Leviticus 5:16
וְאֵת אֲשֶׁר חָטָא מִן־הַקֹּדֶשׁ יְשַׁלֵּם וְאֶת־חֲמִֽישִׁתוֹ יוֹסֵף עָלָיו וְנָתַן אֹתוֹ לַכֹּהֵן וְהַכֹּהֵן יְכַפֵּר עָלָיו בְּאֵיל הָאָשָׁם וְנִסְלַח לֽוֹ׃ פ
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְאֵ֣ת אֲשֶׁר֩ חָטָ֨א מִן־הַקֹּ֜דֶשׁ יְשַׁלֵּ֗ם וְאֶת־חֲמִֽישִׁתוֹ֙ יוֹסֵ֣ף עָלָ֔יו וְנָתַ֥ן אֹת֖וֹ לַכֹּהֵ֑ן וְהַכֹּהֵ֗ן יְכַפֵּ֥ר עָלָ֛יו בְּאֵ֥יל הָאָשָׁ֖ם וְנִסְלַ֥ח לֽוֹ׃ פ
καὶ ὃ ἥμαρτεν ἀπὸ τῶν ἁγίων ἀποτίσαι αὐτό, καὶ τὸ ἐπίπεμπτον προσθήσει ἐπ’ αὐτό, καὶ δώσει αὐτὸ τῷ ἱερεῖ· καὶ ὁ ἱερεὺς ἐξιλάσεται περὶ αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ κριῷ τῆς πλημμελίας, καὶ ἀφεθήσεται αὐτῷ.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
ipsumque quod intulit damni restituet, et quintam partem ponet supra, tradens sacerdoti, qui rogabit pro eo offerens arietem, et dimittetur ei.
Deberá restituir lo que haya defraudado de las cosas sagradas, le añadirá una quinta parte y se lo dará al sacerdote. El sacerdote hará expiación por él con el carnero de la ofrenda por la culpa, y será perdonado.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y pagará aquello de las cosas santas en que hubiere pecado, y añadirá á ello el quinto, y lo dará al sacerdote: y el sacerdote hará expiación por él con el carnero del sacrificio por el pecado, y será perdonado.
Regarding 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.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse describes the compensation required when someone has wrongfully used or diminished something belonging to "the holy thing" (sacred property): the offender must repay its value plus one-fifth, give this to the priest, who then performs atonement using a ram of guilt offering, resulting in forgiveness for the offender.
Key words
- chata ("he sinned", H2398) — qal perfect, marking a completed past action: the wrongdoing against the sacred object already occurred.
- yeshallem ("he will repay", H7999A) — piel imperfect, giving an intensive/factitive sense ("make full payment") rather than a simple future act.
- chamishito ("its fifth", H2549) — feminine singular construct with 3ms suffix, meaning "the fifth part of it," directly tied grammatically to the value of the holy thing.
- yosef ("let him add", H3254H) — hiphil jussive, a causative form expressing that the added fifth must be caused to occur, not just optionally happen.
- nislach ("it will be forgiven", H5545) — niphal sequential perfect, a passive form: forgiveness is granted to him, with no explicit agent named in the Hebrew verb itself.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence opens with a relative clause, 'et 'asher chata min-haqodesh ("that which he sinned from the holy thing"), placing the object of wrongdoing before the main verb yeshallem ("he will repay"). This construction foregrounds what was misused before stating the remedy. The piel form of shalem intensifies the notion of repayment, suggesting full restitution rather than partial compensation.
The sequence of verbs — yeshallem (imperfect), yosef (jussive), natan (sequential perfect), yekhapper (imperfect), nislach (sequential perfect) — creates a chain of consequence: repayment, addition of a fifth, transfer to the priest, atonement, and forgiveness. The alternation between imperfect/jussive forms and vav-consecutive perfects is typical of legal-procedural Hebrew, marking each step as following logically and temporally from the previous one.
The final verb nislach ("it will be forgiven") is niphal, a passive voice construction. The Hebrew does not name who forgives; the agent is left grammatically unstated, with only the recipient marked by the preposition lo ("to him").
Differences between versions
The LXX renders chamishito ("its fifth") as to epipempton ("the fifth part"), a noun rather than reflecting the construct-suffix structure of the Hebrew. The Vulgate's offerens arietem ("offering a ram") makes explicit, via a participle, an action that in the Hebrew is expressed only through the prepositional phrase be'eil ha'asham ("by/with the ram of the guilt offering"), attached to yekhapper.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.