfaction made for them:
for it is ignorance; a sin of ignorance, for which reason Christ pleads for pardon on the foot of his sacrifice, and his people receive it, Luke 23:34; for that this sin was forgiven on the score of a sacrifice appears by what follows:
and they shall…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin on Numbers 15:22-29