Numbers 15:26

Summary

The verse states that forgiveness extends to the entire congregation of the people of Israel and to the resident sojourner among them, because the whole people acted in inadvertence. The clause gives the reason (ki, "for") for the forgiveness described in the preceding verses: the error was unintentional and shared by the whole community.

Key words

• nis.Lach ("it will be forgiven", H5545) — niphal (passive) sequential perfect; the subject undergoing the action is not named, so the verse states that forgiveness happens without specifying who forgives.
• 'a.Dat ("[the] congregation of", H5712) — feminine singular construct, linking directly to bene Yisra'el, "sons of Israel," forming the phrase "congregation of the sons of Israel."
• Ger ("sojourner", H1616) with Gar ("sojourns", H1481A) — the noun ger is paired with the qal participle gar from the same root, meaning literally "the sojourner who sojourns," emphasizing ongoing residence rather than a one-time visit.
• ki ("for", H3588A) — subordinating particle introducing the causal clause that explains the reason for the forgiveness: the inadvertence affecting "all the people."
• sh.ga.Gah ("inadvertence", H7684) — feminine singular noun, the same root used elsewhere in the passage for unintentional wrongdoing, here applied collectively to "all the people" (kol ha-'am).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative ve- prefixed to the niphal verb nis.Lach, continuing a sequence of legal statements. Because the verb is niphal, the grammatical subject is the offense or the people who receive forgiveness, not an explicit agent who forgives — the text states only that forgiveness occurs "to" (le-) the congregation and "to" (la-) the sojourner, using two prepositional phrases governed by the same verb.

The double construct chain kol 'adat bene Yisra'el ("all [the] congregation of [the] sons of Israel") stacks three nouns in sequence, each modifying the next, producing a single compound subject that is grammatically parallel to ha-ger ha-gar be-tokham ("the sojourner who sojourns in their midst"). The participle gar modifying ger creates a redundancy in root (ger... gar) that reinforces the sojourner's continuous residence among the group, rather than a passing status.

The causal clause introduced by ki explains the preceding statement: it repeats the construct pattern le-kol ha-'am ("to all the people"), followed by the prepositional phrase bi-sh.ga.gah ("in inadvertence"), which lacks a verb — the clause is nominal, stating a condition (the people were "in inadvertence") rather than describing an action.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders bi-sh.ga.gah with the single adjective akousion ("unintentional/involuntary"), agreeing with to lao ("the people"), producing a nominal predicate similar in function to the Hebrew but using an adjectival form rather than a prepositional noun phrase. The Vulgate renders the causal clause as culpa est omnis populi per ignorantiam ("it is the fault of all the people through ignorance"), introducing the noun culpa ("fault"), which is not present as a separate lexical item in the Hebrew text, where the clause consists only of kol ha-'am and bi-sh.ga.gah.