Leviticus 5: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The chapter lists cases in which a person becomes guilty: not speaking up when called on to testify, touching something unclean, and making a rash oath. In each case the person must confess and bring an offering, with the offering scaled to what he can afford, from a female lamb or goat, to two birds, to a tenth of an ephah of flour. The LORD then speaks to Moses about a second kind of case, a wrong done to the holy things of the LORD without meaning it, and a breaking of the LORD's commands that the person did not know about, both requiring a ram without flaw, and in the first case repayment plus a fifth added.

Claim by Claim

1. 5:1
   • If a person sins by hearing a public adjuration to testify, this case applies.
   • The person is a witness, having either seen the matter or come to know of it.
   • If he does not report what he knows, he shall bear his iniquity.
2. 5:2
   • This case applies if a person touches anything unclean.
   • The unclean thing may be the carcass of an unclean wild animal.
   • The unclean thing may be the carcass of unclean livestock.
   • The unclean thing may be the carcass of an unclean swarming creature.
   • The matter may be hidden from him, so that he is unaware of it.
   • He is unclean.
   • He is guilty.
3. 5:3
   • This case applies if a person touches human uncleanness.
   • The uncleanness may be any uncleanness by which a person becomes defiled.
   • The matter may be hidden from him, so that he is unaware of it.
   • When he comes to know of it, he is guilty.
4. 5:4
   • This case applies if a person swears rashly with his lips.
   • The oath may be to do harm or to do good.
   • The case covers any matter about which a person rashly swears an oath.
   • The matter may be hidden from him, so that he is unaware of it.
   • When he comes to know of it, he is guilty in one of these matters.
5. 5:5
   • When a person becomes guilty in one of these ways, he shall confess the sin he has committed.
6. 5:6
   • He shall bring his guilt offering to the LORD for the sin he has committed.
   • The offering is a female from the flock.
   • The female may be a ewe lamb or a female goat.
   • It is brought as a sin offering.
   • The priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin.
7. 5:7
   • If he cannot afford a sheep, this alternative applies.
   • He shall bring to the LORD, for the sin he has committed, two turtledoves or two young pigeons.
   • One bird is for a sin offering.
   • The other bird is for a burnt offering.
8. 5:8
   • He shall bring the birds to the priest.
   • The priest shall offer the one for the sin offering first.
   • The priest shall wring the bird's head at the front of its neck.
   • The priest shall not sever the head from the body.
9. 5:9
   • He shall sprinkle some of the blood of the sin offering on the side of the altar.
   • The rest of the blood shall be drained out at the base of the altar.
   • It is a sin offering.
10. 5:10
    • He shall offer the second bird as a burnt offering according to the prescribed ordinance.
    • The priest shall make atonement for him for the sin he has committed.
    • He shall be forgiven.
11. 5:11
    • If he cannot afford two turtledoves or two young pigeons, this alternative applies.
    • The one who sinned shall bring as his offering a tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering.
    • He shall put no oil on it.
    • He shall put no frankincense on it.
    • The reason for withholding oil and frankincense is that it is a sin offering.
12. 5:12
    • He shall bring the flour to the priest.
    • The priest shall take a handful of it as a memorial portion.
    • The priest shall burn it on the altar upon the offerings made by fire to the LORD.
    • It is a sin offering.
13. 5:13
    • The priest shall make atonement for him concerning the sin he has committed in any one of these ways.
    • He shall be forgiven.
    • The remainder shall belong to the priest, as in the grain offering.
14. 5:14
    • The LORD spoke to Moses.
    • The LORD said the following.
15. 5:15
    • This case applies if a person acts unfaithfully and sins unintentionally regarding the holy things of the LORD.
    • He shall bring his guilt offering to the LORD.
    • The offering is a ram without blemish from the flock.
    • The ram is valued in silver shekels according to the sanctuary shekel.
    • It is a guilt offering.
16. 5:16
    • He shall make restitution for the harm he did regarding the holy thing.
    • He shall add a fifth of its value to it.
    • He shall give it to the priest.
    • The priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering.
    • He shall be forgiven.
17. 5:17
    • This case applies if a person sins by doing any of the things the LORD's commandments forbid.
    • He may not have known that he did it.
    • He is nevertheless guilty.
    • He shall bear his iniquity.
18. 5:18
    • He shall bring to the priest a ram without blemish from the flock, at the set valuation, as a guilt offering.
    • The priest shall make atonement for him concerning the error he committed unknowingly.
    • He shall be forgiven.
19. 5:19
    • It is a guilt offering.
    • He has certainly incurred guilt before the LORD.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

5:1

"Soul" in the King James simply means a person, a human being; it does not refer to a soul as distinct from a body. The situation described is a public adjuration: when a crime or loss had occurred and the culprit was unknown, a call went out in the community, backed by an oath or curse, requiring anyone with knowledge to come forward. Someone who had seen or heard something and stayed silent came under that oath himself. "Bear his iniquity" is a legal phrase meaning he carries the liability for the wrong and answers for it.

