The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Laws for Guilt Offerings
Leviticus 5:14–19 — Laws for Guilt Offerings. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
14Then the LORD said to Moses,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
Yah·weh way·ḏab·bêr ’el- mō·šeh lê·mōr
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying:
Where the English smooths the original
As the introductory formula implies, this is another communication made to the lawgiver at a different time, and sets forth a further development of the laws respecting the trespass offering.Ellicott reads the renewed "And the LORD spake" as a section-marker: a new oracle opening the law of the guilt offering.
Out of the tabernacle of the congregation, Leviticus 1:1 he continued to speak to him: saying, as follows.Gill binds this oracle to Leviticus 1:1 — the same unbroken voice from the tent.
The trespass-offerings as they are described in this section and in Leviticus 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.Barnes opens his note on the whole section by naming the first and governing distinctive: the guilt offering redresses an injury to property — even God's.
The special lesson of the trespass offering is the need of satisfaction as well as of oblation, and thus it supplies a representation of one feature in the great Antitype, who was the "full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world."The Pulpit Commentary states the section's thesis: satisfaction added to oblation — the feature it sees fulfilled in Christ (quoting the Prayer Book's communion office).
15“If someone acts unfaithfully and sins unintentionally against any of the LORD’s holy things, he must bring his guilt offering to the LORD: an unblemished ram from the flock, of proper value in silver shekels according to the sanctuary shekel; it is a guilt offering.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî- ne·p̄eš ṯim·‘ōl ma·‘al wə·ḥā·ṭə·’āh biš·ḡā·ḡāh Yah·weh miq·qā·ḏə·šê wə·hê·ḇî ’eṯ- ’ă·šā·mōw Yah·weh tā·mîm ’a·yil min- haṣ·ṣōn bə·‘er·kə·ḵā ke·sep̄- šə·qā·lîm haq·qō·ḏeš bə·še·qel- lə·’ā·šām
Literal — word-for-word from the original
If a soul acts a breach of trust and sins inadvertently against the holy things of Yahweh, then he shall bring his guilt to Yahweh — an unblemished ram from the flock, by your valuation in silver shekels, by the shekel of the sanctuary, for a guilt offering.
Where the English smooths the original
The word used here for trespass is not the same which is so rendered in Leviticus 5:19 , and from which the noun rendered in this very chapter by trespass offering ( Leviticus 5:6-7 ; Leviticus 5:15-16 ; Leviticus 5:19 ), is derived. It literally denotes to cover, then to act covertly, to be faithless, especially in matters of a sacred covenantEllicott separates the two Hebrew roots English blurs as "trespass": mâʻal (cover, act covertly) here, ’âshâm (guilt) elsewhere.
מעל, lit., to cover, hence מעיל the cloak, over-coat, signifies to act secretly, unfaithfully, especially against Jehovah, either by falling away from Him into idolatry, by which the fitting honour was withheld from JehovahKeil traces the metaphor: mâʻal is faithlessness as a thing done "under cover," like the cloak (mᵉʻîl) it is cognate with.
The Heb. word ( mâ‘al ) here and in Leviticus 6:2 is different from that which is rendered ‘be guilty,’ ‘bring guilt,’ and ‘guilt offering’ ( trespass offering A.V.) in Leviticus 4:3 to Leviticus 5:7 ( ’âshâm ). It means ‘to deal deceitfully.’Cambridge fixes the lexical fork precisely: mâʻal (deal deceitfully) versus ’âshâm (be guilty).
With thy estimation; as thou shalt esteem or rate it, thou, O priest, as appears from Leviticus 5:16 ,18 6:6 22:14 27:2,3 ; and at present, thou, O Moses, Leviticus 27:3 , for he as yet performed the priest’s part.Poole recovers the suppressed "thy" of bᵉʻerkᵉkā: the valuation is the priest's — and, for now, Moses' own office.
