Leviticus 5

THE TRESPASS OFFERING.

INTRODUCTORY.

Commentators have found it difficult to draw a well-defined line between the chattath the sin offering and the asham the trespass offering; the latter is for sins of ignorance or inadvertence as well as the former. The only exception is the case of falsehood, fraud, and voluntary silence when justice calls for testimony. Even these, usually the offspring of fear or some other weakness, would be regarded by Archbishop Magee as sins of ignorance. Leviticus 4:2, note. Some discriminate the trespass offering from the sin offering by attaching reparation of injuries to the former, as the restoration of goods fraudulently gotten; but this can apply only to a few of the sins for which the trespass offering is designed. Gesenius frankly admits that “the precise point of distinction between the two kinds of faults or sins has hitherto been sought in vain.” See Leviticus 5:6, note. The asham is used for the offence as well as for its expiatory offering. It then signifies guiltiness, (Genesis 26:10;) sin, (Jeremiah 51:5; Proverbs 14:9;) and trespasses, (Psalms 68:21.) The Seventy have never translated asham by αμαρτια , sin, but generally by some such soft word as πλημμελεια , mistake, or αγνοια , ignorance. The Hebrew does not justify this exclusive rendering, as an examination of the above passages will show. The soul or life of the “Man of sorrows” was made an asham, a trespass offering. Isaiah 53:10.