Leviticus 6
21 Jul 2026 - Theology
Two Groups of Instructions
The beginning of this chapter details the trespass offering for specific intentional sins, including:
- Deceiving a neighbor regarding something entrusted to them (deposits or safekeeping) (2)
- Stealing property through outright robbery (2)
- Extorting or defrauding a neighbor through oppression or unfair business practices (2)
- Lying about lost property that was found, denying ownership (3)
- Swearing falsely under oath about any of these actions (3)
The person who committed one of these sins must first return whatever they stole, took by extortion, were entrusted with, or found and lied about. (4)
They then must add an additional one-fifth (%20) of the value to the principal and give it to the owner. (5)
Leviticus 6:6-7 - “And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord, a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest: And the priest shall make an atonement for him before the Lord: and it shall be forgiven him for any thing of all that he hath done in trespassing therein.”
Two Groups of Instructions
The sacrifices of the trespass offering, burnt offering, the meal offering, and the sin offering are all repeated in this chapter, with more detail about how the priests should behave.
Bible scholars tell us that nearly everything in the entire book of Leviticus is the work of the “P” or Priestly source.
This chapter (and through Leviticus 8) reads like “This is the law of [this kind of sacrifice]”, such as in verse 9:
Leviticus 6:9 - “Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: It is the burnt offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it.”
But in the previous chapters of Leviticus, we see that the sacrifices read as if-then statements, for example, “If your offering is [this kind of sacrifice], then…”:
Leviticus 1:3 - “If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, [then] let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord.
Why doesn’t the Torah combine the two groups of instructions together to make one code of law for the various kinds of sacrifices?
References
- The Hebrew - Greek Key Study Bible (KJV Version)
- The Torah Portion-by-Portion by Rabbi Seymour Rossel (2007)