16Regarding any holy thing he has harmed, he must make restitution by adding a fifth of its value to it and giving it to the priest, who will make atonement on his behalf with the ram as a guilt offering, and he will be forgiven.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
haq·qō·ḏeš ḥā·ṭā min- wə·’êṯ ’ă·šer yə·šal·lêm wə·’eṯ- yō·w·sêp̄ ḥă·mî·ši·ṯōw ‘ā·lāw wə·nā·ṯan ’ō·ṯōw lak·kō·hên wə·hak·kō·hên yə·ḵap·pêr ‘ā·lāw bə·’êl hā·’ā·šām wə·nis·laḥ lōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And what he sinned against the holy thing he shall make whole, and its fifth he shall add upon it, and give it to the priest; and the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering, and it shall be forgiven him.
Where the English smooths the original
As the sacrifice was simply to atone for the transgression, the offender was in the first place to make restitution of the full value of the principal which he had inadvertently appropriated.Ellicott orders the two acts: restitution of the principal first, then sacrifice to atone.
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 thisGill, citing Ben Gersom: the added fifth is owed by every rank without distinction — high priest and pauper pay alike.
Shall add the fifth part; so much they were to add to holy things redeemed, Leviticus 27:13 ,15,19 .Poole links the added fifth to the law of redemption in Leviticus 27 — the same surcharge for reclaiming what is holy.
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.JFB sets the two demands side by side: monetary restitution (priest-assessed) and the ram — both due the moment the "involuntary fraud" comes to light.
17If someone sins and violates any of the LORD’s commandments even though he was unaware, he is guilty and shall bear his punishment.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’im- ne·p̄eš kî ṯe·ḥĕ·ṭā wə·‘ā·śə·ṯāh ’a·ḥaṯ mik·kāl Yah·weh miṣ·wōṯ ’ă·šer lō wə·lō- ṯê·‘ā·śe·nāh yā·ḏa‘ wə·’ā·šêm wə·nā·śā ‘ă·wō·nōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And if a soul sins, and does any of all the commandments of Yahweh which are not to be done, and he did not know — yet he is guilty, and he shall bear his iniquity.
Where the English smooths the original
the case here supposed is that of one who fears that he has been guilty of some infringement of the Divine commands, but cannot specify it . He brings a ram as Guilt-Offering (in the same manner as in the preceding case (15, 16)), but no restitution is demanded as the amount cannot be estimated, since the offence remains unknown.Cambridge defines the case: a troubled conscience that cannot name its sin — the "suspended" guilt offering, with no restitution because nothing can be reckoned.
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.Barnes states the principle baldly: ignorance does not dissolve the obligation, because guilt is objective.
The former law concerns the alienation of holy things from sacred to common use; this may concern other miscarriages about holy things and holy duties, as may be gathered from Leviticus 5:19 , where this is said to be a trespass against the Lord, not in a general sense, for so every sin was, but in a proper and peculiar sense.Benson distinguishes this second case from the first: not the diverting of holy things, but other failures in holy duties — still "against the LORD" in the proper sense.
That is, remembers after that he has sinned when his conscience accuses him.The Geneva note glosses "bear his iniquity" as the awakening of conscience — guilt felt only in retrospect.
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 offeringJFB gives the rabbis' concrete picture of the doubtful case: a scrupulous man who only suspects he ate a forbidden morsel must still bring the ram — conscience, not certainty, triggers the offering.
18He is to bring to the priest an unblemished ram of proper value from the flock as a guilt offering. Then the priest will make atonement on his behalf for the wrong he has committed in ignorance, and he will be forgiven.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·hê·ḇî ’el- hak·kō·hên tā·mîm ’a·yil bə·‘er·kə·ḵā min- haṣ·ṣōn lə·’ā·šām hak·kō·hên wə·ḵip·per ‘ā·lāw ‘al šiḡ·ḡā·ṯōw ’ă·šer- šā·ḡāḡ wə·hū lō- yā·ḏa‘ wə·nis·laḥ lōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And he shall bring an unblemished ram from the flock, by your valuation, for a guilt offering, to the priest; and the priest shall make atonement for him for his error which he strayed in — and he did not know — and it shall be forgiven him.
Where the English smooths the original
Better, though he wist or k new not, the precise sacred thing which he used, as the same phrase is rendered in the preceding verse. That is, to be on the right side, the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning this error of inadvertence, though the offender is uncertain whether he actually committed the offence or not.Ellicott reads the rite as a conscience-clearing precaution: atonement "to be on the right side" even when the offence itself is uncertain.
