Leviticus 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD gives Moses rules for the guilt offering in cases where someone cheats or robs a neighbor, lies about a deposit or lost property, or swears falsely: the offender pays back the full value plus a fifth, and brings a ram to the priest. The LORD then gives Moses instructions for the priests about the burnt offering and the fire on the altar that is to be kept burning, about the grain offering and the part Aaron's sons eat, about the offering Aaron and his sons bring on the day he is anointed, and about the sin offering, including which pots are broken or scoured and which sin offerings may not be eaten.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • The LORD spoke to Moses.
   • The LORD told Moses to say the following.
2. 6:2
   • If a person sins and commits an act of unfaithfulness against the LORD, this law applies.
   • The sin includes deceiving a neighbor about something entrusted to him for safekeeping.
   • The sin includes deceiving a neighbor about a pledge or security given into his hand.
   • The sin includes deceiving a neighbor about something taken by robbery.
   • The sin includes having extorted or oppressed his neighbor.
3. 6:3
   • The sin includes finding something that was lost and lying about it.
   • The sin includes swearing falsely about it.
   • The law covers any one of all these things that a person may do, sinning by them.
4. 6:4
   • When he has sinned and is guilty, he must make restitution.
   • He must return what he took by robbery.
   • He must return what he obtained by extortion.
   • He must return the deposit entrusted to him for safekeeping.
   • He must return the lost thing that he found.
5. 6:5
   • He must return anything about which he swore falsely.
   • He must restore it in full, at its principal value.
   • He must add a fifth of its value to it.
   • He must give it to the person to whom it belongs.
   • He must pay it on the day his guilt is established, when he brings his guilt offering.
6. 6:6
   • He must bring his guilt offering to the LORD.
   • The guilt offering is a ram without blemish from the flock.
   • The ram is to be of the assessed value set by the priest.
   • He brings the guilt offering to the priest.
7. 6:7
   • The priest shall make atonement for him before the LORD.
   • He shall be forgiven for any of the things he did to incur guilt.
8. 6:8
   • The LORD spoke to Moses.
   • The LORD told Moses to say the following.
9. 6:9
   • Moses is to command Aaron and his sons.
   • This is the law of the burnt offering.
   • The burnt offering is to stay on the hearth of the altar all night until morning.
   • The fire of the altar is to be kept burning on it.
10. 6:10
    • The priest shall put on his linen garment.
    • He shall put linen undergarments on his body.
    • He shall take up the ashes of the burnt offering that the fire has consumed on the altar.
    • He shall place the ashes beside the altar.
11. 6:11
    • He shall take off those garments.
    • He shall put on other garments.
    • He shall carry the ashes outside the camp.
    • He shall carry them to a ceremonially clean place.
12. 6:12
    • The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it.
    • The fire must not be extinguished.
    • The priest shall arrange wood on the fire every morning.
    • He shall arrange the burnt offering on the wood.
    • He shall burn on it the fat portions of the peace offerings.
13. 6:13
    • The fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually.
    • The fire shall never go out.
14. 6:14
    • This is the law of the grain offering.
    • The sons of Aaron shall present it before the LORD.
    • They shall present it in front of the altar.
15. 6:15
    • The priest shall take a handful of the fine flour of the grain offering.
    • He shall take some of its oil.
    • He shall take all the frankincense that is on the grain offering.
    • He shall burn this on the altar as a pleasing aroma.
    • What he burns is the memorial portion of the offering to the LORD.
16. 6:16
    • Aaron and his sons shall eat the remainder of the grain offering.
    • It must be eaten unleavened.
    • It must be eaten in a holy place.
    • They shall eat it in the courtyard of the tent of meeting.
17. 6:17
    • It must not be baked with leaven.
    • The LORD has given it to them as their portion of his offerings made by fire.
    • It is most holy.
    • It is most holy like the sin offering and like the guilt offering.
18. 6:18
    • Every male among the children of Aaron may eat of it.
    • This is a perpetual statute throughout your generations concerning the offerings of the LORD made by fire.
    • Whoever or whatever touches them shall be holy, though whether this means becoming holy or being required to be holy is not made explicit.
19. 6:19
    • The LORD spoke to Moses.
    • The LORD told Moses to say the following.
20. 6:20
    • This is the offering of Aaron and of his sons.
    • They shall present it to the LORD on the day he is anointed.
    • The offering is a tenth of an ephah of fine flour.
    • It is a perpetual grain offering.
    • Half of it is offered in the morning.
    • Half of it is offered in the evening.
21. 6:21
    • It shall be prepared with oil on a griddle.
    • When it is soaked or well-mixed, you shall bring it in.
    • You shall present the grain offering in baked pieces.
    • It is a pleasing aroma to the LORD.
22. 6:22
    • The anointed priest from among Aaron's sons who succeeds him shall prepare it.
    • It is a perpetual statute to the LORD.
    • It shall be burned completely.
23. 6:23
    • Every grain offering of a priest shall be burned completely.
    • It shall not be eaten.
24. 6:24
    • The LORD spoke to Moses.
    • The LORD told Moses to say the following.
25. 6:25
    • Moses is to speak to Aaron and to his sons.
    • This is the law of the sin offering.
    • The sin offering shall be slaughtered in the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered.
    • It shall be slaughtered before the LORD.
    • It is most holy.
26. 6:26
    • The priest who offers it for sin shall eat it.
    • It shall be eaten in a holy place.
    • It shall be eaten in the courtyard of the tent of meeting.
27. 6:27
    • Whatever touches its flesh shall be holy, though whether this means becoming holy or being required to be holy is not made explicit.
    • If any of its blood is spattered on a garment, the spattered item must be washed.
    • The washing must be done in a holy place.
28. 6:28
    • The earthen vessel in which it is boiled must be broken.
    • If it is boiled in a bronze pot, the pot must be scoured.
    • The bronze pot must also be rinsed with water.
29. 6:29
    • Every male among the priests may eat of it.
    • It is most holy.
30. 6:30
    • No sin offering whose blood is brought into the tent of meeting to make atonement in the holy place may be eaten.
    • Such an offering shall be burned in the fire.

