Leviticus 5:17

17. If a soul sin… though he wist it not The case described in Leviticus 5:17-19 differs from the preceding in the fact that this sin of ignorance never comes to knowledge, while there is ground for suspecting that the sin may have been committed. In this case the person is not to give himself the benefit of the doubt, but he should make amends for the hypothetical delinquency. The example cited by the rabbins is that of a person who has grounds for suspecting that he has eaten suet, or fat of the inwards, intermingled with other food. His conscience can be relieved of the doubt only by bringing a ram as a trespass offering. Thus that principle is divinely established which is cogently argued by Bishop Butler, namely, that doubt in religious matters involves proof enough to incite to the performance of religious duties, and to criminate the doubter if he refuses. See Romans 14:23, note. CONCLUDING NOTE.

Opponents of that central doctrine of both the Levitical and Christian dispensations, the vicarious atonement, endeavour to invalidate it by an objection drawn from this chapter, namely, the prominence given to defilements not moral, but merely bodily and external, as contact with the carcass of an unclean beast. But an attentive examination will show that this prominence is seeming rather than real. These ceremonial impurities appear to be of the greatest importance, because they are minutely defined and broadly spread out before the reader. But it will be found that the mention of them is only supplementary, lest the people should suppose that such comparatively trifling offences against the law of purity were not included. This must be evident to him who reads the preceding chapter, where it is said in regard to the priest, the prince, the congregation, and the private individual, if they sin “against any of the commandments of God,” let the prescribed sin offering be made. Here it requires no minute definition of sin, since the decalogue had been written on the tables of stone, a visible expression of the older decalogue written on the tablets of the heart. It was impossible for the Hebrews to understand “the commandments of God” in any other sense than the moral precepts and prohibitions given on Mount Sinai. These were prominently before their minds, and for infractions of these chiefly was the blood of the victims to be shed. Again, when the symbolical nature of ceremonial institutions shall be correctly unfolded, there will be found a moral element deeply embodied in them, for the sake of which alone these shadowy rites were instituted, the uncleanness of a man prefiguring the filthiness of “the flesh and spirit,” and the dead body fore-showing the natural corruption of the unregenerate heart, styled by St. Paul, “the body of this death.”