then it shall be, if he hath sinned and transgressed, that he shall restore what he robbed or that in which he hath defrauded, or the deposit, or the lost thing which he found,
Leviticus 6 deals with everyday dishonesty — a stolen item, a broken trust, a lost item kept and lied about. Verse 4 gives the remedy: the guilty man must hand back what he took. Commentators find in that demand both the justice of God and a picture of Christ.
Verse 4 follows the charge in verse 2: to cheat a neighbour is to break faith with the Lord. One writer finds grace in that, and a reason why God gave a separate law for it:
What grace on the Lord's part to regard wrongs against a neighbour as wrongs against Himself also, and to call for repayment and the same kind of guilt offering! Yet His glory called for a separate command to draw the line between them, and man needed it too.
The verse lists ways of taking what is not yours. One writer works through them, and the examples are small and ordinary:
The first kind of guilt named here seems to be a failure in private trust. It might be anything of value, or a useful document, left in a friend's keeping. It might be only an animal, a book lent, an axe borrowed, or money entrusted to someone, however small. But the Lord took notice, and He tied the trusting Israelite's rights to His own name. The next case seems to be a public matter — trade, or perhaps a business partnership — where the evil done looked fair and passed as a failure in responsibility rather than a wrong… The better Jewish scholars take this second case as a loan, and the first as a deposit. Then comes a violent use of power, followed by deceit, such as holding back wages. Both were likely to be common, and both covered many a failure that the Lord resented. Last comes finding what a neighbour lost, and lying about it, even swearing falsely.
The offering could not replace paying the man back. Handing over the goods proved that the repentance was real:
The guilty man had to bring a ram as a trespass offering. The law demanded the principal — the exact value of the fraud he committed — and a fifth part on top of it. Where fraud had taken place, making restitution was a very healthy test of repentance. If a man tried to dodge it, the priest could not offer the trespass offering, because the offering and the restitution had to go together.
The extra fifth is deliberate. Repaying more than he stole leaves the crime no profit:
He had to repay the original loss and add a fifth part to it. Nothing could be more just. Many a robber would not mind doing time in prison if he could keep what he gained. But losing all he made, plus a fifth part beyond, takes all the attraction out of the wrongdoing.
One writer turns the law on us, and follows it to the cross:
Think of all the wrong and all the trespass we have done against the Lord. Remember, too, how God has been wronged of His rights in this wicked world. Then, with what interest we can look at the work of the cross! There God has not merely received back what was lost — He is an actual gainer. He has gained more by redemption than ever He lost by the fall.
Verse 4 lays the repayment on the offender himself. That raises a harder question:
If robbing a fellow man brings such condemnation, what can meet the sin of robbing God? How can those who are already sinners make restitution to Him? It is impossible… But we read in the Psalms of One who said, "Then I restored that which I took not away." He was the trespass offering as well as the sin and burnt offerings. In His wonderful grace and mercy He has repaired every breach that could be charged against us.
(Psalm 69:4, in an older translation; the ESV reads, "What I did not steal must I now restore?")
Forgiveness does not cancel the duty of verse 4. It supplies the power for it:
The gospel is the one thing that can send a man out into the middle of a scene that has witnessed his sins, his trespasses, and his harmful ways. It can send him back to everyone who has suffered in any way from his wrongdoing. He goes equipped with grace, not only to repair the wrongs, but far more, to let the full tide of practical goodness flow out in all his ways.
- Wrong. Cheating, robbery, a broken trust, a found item kept back. God treats ordinary dishonesty as an offence against Himself.
- Restore. The goods go back before the sacrifice goes up. Refusing to repay blocks the offering.
- Plus a fifth. Repayment goes beyond the loss, so the wrong brings the thief no profit at all.
- Christ. We could never repay God what we took. Christ is the true trespass offering. He restored what He never stole, and the cross left God a gainer.
- Fruit. Grace sends the forgiven back to the people they harmed, with power to repair the wrong and to keep on doing good.
or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; and he shall restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto; to [him to] whom it belongeth shall he give it, on the day of his trespass-offering.
Leviticus 6:5 closes a law about fraud — a man denies a deposit, steals goods, keeps something he found, or swears a lie. The verse tells him what to hand back, how much extra to add, and when. It raises a question too: why does paying a neighbour back belong with an offering to God?
The law leaves the wrongdoer no profit from his wrong.
The offender had to repay what was lost and add a fifth part to it. Nothing could be more just than this. Many a robber would not mind some time in prison if he could keep the gain he has made. But losing everything he gained, plus a fifth part on top, takes all the glamour out of the wrongdoing.