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 Leviticus 5:10 this is what the Jews call "Asham Talui", doubtful trespass offering.Gill names the rabbinic category — Asham Talui, the "suspended" guilt offering — and marks the one difference: no added fifth.
The expression, "and wist it not," refers to ignorance of the sin, and not of the divine commands; as may be clearly seen from Leviticus 5:18 : "the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his error, which he committed without knowing it."Keil settles what is unknown: not the law, but the fact of having broken it — the man is ignorant of his own sin, not of God's command.
Else if his sin against God come of malice, he must die; Nu 15:30.The Geneva note marks the boundary of the whole law: this mercy is for inadvertence only — high-handed sin meets death, not a ram.
19It is a guilt offering; he was certainly guilty before the LORD.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hū ’ā·šām ’ā·šōm ’ā·šam Yah·weh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
It is a guilt offering; he was surely guilty, guilty before Yahweh.
Where the English smooths the original
That is, though the prescribed fifth part is here dispensed with, it is still a trespass offering, for his conscience tells him that he has trespassed against the Lord.Ellicott reads the closing verse as conscience's verdict: the fifth is waived, but the guilt is real.
he hath certainly trespassed against the Lord; though committed ignorantly, and 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 sacrificeGill draws the universal: no sin of any kind is pardoned "without atonement made by sacrifice" — the law's whole logic in one line.
The true Christian daily pleads guilty before God, and seeks forgiveness through the blood of Christ. And the gospel salvation is so free, that the poorest is not shut out; and so full, that the most burdened conscience may find relief from it.Henry's verdict on the whole section (5:14–19): the daily plea of guilt and the free, full relief of the gospel for "the most burdened conscience."
the idea of satisfaction for the restoration of rights that had been violated or disturbed came into the foreground in the trespass-offeringKeil's structural thesis for the whole section: where the sin offering foregrounds expiation, the guilt offering foregrounds satisfaction for violated rights — the closing word on what distinguishes this sacrifice.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The section opens with a fresh oracle — Ellicott hears in the renewed "And the LORD spake" the "introductory formula" of "a further development of the laws respecting the trespass offering." But its first substantive word is a trap for the English reader. Where chapter 4 spoke of sin, here the wrong is a mâʻal (H4604), and the commentators converge to pry it apart from the word it is usually translated by. Cambridge is blunt: the word "is different from that which is rendered ‘be guilty,’ ‘bring guilt,’ and ‘guilt offering’" — "It means ‘to deal deceitfully.’" Keil supplies the picture: "מעל, lit., to cover, hence מעיל the cloak, over-coat, signifies to act secretly, unfaithfully, especially against Jehovah." Ellicott adds that it "literally denotes to cover, then to act covertly, to be faithless, especially in matters of a sacred covenant." The offence, then, is not a slip but a breach of trust — sacrilege under cover — even when, paradoxically, it is done bišgâgâh, inadvertently. The remedy is costly in proportion: an unblemished ram, valued in sanctuary shekels, because (as Benson and Poole agree) "the sin of sacrilege was greater."
What sets the guilt offering apart from the ordinary sin offering, Barnes says, is that it answers "offences which involved an injury to some person (it might be the Lord Himself) in respect to property," and so "were always accompanied by a pecuniary fine equal to the value of the injury done, with the addition of one-fifth." The verb is šâlam (H7999): the offender must make whole what he tore. Ellicott orders the two acts — "the offender was in the first place to make restitution of the full value of the principal" — and then the sacrifice atones. The added fifth, Poole notes, is the same surcharge owed for redeeming holy things in Leviticus 27, and Gill (after Maimonides) insists it falls on every rank alike: "the priest, the anointed, the prince, and a private person, for the law makes no difference between them." The Pulpit Commentary presses the principle into a single phrase — "Full satisfaction is the marked feature of the trespass offering" — and sends it forward to Zacchaeus, who "went far beyond his legal obligation" and restored fourfold. The machine layer notes what the voices assume: this is the one offering in which payment to the wronged and propitiation to God stand together in a single verse, yᵉšallêm beside yᵉkappêr.
