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Levítico 5

ARC · Chapter 5/27

1E quando alguma pessoa peccar, ouvindo uma voz de blasphemia, de que fôr testemunha, seja que o viu, ou que o soube, se o não denunciar, então levará a sua iniquidade.

2Ou, quando alguma pessoa tocar em alguma coisa immunda, seja corpo morto de besta fera immunda, seja corpo morto d'animal immundo, seja corpo morto de reptil immundo, ainda que lhe fosse occulto, contudo será elle immundo e culpado.

3Ou, quando tocar a immundicia d'um homem, seja qualquer que fôr a sua immundicia, com que se faça immundo, e lhe fôr occulto, e o souber depois, será culpado.

4Ou, quando alguma pessoa jurar, pronunciando temerariamente com os seus beiços, para fazer mal, ou para fazer bem, em tudo o que o homem pronuncia temerariamente com juramento, e lhe fôr occulto, e o souber depois, culpado será n'uma d'estas coisas.

5Será pois que, culpado sendo n'uma d'estas coisas, confessará aquillo em que peccou,

6E a sua expiação trará ao Senhor, pelo seu peccado que peccou: uma femea de gado miudo, uma cordeira, ou uma cabrinha pelo peccado: assim o sacerdote por ella fará expiação do seu peccado.

7Mas, se a sua mão não alcançar o que bastar para gado miudo, então trará, em sua expiação da culpa que commetteu, ao Senhor duas rolas ou dois pombinhos; um para expiação do peccado, e o outro para holocausto;

8E os trará ao sacerdote, o qual primeiro offerecerá aquelle que é para expiação do peccado; e com a sua unha lhe torcerá a cabeça junto ao pescoço, mas não o partirá:

9E do sangue da expiação do peccado espargirá sobre a parede do altar, porém o que sobejar d'aquelle sangue espremer-se-ha á base do altar: expiação do peccado é.

10E do outro fará holocausto conforme ao costume: assim o sacerdote por ella fará expiação do seu peccado que peccou, e lhe será perdoado.

11Porém, se a sua mão não alcançar duas rolas, ou dois pombinhos, então aquelle que peccou trará pela sua offerta a decima parte d'um epha de flôr de farinha, para expiação do peccado: não deitará sobre ella azeite, nem lhe porá em cima o incenso, porquanto é expiação do peccado:

12E a trará ao sacerdote, e o sacerdote d'ella tomará o seu punho cheio pelo seu memorial, e a queimará sobre o altar, em cima das offertas queimadas do Senhor: expiação de peccado é.

13Assim o sacerdote por ella fará expiação do seu peccado, que peccou em alguma d'estas coisas, e lhe será perdoado; e o resto será do sacerdote, como a offerta de manjares.

14E fallou o Senhor a Moysés, dizendo:

15Quando alguma pessoa commetter um trespasso, e peccar por ignorancia nas coisas sagradas do Senhor, então trará ao Senhor pela expiação um carneiro sem mancha do rebanho, conforme á tua estimação em siclos de prata, segundo o siclo do sanctuario, para expiação da culpa

16Assim restituirá o que peccar nas coisas sagradas, e ainda de mais accrescentará o seu quinto, e o dará ao sacerdote: assim o sacerdote com o carneiro da expiação fará expiação por ella, e ser-lhe-ha perdoado o peccado

17E, se alguma pessoa peccar, e obrar contra algum de todos os mandamentos do Senhor o que se não deve fazer, ainda que o não soubesse, comtudo será ella culpada, e levará a sua iniquidade:

18E trará ao sacerdote um carneiro sem mancha do rebanho, conforme á tua estimação, para expiação da culpa, e o sacerdote por ella tará expiação do seu erro em que errou sem saber; e lhe será perdoado.

19Expiação de culpa é: certamente se fez culpado ao Senhor.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

The law covers specific cases of sin: witnessing something and staying silent, touching uncleanness unknowingly, or making a rash oath. For the poor, the animal could be replaced with birds or even flour.