The size of that extra portion is not random. Israel already knew what a tenth meant, so the fifth was a recognisable figure.
In every such case Jehovah demanded a Trespass offering as rigorously as in His holy things. Not only must there be restitution of the principal, but a double tithe, or fifth part, rendered as a penalty.
The cheated neighbour gets his money back. God still asks for a sacrifice. One wrong, two claims.
What grace on Jehovah's part! He counts wrongs against a neighbour as wrongs against Himself as well, and He asks for repayment and a Guilt offering of the same kind.
The verse fixes the timing: the money changes hands the same day as the sacrifice. Repayment is not an optional extra tacked on later.
The law demanded the principal — the amount equal to the fraud — and a fifth part on top of it. Where fraud had taken place, paying it back was a very healthy test of repentance. If a man tried to dodge it, the priest could not offer the Trespass Offering, because the offering and the repayment had to go together.
Here the picture reaches past the Israelite with his ram. A man who has robbed God has nothing left to pay Him with.
But we read in the Psalms of One who said, "Then I restored that which I took not away." (Psalm 69:4.) He was the trespass-offering as well as the sin and burnt-offerings. So He has made full and complete restitution for all our trespasses — which we can say, if we believe. There is not a single wrong that could be charged against us which He, in His wonderful grace and mercy, has not repaired. In this chapter the offender had to make restitution himself. We could not do that. If there had been no substitute for us — no one to restore to God what He had not taken away, but we had — we would have been answerable to His claims forever.
(The ESV turns that line of Psalm 69:4 into a question: "What I did not steal must I now restore?")
The added portion is the detail that shapes everything. Bare repayment would only return things to how they stood before.
But even this was not enough. The fifth part more still had to be added. God wanted good to overflow out of the evil, not just a patching up to where things stood before. That would not be worthy of Him. How could He have allowed sin at all, only to show His power in defeating it and nothing more? Such a victory would be little better than defeat.
God is not the only gainer. The believer who suffered the wrong ends up ahead too.
Man, as well as God, is a real gainer by the cross. As the believer looks at that cross he can say: "It does not matter how I have been wronged, how I have been trespassed against, how I have been deceived, or what harm was done to me. I am a gainer by the cross. I have not only received back all that was lost, but much more besides."
- Principal. The wrongdoer handed back everything he took by force, fraud, false swearing or a broken trust. He kept nothing he had gained.
- Penalty. On top of the principal came a fifth part, so the injured man ended up more than repaid.
- Together. The money and the ram belonged to one act. Dodge the repayment and the priest could not offer the sacrifice. Restitution tested whether the repentance was real.
- Substitute. Sinners had no way to repay God. The offering points to the One who restored what He never took away, and repaired every wrong charged against us.
- Overflow. God will not settle for putting things back as they were. The "fifth part more" means God and man both come out gainers, with far more than was lost.
And his trespass-offering shall he bring to Jehovah, a ram without blemish out of the small cattle according to thy valuation, as a trespass-offering, unto the priest.
The verse closes the law of the guilt offering — older translations call it the trespass offering — for wrongs done between people: theft, fraud, a broken trust, a lie about something found. The man who has cheated his neighbour must bring a ram to the priest. Why does a private wrong against a man end at God's altar?
The offender pays his neighbour back in full and adds a fine. He still brings a sacrifice, because the wrong reached past the man he cheated.
He was to give back what he had taken by force, or got by cheating, or been given to keep safe, or found after someone lost it. To that he added a fine of one fifth of its value. He handed all of it over to the person he had injured. But to the Lord he brought his offering, for it was against Him that he had trespassed, as the opening of this passage (6:2) declared. The injury done to his neighbour was a trespass against Jehovah.
The order of the two acts changes with the kind of wrong. What never changes is the need for atonement.
When God's rights were broken, the blood of atonement was the great, prominent matter. But when a man's rights were harmed, restitution would naturally take the leading place in the mind. Yet this second case involved the soul's relation with God just as the first did. So the sacrifice comes in as well, though it comes last in order. If I wrong my fellow man, that wrong will surely interfere with my communion with God. That communion can only be restored on the ground of atonement. Mere restitution would not do. It might satisfy the injured man, but it could not restore communion with God. I might repay the principal and add the fifth ten thousand times over, and my sin would still remain, for "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins" (Hebrews 9:22). Still, when the injury is done to my neighbour, restitution must be made first.
Repentance here was measurable:
Where fraud had taken place, restitution was a very healthy test of repentance. If a man tried to dodge it, the priest could not offer the trespass offering. The offering and the restitution had to go together.