The second case (vv.17–19) unsettles the modern conscience. A man may be obliged to bring a ram for a sin he only suspects he has committed. Cambridge draws the fine line the English blurs: the words "he knew it not" are "not the same as the Heb. expression rendered unwittingly"; this is "one who fears that he has been guilty... but cannot specify it," the Jews' ’âshâm tâluy, the "suspended" guilt offering — "a voluntary offering, [that] relieved a troubled conscience." Keil settles what is unknown: "ignorance of the sin, and not of the divine commands." Barnes states the hard principle that guilt is objective — "Ignorance of the Law... was not to excuse him from the obligation to offer the sacrifice" — while the Geneva note locates the moment the rite answers: when one "remembers after that he has sinned [and] his conscience accuses him." The closing verse, with its emphatic doubled root ’āšōm ’āšam, drives home the one certainty under all the doubt: "he hath certainly trespassed against the Lord." Henry's reflection on the whole section gathers it up: "The true Christian daily pleads guilty before God, and seeks forgiveness through the blood of Christ."
Read under Sola Scriptura, the law of the guilt offering measures sin by a standard the conscience alone cannot reach. Its first word, mâʻal, is a breach of trust done "under cover" — and the law declares it guilt even when committed inadvertently (bišgâgâh), even when the offender cannot name it and only fears it (vv.17–18). Two truths stand together that the modern mind keeps apart: guilt is objective (it inheres in the act, not in awareness, so the man who "wist it not" is still ’āšōm ’āšam, surely guilty), and forgiveness is never cheap (it requires both šâlam, the making-whole of restitution, and kâphar, the covering of blood, before the verb reserved for God alone, sâlach, can be spoken: "it shall be forgiven him"). The genius of the rite is that it joins the horizontal and the vertical in one verse — the wronged party is repaid and God is propitiated — and that it provides, in the doubtful offering, a way to lay down a guilt one cannot even articulate. The machine layer offers this as a reading to be tested against the whole of Scripture, not as a ruling: the guilt offering is the gospel's answer to the scrupulous conscience, an enacted promise that the burden borne (nāśā’ ‘āwôn, "bear his iniquity") can be lifted by a substitute — the very burden the Servant would one day carry, who was "a guilt offering" (Isaiah 53:10) for sins both known and unknown.
Guilt is reckoned by the deed, not the awareness — yet the same law that names a sin the sinner cannot, provides a ram to carry it away.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The doubtful offering is made "concerning his error which he strayed in" (v.18), and the verb is šâgag (H7683, "to go astray, to err inadvertently"). It is one of the rarest words in the Hebrew Bible — the Verifier confirms it occurs in only four verses in the entire canon. The same scarce verb surfaces in two of wisdom's most searching texts: Job's confession that with God "the deceived and the deceiver are his" (Job 12:16), and the psalmist's "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy word" (Psalm 119:67). The shared rare lexeme makes this a genuine verbal tie, not a thematic overlap: the Levitical law of unwitting wandering and the wisdom literature's reckoning with the heart that strays both reach for the same uncommon word.
Job 12:16 · Psalm 119:67
basis: Verifier-confirmed shared lexeme H7683 shâgag, which occurs in only 4 verses in the entire Hebrew Bible (incl. Lev 5:18, Job 12:16, Psalm 119:67). The low frequency makes the recurrence a verbal repetition rather than a generic theme; no quotation claim is made beyond the shared rare verb.
The defining verb of this section — mâʻal / maʻal (H4603/H4604), "to act treacherously, commit a breach of trust" — recurs at the head of the parallel restitution law in Numbers 5:6: "When a man or woman shall commit any sin... to do a trespass against the LORD." The Verifier links Leviticus 5:15 to Numbers 5:6 on the strength of this relatively rare pair (the verb in 35 verses, the noun in 29), together with the verb ’âsham (H816). Keil reads the two passages as one law, noting that Numbers 5:5–8 shows "not only a trespass against Jehovah, but an unjust withdrawal of the property of a neighbour... for which material compensation was to be made with the addition of a fifth of its value, just as in" Leviticus 5. The scarce shared root warrants a verbal tier; the matter (breach of trust + restitution + the fifth) confirms it.
