Leviticus 5:17

Summary

The verse describes a case of unintentional wrongdoing: a person (nefesh) sins by doing something forbidden among "the commandments of Yehovah," without having known it was forbidden. Despite this lack of awareness, the text states that the person is guilty and bears the consequence of that wrongdoing.

Key words

• nefesh ("anyone", H5315J) — feminine singular noun, here functioning as the generic subject "a person/soul," governing the feminine verb forms that follow.
• techeta ("it will sin", H2398) — qal imperfect, marking the sin as a possible/future event introduced by ki ("that", H3588A), setting up the conditional scenario.
• lo yada ("he did not know", H3045 + H3808) — qal perfect with negation; a completed state of non-knowledge, presented as a simple fact rather than an excuse embedded in the following verbs.
• ashem ("he will be guilty", H816) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun with ve'asetah ("and it will do", H6213A); it declares the legal status of guilt as the next event in sequence, regardless of the preceding "not knowing."
• nasa avono ("he will bear his iniquity", H5375J + H5771G with suffix H9023) — qal sequential perfect + construct noun with pronominal suffix; expresses that the person carries the consequence attached specifically to himself ("his iniquity").

What the text says

The verse opens with ve'im nefesh ki techeta — "and if a person, that it will sin" — a double conditional marker ('im + ki) reinforcing the hypothetical, generic nature of the case. The subject nefesh is grammatically feminine, so all following verbs referring to the person (techeta, 'asetah) agree in the feminine, though the content is not restricted by sex; this is a grammatical feature of the noun nefesh itself, not a statement about the person's identity.

The action is specified as doing "one of all the commandments of Yehovah which shall not be done" — the phrase asher lo te'aseinah uses a niphal (passive) imperfect, describing the commandments as things "not to be done" in a general, standing sense, rather than describing a specific act at a specific time. After this, the text pivots with ve-lo yada ("and he did not know") — a perfect tense indicating a completed state that held throughout the action. The sequence then continues with two sequential perfects, ve'ashem ("and he will be guilty") and ve-nasa avono ("and he will bear his iniquity"), both grammatically chained to the earlier ve'asetah ("and it will do"), presenting guilt and bearing of consequence as the narrative outcome that follows sinning and not-knowing, without the grammar itself softening or negating the guilt on account of the ignorance.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate adds the phrase "per ignorantiam" ("through ignorance") and "peccati rea intellexerit iniquitatem suam" ("having understood her sin, being guilty, her iniquity"), phrasing not present as a separate clause in the Hebrew, which simply states lo yada ("he did not know") followed by ashem ("he is guilty"). The LXX renders mitzvot Yehovah ("commandments of Yehovah") as "τῶν ἐντολῶν κυρίου" ("the commandments of the Lord") and translates the niphal te'aseinah with the impersonal construction "ὧν οὐ δεῖ ποιεῖν" ("which must not be done"), shifting the passive verbal form into a modal expression.