Numbers 15:28

Summary

Numbers 15:28 describes a ritual procedure: the priest performs atonement on behalf of a person who has sinned inadvertently, and as a result of this atonement, forgiveness is granted to that person. The verse follows a sequence of two consecutive actions (atonement, then forgiveness) tied together by narrative grammar.

Key words

• khiPer ("he will make atonement", H3722A) — Piel (intensive) verb in sequential perfect form; the intensive stem signals a deliberate, effectual action performed by the priest, not a simple or accidental one.
• shoGeget ("has gone astray", H7683) — Qal participle, feminine singular; functions as a substantive description of the "person" (Nefesh), naming her ongoing state/identity as "the one straying" rather than a completed past act.
• chet'Ah ("sin", H2398) and shgaGah ("inadvertence", H7684) — both feminine singular nouns, each governed by the preposition be-/vi- ("by"); the doubling of near-synonymous terms specifies the sinful act and its unintentional quality as two linked aspects of the same event.
• khaPer ("make atonement", H3722A) — Piel infinitive; repeats the same intensive verb root as khiPer but in infinitival form, expressing the purpose or means ("in order to atone / by atoning") of the priest's action.
• nisLach ("it will be forgiven", H5545) — Niphal (passive) verb, sequential perfect; the passive voice removes the grammatical agent, presenting forgiveness as something that happens to the person rather than naming who forgives.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built on two sequential perfect verbs joined by the narrative ve- ("and"): khiPer ("he will make atonement") and nisLach ("it will be forgiven"). This construction presents the two events as a temporal and logical chain — first the priest's action, then the resulting state. The subject of the first verb is ha-koHen ("the priest"), explicit and active; the subject of the second verb is left grammatically unstated because the Niphal stem is passive, so the text says only that forgiveness "will be forgiven to him" without specifying an agent.

The object of atonement is described through a chain of dependent phrases: ha-Nefesh ha-shoGeget ("the person, the one going astray") — a noun followed by a participle functioning almost like an adjective — then further specified by be-chet'Ah bi-shgaGah ("by sin, by inadvertence"), two feminine nouns each introduced by the same preposition be-/vi-. This pairing does not use a single term for "unintentional sin" but stacks two nouns, one naming the offense (chet'Ah) and one naming its involuntary character (shgaGah), before lifNei YHWH ("before Yehovah") situates the whole event in the divine presence. The infinitive le-khaPer ("to atone") restates the priest's verb from the first clause, reinforcing the purpose of the ritual act before the passive verb nisLach concludes the sequence.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders khiPer as deprecabitur ("he will entreat/pray for"), a term emphasizing supplication rather than the ritual/intensive sense carried by the Piel stem in Hebrew. The LXX uses exilasetai ("he will propitiate/make atonement"), closer to the Hebrew's ritual register. The Hebrew's double phrase be-chet'Ah bi-shgaGah ("by sin, by inadvertence") appears in the LXX as two participial phrases (akousiastheises kai hamartouses akousios, "having acted involuntarily and having sinned involuntarily"), restructuring the noun-pair into verbal participles.