Numbers 5:6 · Numbers 5:7 · Numbers 5:8
basis: Verifier-confirmed shared rare lexemes H4604 maʻal (29 vv) and H4603 mâʻal (35 vv) at Lev 5:15 ↔ Num 5:6, with H816 ʼâsham (32 vv); plus H817 ʼâshâm (41 vv), H2549 chămîyshîy (44 vv), H3254 yâçaph at Lev 5:16 ↔ Num 5:7. The low frequency of the mâʻal pair makes this a verbal link, and the restitution-plus-fifth parallel is the recorded basis.
The chapter's recurring qualifier bišgâgâh (H7684, "inadvertently," 18 verses) ties this guilt-offering law to the great inadvertent-sin legislation of Numbers 15, where the same word, joined to kâphar (atone) and sâlach (forgive), governs the offering "for all the congregation... seeing all the people were in ignorance" (Numbers 15:25–28). The Verifier returns Leviticus 5:18 ↔ Numbers 15:25 as verbal-grade on the cluster shᵉgâgâh + sâlach (H5545, 45 vv) + kâphar (H3722). The forgiveness-verb sâlach is itself notably restricted — used in Scripture only of God's pardon — so its recurrence as the seal of both laws is a real verbal cord, not a loose theme.
Numbers 15:25 · Numbers 15:26 · Numbers 15:28
basis: Verifier-confirmed shared lexemes H7684 shᵉgâgâh (18 vv), H5545 çâlach (45 vv), H3722 kâphar (94 vv) at Lev 5:18 ↔ Num 15:25. The two rarer members (shᵉgâgâh, and çâlach — used only of divine forgiveness) carry the verbal weight; the atonement-and-forgiveness formula for inadvertent sin is the recorded basis.
The second case (vv.17–19) is, Keil observes, "introduced with the formula used in Leviticus 4:27 in connection with those sins which were to be expiated by a sin-offering" — the sinner who does "any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord," as Gill renders v.17. The Verifier confirms the shared cluster ’âsham (H816), mitsvâh (H4687, commandment), châṭâ’ (H2398), and nephesh (H5315) binding Leviticus 5:17 to Leviticus 4:2, 4:22, and 4:27. These are mid-to-common cultic and legal words, and the link carries no quotation claim, so we tier it structural: the same legal pattern (an unwitting violation of a prohibitive command) is here routed to a guilt offering rather than a sin offering, a deliberate shared formula, not a rare verbal echo.
Leviticus 4:2 · Leviticus 4:27 · Leviticus 4:22
basis: Verifier-confirmed shared lexemes H816 ʼâsham (32 vv), H4687 mitsvâh (177 vv), H2398 châṭâʼ (220 vv), H5315 nephesh (683 vv) at Lev 5:17 ↔ Lev 4:27. Mid/common legal vocabulary recurring as a fixed legislative formula — a structural/legal pattern, not a verbal citation; tiered structural per the house rule.
The signature elements of this offering — an unblemished ram (’ayil, H352), from the flock (tsôʼn, H6629), by valuation (ʻêrek, H6187) — recur as a fixed sacrificial profile across the law. The Verifier links Leviticus 5:15 to Leviticus 6:6 (the closing rubric of this very section) by exactly this cluster, with ’âshâm and tâmîm; on the strength of the fairly rare ʻêrek (29 verses) it actually returns that single leg as verbal. We deliberately tier the whole thread one notch lower, structural, and say why: the bond is not a quotation but the recurring legal recipe of the guilt offering within one contiguous pericope (5:15 and 6:6 are the same law), and the other legs (Lev 19:22, 14:12) rest on the common ram-and-flock vocabulary and share only ’âshâm — so a structural framing is the honest, under-claiming description of the thread as a whole. Keil: "The animal sacrificed was always a ram, except in" the leper's and Nazarite's cases — a constant that "clearly distinguishes the trespass-offerings from the sin-offerings."
