Leviticus 5:18

Summary

The verse describes the procedure for an unwitting offender: he must bring an unblemished ram from the flock, valued according to a set standard, as a guilt offering to the priest. The priest then performs atonement for the wrongdoing committed in ignorance, and the offender receives forgiveness.

Key words

• 'Ayil ("ram", H0352A) — masculine singular noun, the animal designated for the offering, further qualified as tamim ("unblemished", H8549G).
• 'Asham ("guilt offering", H0817) — masculine singular noun naming the category of sacrifice, introduced by the preposition le ("to/for", H9005), marking purpose.
• khiPer ("he will make atonement", H3722A) — piel (intensive) sequential perfect; the piel stem gives an active, effecting sense ("perform atonement") rather than a simple action.
• shigga-to ("his inadvertence", H7684 + H9023) — feminine singular construct noun with possessive suffix, specifying the exact object of atonement: an unintentional fault.
• nisLach ("it will be forgiven", H5545) — niphal (passive) sequential perfect; the passive voice removes the grammatical agent, stating only that forgiveness occurs, without naming who grants it.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of sequential perfects (he.vi', "he will bring"; khiPer, "he will make atonement"; nisLach, "it will be forgiven"), each introduced by the narrative vav (H9001/H9002). This construction links three successive actions as one continuous procedure: bringing the animal, the priest's atonement act, and the resulting state of forgiveness. The subject shifts within the sentence — the offender is the subject of he.vi', the priest becomes the subject of khiPer, and the final verb nisLach is niphal, so no explicit subject performs the forgiving; the grammar simply states that forgiveness "happens" to the person, marked by the object marker lo ("to him", H9005+H9033).

The phrase be-'erke-kha ("by your valuation", H6187 with 2nd-person suffix) is a construct form addressed to a second-person "you," indicating that the ram's worth is measured against an external standard rather than left to the offerer's discretion. The clause describing the fault — 'asher shagag ("which he has gone astray", H0834A + H7683, qal perfect) followed by ve-hu' lo' yada' ("and he did not know", H1931 + H3808 + H3045, qal perfect) — doubles the notion of unintentionality: the verb shagag denotes straying/erring, and the following clause explicitly states lack of knowledge, reinforcing that the offense was committed without awareness.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew be-'erke-kha ("by your valuation") is rendered in the LXX as timēs argyriou ("of a price in silver"), introducing the specific idea of monetary/silver valuation not explicit in the Hebrew noun 'erek itself. The Vulgate's juxta mensuram æstimationemque peccati ("according to the measure and estimation of the sin") shifts the valuation to be tied to "the sin" rather than to the second-person addressee implied by the Hebrew suffix -kha ("your"). The Hebrew's niphal nisLach ("it will be forgiven," agentless) appears in the LXX as aphethēsetai autō (passive, "it will be released to him") and in the Vulgate as dimittetur ei (passive, "it will be dismissed to him"), both preserving the passive construction without a stated agent, consistent with the Hebrew niphal.