Words Worth Explaining

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

6:1

In Hebrew Bibles these first seven verses are numbered as the end of chapter 5 (5:20–26), and chapter 6 begins at what English Bibles call verse 8. English chapter numbers here follow the old Latin division, so cross-references between editions can be off by seven verses in this chapter.

6:2

"A pledge" is property handed over to guarantee a loan or a bargain, to be returned when the debt is settled. The cases listed (a deposit left for safekeeping, a pledge, robbery, extortion) are all ordinary property crimes; they count as unfaithfulness "to the LORD" because settling such a dispute involved swearing an oath in God's name, so lying about it made God a witness to the lie.

6:3

Where no witnesses existed, a dispute was settled by making the accused swear an oath in God's name that he was telling the truth. That is why cheating a neighbor is described as an offense "against the LORD": the lie was backed by God's name.

6:5

"A fifth" is twenty percent added on top of the full value returned, the penalty payment. It goes to the person wronged, not to the sanctuary.

6:6

A "guilt offering" (KJV "trespass offering") is the Hebrew *asham*, the sacrifice prescribed where someone has defrauded another party or misused something sacred, and which normally goes with making good the loss. The KJV's "with thy estimation" means the animal had to meet a fixed valuation in silver, assessed by the priest, rather than being any ram at all.

6:7

"Atonement" translates a Hebrew verb whose root sense is to wipe clean or to cover over. It describes what the ritual does to the offense or the impurity: it removes it, rather than describing a feeling in the worshiper.

6:9

A "burnt offering" is an animal burned up entirely on the altar; unlike other sacrifices, no part of it was eaten by anyone. "The hearth of the altar" is the flat burning surface on top.