Explanation

This chapter shows mercy within justice: God does not demand from the poor the same costly sacrifice required of the wealthy — what matters is sincere repentance, not the value of the sacrifice. It also broadens the concept of sin to include omission (staying silent while knowing something is wrong) and hasty words, not just clear-cut acts. This teaches that integrity involves actions as well as silences and words. Today, this reminds us that God looks at a heart willing to make things right, not the size of the "offering" we can bring.

Fun facts

  • The permission to offer "the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour" without oil or frankincense for those who could not even afford birds is the smallest sacrifice required anywhere in the Law — about 2 liters of flour.
  • The Hebrew term for "sin through error" (shegagah) differs from the one used for deliberate sin, a distinction showing that the Law already recognized degrees of moral responsibility.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Levítico 5:1Witnessing something, like hearing a curse, and not reporting it was already considered sin under this law — staying silent meant carrying the responsibility for what the person concealed, not only for acts committed directly.
  2. Levítico 5:2Touching an unclean animal’s carcass without meaning to already left the person “unclean, and guilty,” even if they did not know it at the time. Ritual impurity here did not depend on intent, which is why the verse allows for the person to find out later and still need to deal with it.
  3. Levítico 5:3Touching another person’s uncleanness — not only an animal’s, as in the previous verse — also left someone unclean without realizing it at the time, and the guilt only surfaced once the person found out later.
  4. Levítico 5:4Making a rash promise or oath, without thinking it through, also made the list of things that created guilt if discovered later — the principle applies both to contact with impurity and to careless words.
  5. Levítico 5:5Before bringing any sin offering, the person had to confess out loud what they had done wrong — acknowledging the mistake always came before the ritual that resolved it.
  6. Levítico 5:6The standard offering for these cases was a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat — the same price range seen in the previous chapter for an ordinary person, applied here to this particular kind of guilt.
  7. Levítico 5:7Whoever did not have the money to buy a sheep or a goat could bring two birds instead. The sin-offering system had a descending price scale, designed for those with fewer resources.
  8. Levítico 5:8When a person brought two birds, the first one always became the sin offering: the priest wrung its neck without separating the head from the body, a technical detail that distinguished this bird from the second.
  9. Levítico 5:9This bird’s blood was sprinkled on the wall of the altar, and the rest was drained out at the base — the same treatment given to blood in the larger sacrifices, scaled down for the size of the bird.
  10. Levítico 5:10The second bird became an ordinary burnt offering, following the procedure already described in chapter 1 — the two birds together fulfilled the role a larger animal would fulfill alone.
  11. Levítico 5:11If a person could not even afford two birds, the offering became just a handful of flour, without the oil or frankincense that normally perfumed the offering. It was the cheapest version of all, making sure no one was kept from making things right for lack of money.
  12. Levítico 5:12Just as with the ordinary meat offering, the priest took out a handful of the flour as a memorial and burned it on the altar — the same principle of representing the whole offering with a symbolic portion.
  13. Levítico 5:13With that handful burned, the mistake was resolved and the person forgiven; the rest of the flour was left for the priest to eat, the same way as with any meat offering.
  14. Levítico 5:14This opening formula marks the start of a new topic within the chapter: from here on the text deals with the “trespass offering,” tied to concrete damages, different from the ordinary sin offering seen so far.
  15. Levítico 5:15The “trespass offering” is different from the ordinary sin offering: it involved restoring something plus a fine of an extra fifth, used in cases with concrete harm to repair, not just a religious failure. The value was measured in “shekels of the sanctuary,” a standardized unit of silver weight — the temple’s official reference currency.
  16. Levítico 5:16Besides bringing the ram, whoever damaged something sacred had to pay back the equivalent value and add another 20 percent as a fine — atonement here included financial repayment, not just the sacrifice.
  17. Levítico 5:17The text reinforces that even without knowing they were doing wrong, the person was still considered guilty — ignorance did not remove responsibility, it only changed how the mistake was resolved.
  18. Levítico 5:18Unlike the case of sacred things in verse 16, there is no mention of a 20 percent fine here: just the ram, valued by the priest, was already enough to resolve a mistake made out of sheer ignorance.
  19. Levítico 5:19This closing line ends the section on the trespass offering, reinforcing that even an unintentional mistake counted, in the eyes of the law, as a real offense that needed to be resolved.

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