Leviticus 6 · a question people ask
Could an offering cover a wrong done on purpose?
The sin offering of Leviticus 4 is for anyone who "sins unintentionally" (4:2), and the trespass offering of 5:15 for one who "sins unwittingly". The wrongs in 6:2-3 aren't called unintentional: dealing falsely, robbery, lying about something found, "swearing to a lie" (6:3). Yet once he has restored what he took and brought his offering, "he will be forgiven" (6:7). Numbers says of "the soul who does anything with a high hand" that "That soul shall be cut off from among his people" (Numbers 15:30). Christians fit these together in two main ways. Both agree that in 6:1-7 the wrong is repaid first, with a fifth added (6:5), and then the offering is brought (6:6).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Any wrong that is owned and made right
Numbers repeats this law with a step before the repayment: "he shall confess his sin which he has done" (Numbers 5:7). On the Day of Atonement Aaron confesses over the goat "all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, even all their sins" (Leviticus 16:21), and "You shall be clean from all your sins before the LORD" (Leviticus 16:30). On this reading, the one who acts "with a high hand" (Numbers 15:30) is the one who "has despised the LORD’s word" (Numbers 15:31), and 6:1-7 shows that wrongs done knowingly could be confessed, repaid and forgiven.
Numbers 5:6-7 · Leviticus 16:21 · Leviticus 16:30 · Numbers 15:30-31 · Leviticus 6:7
Only the wrongs the law names
The law gives its offerings for sins done unwittingly: "If a person sins unwittingly, then he shall offer a female goat a year old for a sin offering" (Numbers 15:27), and "You shall have one law for him who does anything unwittingly" (Numbers 15:29). The next verse is the one about "a high hand" (Numbers 15:30). On this reading, 6:1-7 is a provision for the particular wrongs it lists (6:2-3), made right by repayment (6:5), and it doesn't open the offerings to every wrong done on purpose.
Numbers 15:27-30 · Leviticus 6:2-5
The verses
““Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘If anyone sins unintentionally, in any of the things which the LORD has commanded not to be done, and does any one of them,”
““If anyone commits a trespass, and sins unwittingly regarding the LORD’s holy things, then he shall bring his trespass offering to the LORD: a ram without defect from the flock, according to your estimation in silver by shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering.”
““‘But the soul who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native-born or a foreigner, blasphemes the LORD. That soul shall be cut off from among his people.”