5:2

"Unclean" is a ritual status, not dirtiness or sin. Certain animals, and contact with dead bodies, made a person temporarily unfit to approach the sanctuary or eat holy food until the prescribed washing and waiting had been done. "Creeping things" covers small animals that move close to the ground, lizards, mice, insects and the like.

5:3

"Human uncleanness" refers to the bodily conditions treated elsewhere in Leviticus: contact with a corpse, bodily discharges, childbirth, certain skin diseases. Again the issue is ritual status, not hygiene or wrongdoing.

5:4

The oath in view is a rash one, a promise blurted out without thought, to do something or to abstain from something, which the speaker then forgets or cannot keep. In this culture an oath spoken aloud was binding whether or not it was meant seriously.

5:5

Confession here means saying out loud what you actually did. Most sacrificial procedure was silent physical action, so naming the specific wrong is a separate and deliberate step in this ritual.

5:6

The King James uses two different terms in this verse, "trespass offering" and "sin offering," translating two Hebrew words that are otherwise distinct sacrifices. Here the two are used together, which is unusual and much discussed. "Make an atonement" translates a verb meaning to wipe clean or to cover over, the priest's act of clearing the offerer's liability by means of the sacrifice.

5:7

A turtledove is a small wild dove, nothing to do with turtles. The graded scale here (lamb, then birds, then flour) lets a poor person make the same offering at a cost he can meet; the birds were the cheapest livestock available.

5:8

The priest pinches or twists through the bird's neck to kill it and release the blood, but leaves the head attached, since the whole small carcass is needed for the ritual that follows.

5:9

The altar stood in the courtyard of the sanctuary; blood poured at its base drained into the ground there. Blood was the element that carried the ritual effect of the sacrifice.

5:10

A burnt offering was burned up entirely on the altar rather than eaten. "According to the manner" means following the standard procedure already set out for such offerings.

5:11

An ephah was a dry measure of roughly twenty to twenty-two liters, so a tenth of one is about two liters, a couple of quarts of flour. Frankincense is a fragrant tree resin, expensive and imported, burned for its scent. Oil and frankincense normally went with a grain offering; both are left off here because this flour is standing in for a sin offering, not a gift.

5:12

The "memorial portion" translates a Hebrew term for the handful burned on the altar to represent the whole offering, the part that goes up in smoke on God's behalf, while the rest stays with the priests.

5:13

"Meat offering" in 1611 English meant a food offering, and here specifically the grain offering of flour described in Leviticus 2; "meat" had not yet narrowed to mean flesh. Priests lived off these portions, which is why the remainder is theirs.

5:14

Moses was the leader who talked with God for the people.

5:15

"The holy things of the LORD" are goods owed or dedicated to the sanctuary (tithes, firstfruits, offerings, property vowed to God) which a person might use or consume by mistake. A shekel was a weight of silver, not a coin (coinage did not yet exist), about eleven or twelve grams; "the shekel of the sanctuary" was the official standard weight kept at the sanctuary, to stop disputes over short measure. "Without blemish" means physically sound and unmarked, the requirement for any animal brought to the altar.

5:16

Restitution plus a fifth, twenty per cent, was the standard penalty rate for wrongful use of another's property. The compensation goes to the priests as the sanctuary's representatives, and is separate from the ram sacrificed.

5:17

"Wist" is an old past tense of a verb meaning to know: he did not know. The point of the paragraph is that guilt attaches to the act even when the person was unaware of it, and must still be dealt with once discovered.

5:18

"With thy estimation" means valued at the proper amount, that is, assessed against the sanctuary's standard weight so that the ram is genuinely worth what the law asks. The "thy" is addressed to Moses, who is being given the instructions.

5:19

"Trespass" in the King James is not about crossing onto someone's land. The Hebrew word means a debt of guilt that has to be settled, which is why this particular offering pairs a sacrifice with actual repayment.