6:10

Priests wore plain linen, not the ornate high-priestly robes, for this dirty morning chore. The linen undergarments (KJV "breeches") were required at the altar for modesty, since the altar was approached by a ramp or steps.

6:11

"Clean" here is a ritual category, not a matter of dirt: a place not disqualified by contact with corpses, disease, or anything else the law counted as defiling. The ashes had come off the altar and so could not simply be dumped anywhere.

6:12

"Peace offerings" (also translated fellowship or well-being offerings) were sacrifices whose meat was shared and eaten by the worshipers at a meal; only the fat portions and certain organs went up on the altar. Fat was regarded as God's share and was never eaten.

6:14

The KJV's "meat offering" is not meat in the modern sense. In 1611 "meat" meant food of any kind, and this offering was flour, oil and incense, no animal at all.

6:15

Frankincense is a fragrant resin tapped from trees in southern Arabia and East Africa, imported and expensive. The "memorial portion" is the token handful burned on the altar to represent the whole gift; the word suggests bringing the giver to mind before God.

6:16

"The tent of meeting" is what the KJV calls "the tabernacle of the congregation", the portable sanctuary, so named because it was where God met with Israel. Its courtyard was the enclosed open area around the altar, outside the tent proper. Leaven (yeast, or more precisely a lump of fermented dough kept back from a previous batch) was excluded from what was burned or eaten as holy food.

6:17

"Most holy" is a technical grade, not just emphasis. Offerings in this class could be eaten only by priests, only by males, and only inside the sanctuary courtyard; offerings of the lesser grade could be eaten by a priest's whole household anywhere ritually clean.

6:18

The last sentence is genuinely ambiguous in Hebrew and has been read two ways since antiquity: that whatever touches these offerings catches their holiness and is thereby withdrawn from ordinary use, or that only someone already in a state of holiness may touch them. The wording here preserves the ambiguity.

6:20

To "anoint" is to install someone in office by pouring or smearing scented olive oil on the head, the physical act that made a man a priest. An ephah was a dry measure of roughly twenty-two liters, so a tenth of an ephah is about two liters or two quarts of flour, something over a kilogram. The Hebrew leaves it unclear whether this is a one-time offering made on the day of installation or a daily offering that begins then and continues permanently; the text says both "on the day he is anointed" and "perpetual."

6:21

The "pan" is a flat griddle or baking plate, not a deep vessel. The Hebrew word behind the KJV's "baken pieces" occurs only here and its meaning is uncertain; ancient and modern translators have guessed variously at "well-soaked," "well-kneaded," and "broken into pieces."

6:22

"In his place" means as Aaron's successor in the office of high priest, the rule applies to each holder of the office in turn, not only to Aaron.

6:23

Priests lived on portions of the offerings other people brought. An offering made by a priest himself was burned completely so that he did not simply receive his own gift back as a meal.

6:25

The Hebrew for "sin offering" (*chattat*) is built on the word for sin but describes what the rite does: it purges or decontaminates. Many translators render it "purification offering," since it was also required after childbirth and recovery from disease, where no wrongdoing was involved.

6:26

"Holy place" here means the sanctuary courtyard, the walled enclosure around the altar, not the curtained inner room of the tent that verse 30 calls the holy place. The same phrase covers both, and the context decides which is meant.

6:27

As in verse 18, the Hebrew can mean that whatever touches the flesh becomes holy or that only what is already holy may touch it. Blood splashed onto clothing carried the offering's holy status, so the garment could not simply be laundered anywhere.

6:28

Unglazed clay is porous and absorbs what is cooked in it, so the vessel could not be purged and had to be destroyed. Bronze is non-porous, so scouring and rinsing were enough.

6:30

This distinguishes two kinds of sin offering described earlier in Leviticus. In the ordinary case the blood was applied to the altar in the courtyard and the priests ate the meat. When the offering was for the high priest or for the whole community, the blood was carried inside the tent itself, and the carcass was burned outside the camp rather than eaten.