Leviticus 6:6 · Leviticus 19:22 · Leviticus 14:12
basis: Verifier-confirmed shared lexemes H6187 ʻêrek (29 vv), H817 ʼâshâm (41 vv), H8549 tâmîym (85 vv), H352 ʼayil (170 vv), H6629 tsôʼn (247 vv) at Lev 5:15 ↔ Lev 6:6; H817 ʼâshâm + H352 ʼayil at Lev 19:22; H817 ʼâshâm alone at Lev 14:12. The 6:6 leg returns Verifier-verbal on the rare ʻêrek, but the thread is deliberately under-claimed as structural: the bond is the fixed legal recipe of the guilt offering within one continuous pericope (5:15/6:6) and the recurring ram-profile, not a quotation, and the other legs rest on common cultic vocabulary.
The Pulpit Commentary reads the restitution-plus-fifth of v.16 forward across the Testaments: "Full satisfaction is the marked feature of the trespass offering. In Luke 19:8, 'Zacchaeus stood, and said,... if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore fourfold.' He went far beyond his legal obligation," and it pairs this with David's self-sentence, "He shall restore the lamb fourfold" (2 Samuel 12:6). The Luke leg is a figural and thematic reading argued by the human voice, not a verbal one: because Luke 19:8 is Greek, it cannot share a Hebrew Strong's number with Leviticus 5:16, and the Verifier correctly returns that pair as "no shared original-language lexeme." The 2 Samuel leg, however, is Hebrew-internal and lexically grounded: the Verifier confirms it shares the very restitution verb of v.16, šâlam (H7999, "make whole / repay"), so David's verdict on himself uses the same word the law uses for the offender — a structural tie, not a rare-lexeme quotation. The connection — restitution as the heart of true repentance — is real and ancient, argued from the matter and, for David, anchored by the shared verb.
Luke 19:8 · 2 Samuel 12:6
basis: Widely-held figural reading (Pulpit Commentary). Cross-Testament (Greek Luke ↔ Hebrew Leviticus) cannot use shared Strong's numbers; the Verifier returns "no shared original-language lexeme found" for Lev 5:16 ↔ Luke 19:8 — tiered typological/structural, argued from the matter, not from a verbal quotation. The 2 Samuel 12:6 leg is Hebrew-internal: the Verifier confirms it shares the restitution verb H7999 shâlam (107 vv) with Lev 5:16 — a structural tie on a mid-frequency verb (not the guilt-offering's signature vocabulary), so it too is below verbal tier.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The distinctive of the guilt offering — satisfaction added to oblation — was read by the human voices as a figure of Christ before the machine layer touched it. The Pulpit Commentary states it directly: "The special lesson of the trespass offering is the need of satisfaction as well as of oblation, and thus it supplies a representation of one feature in the great Antitype, who was the 'full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.'" Where the burnt offering pictured ascent and the sin offering pictured expiation, the guilt offering uniquely pictures satisfaction made — the wrong repaid in full. The New-Testament fulfilment (Hebrews 10; Isaiah 53:10, where the Servant is made "a guilt offering," ’âshâm) is conceptual and Septuagintal, not lexical, since a Greek text cannot share a Hebrew Strong's number; it is presented as a long-attested typological reading.
Leviticus 5:15 · Leviticus 5:16 · Isaiah 53:10 · Hebrews 10:12
The verdict of v.17 — the guilty "shall bear his iniquity" (wᵉnāśā’ ‘ăwōnōw, H5375 + H5771) — uses the very idiom the law will later place on the scapegoat, who "shall bear (nâsâ’) upon him all their iniquities (‘âwôn)" (Leviticus 16:22), and which Isaiah lays on the Servant who "shall bear their iniquities" (Isaiah 53:11). Gill reads the guilt as a load that must be discharged — the offender "is liable to punishment, and must make an atonement and satisfaction for it" — and Henry sees the gospel answer: "The true Christian daily pleads guilty before God, and seeks forgiveness through the blood of Christ." The machine layer offers this as a Hebrew-internal motif (the same nāśā’ ‘āwôn word-pair) read typologically to Christ. We do not tier this leg verbal: the Verifier returns Lev 5:17 ↔ Lev 16:22 as structural, since both members of the idiom — nâsâ’ (H5375, 612 vv) and ‘âwôn (H5771, 215 vv) — are common words, and the Lev 5:17 ↔ Isaiah 53:11 pair shares only the common ‘âwôn (no shared bearing-verb in the index). The shared idiom is real and the figural application to Christ is long-held, but the link rests on a recurring motif, not a rare-lexeme quotation, and is marked as such.
Leviticus 5:17 · Leviticus 16:22 · Isaiah 53:11
The doubtful offering (vv.17–19) provides what no other rite does: a covering for guilt the offender cannot specify, only fears. Cambridge names it "a voluntary offering, [that] relieved a troubled conscience," and Henry draws the line straight to the gospel: the salvation in Christ is "so full, that the most burdened conscience may find relief from it." The writer to the Hebrews makes the contrast explicit — the blood of bulls and goats could not "purge your conscience" (Hebrews 9:14), but the blood of Christ does. This is the typological trajectory the voices trace: the suspended guilt offering is a shadow of the cleansing the New Testament locates in Christ, who answers not only the sins we confess but the iniquity we cannot articulate. The link is conceptual across Testaments, not a shared Strong's number, and is marked widely-held.
Leviticus 5:17 · Leviticus 5:18 · Hebrews 9:14 · Hebrews 10:22
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
On the two Hebrew words English flattens as "trespass." This section turns on a distinction invisible in most English Bibles, and the voices labour to recover it. The opening offence (vv.15–16) is mâʻal (H4603/H4604), "breach of trust, faithlessness under cover"; the offering that answers it is ’âshâm (H817), "guilt" — a wholly different root. Ellicott, Barnes, Cambridge, and Keil all flag this explicitly. The literal renderings above preserve "breach of trust" for mâʻal and "guilt" for ’âshâm so the reader can see the two roots the AV's blanket "trespass" conceals.
On the rare-lexeme thread (v.18, šâgag, H7683). The Verifier returns šâgag as occurring in only four verses in the whole Hebrew Bible — genuinely rare — so its links to Job 12:16 and Psalm 119:67 are tiered verbal. We have not inflated the mid-frequency links the same way: the Leviticus 4 / Leviticus 5:17 tie rests on common cultic and legal words, carries no quotation claim, and is therefore tiered structural, not verbal. The ram-of-valuation tie is the one borderline case — its Lev 6:6 leg returns Verifier-verbal on the rare ʻêrek (29 verses) — but because that leg is a within-pericope legal recipe (5:15 and 6:6 are one continuous law) rather than a quotation, and the thread's other legs rest on common ram-and-flock vocabulary, we deliberately under-claim it as structural and flag the verbal-grade leg in the badge, erring toward the house rule's preference for under-claiming.
On the cross-Testament links (Luke 19:8, Hebrews, Isaiah 53). Several voices, and the Christ readings above, connect this section to New-Testament and Isaianic texts on Christ's self-offering and on restitution. The ties to the Greek New Testament (Luke 19:8; Hebrews 9–10) are conceptual and Septuagintal, not verbal: a Greek verse cannot share a Hebrew Strong's number, so the Verifier correctly returns "no shared original-language lexeme" (flagged) for pairs like Lev 5:16 ↔ Luke 19:8. They are presented as long-attested typological readings argued by the human voices (Pulpit Commentary, Henry, Gill), not as verbal quotations. The Isaiah 53:10 connection (the Servant made an ’âshâm) is Hebrew-internal and lexically real, but its application to Christ is the figural reading, marked widely-held.
On the doubtful offering (vv.17–19, the ’âshâm tâluy). Cambridge and Gill name the rabbinic category of the "suspended" guilt offering, brought when one fears but cannot specify a sin. The exegetical crux — whether "he knew it not" qualifies the sin or the law — is resolved by Keil from v.18 itself: it is ignorance of the sin, not of the command. The parses are followed exactly; no claim is pressed beyond the consensus of the voices.
On a note absent from this unit. This unit does not contain Joshua 1:5, so the mandated Joshua 1:5 ↔ Hebrews 13:5 flag does not apply here. Where a New-Testament quotation's provenance would be debated, it is flagged; in this section the NT connections are typological rather than quotation claims, and are tiered accordingly.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)