Other offerings allowed for a poor man to bring less. This one did not.
For a trespass offering there was only one sacrifice appointed, whatever the trespass, with no cheaper option to suit the offender's means. A ram of the flock was the only sacrifice the law allowed. It was worth less than a bullock, but more than a lamb. The trespass showed that either God or man had been robbed of their rights. So a ram, which reminds us of consecration, was the fitting offering to appoint.
A ram was the animal of consecration — of being set apart for God. Desecration is the reverse: treating what is holy as common.
So the ram was the fitting animal to offer for the opposite problem, desecration. That was exactly the aspect of evil the trespass offering met. It was not simple wrong, which the sin offering covered, but treachery towards Jehovah. Moses' valuation "in silver shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary" confirms this. Gold pictures divine righteousness in God's presence; silver pictures His grace.
The verse allows the ram or "its equivalent" in value. Someone had to fix that figure.
The great thought pressed on us in the trespass offering is restitution — making good the harm done. The priest has to work out the amount in shekels of silver, by the shekel of the sanctuary. The estimate was to be a divine one, the priest giving God's judgment. But even that was not enough. A fifth part more still had to be added. God would have more good come out of the evil than there was before, not a mere putting back of things as they stood. That would not be worthy of Him.
One writer sees the same pattern finished in Christ.
This offering presents Christ who died for our sins and trespasses on the cross, restoring what He did not take away (Ps. 69:4). He has answered to God for our sins and paid our debt by His shed blood. He has also added the fifth part, as it were. There is now more glory to God and more blessing to man than there were before sin entered.
- Trespass. God counts cheating a neighbour as treachery against Himself. Two men alone cannot close the case.
- Restitution. The offender repays his neighbour first, principal plus a fifth. That payment tests whether the repentance is real.
- Ram. One fixed sacrifice for every offender, rich or poor. It is a ram without blemish, the animal of consecration, answering a sin that treats holy things as common.
- Valuation. The priest weighs the amount by the sanctuary standard, not by the offender's own conscience.
- Overplus. God is never content to restore the old level. The added fifth points to Christ, who repaid what He never took and left both God and man richer than before.
And the priest shall make atonement for him before Jehovah, and it shall be forgiven him concerning anything of all that he hath done so as to trespass therein.
This verse ends a long block of instruction that began in chapter 4. It closes the case of a man who has cheated his neighbour. Two things stand together here: a priest makes atonement, and God promises forgiveness that covers everything the man did.
The block of offerings that ends here had its own purpose.
From Leviticus 4 to Leviticus 6:7 we have the sin and guilt offerings. They remove what hinders, or restore broken communion with God. On the day of atonement He established His people's right to draw near to Him.
Two different kinds of wrong are covered here. Both need the same offering.
The proper offerings for guilt or trespass fall into two classes. The first covers wrongs done in the holy things of Jehovah (probably firstfruits, tithes, and so on), or doing something against Jehovah's commands, which came to light afterwards. The second covers wrongs which Jehovah counts as done against Him. These are not sacrilegious or law-breaking like the first, but acts of fraud and violence with deceit against men. In all such cases the man brought an unblemished ram for the trespass offering, and paid the value of the wrong done. He added a fifth more, according to the valuation Moses set. That went to the priest in the first class, or to the person wronged in the second.
In this passage the repayment comes before the sacrifice.
When anyone injured his neighbour, the Lord taught the trespasser this. He could not receive the man's offering until the man had paid proper compensation to the one he had wronged. The principle shown here stays unchanged. Whole eras may pass away, and new rules for the worship of God may be needed. But God cannot allow us to forget a neighbour's rights, and He will not accept the sacrifice of a man who ignores them for any reason. (1 Thessalonians 4:6-8; Matthew 5:23-24.)
Paying back what you stole proves that repentance is real.
Where fraud had taken place, paying it back was a very healthy test of repentance. If the man tried to dodge it, the priest could not offer the trespass offering, for the offering and the restitution had to go together.
Repayment covered the neighbour's loss. The offence against God still stood.
Unless the man made that payment, the trespass would not be forgiven. But money on its own could never have satisfied the Lord. The offence against the neighbour was a trespass against the Lord, and that called for atonement by blood.
The guilty man did not go home wondering. The priest's part was to announce forgiveness, not to grant it.
The guilty one could go home with the assurance from Jehovah Himself that his sin was forgiven. The Lord was so careful to impress that on the offender that He says it three times in these few verses. (Leviticus 5:16, 18; 6:7.) … Pardon from the priest was not the question. No priest of Aaron's family could forgive a man his sins. But he could tell him what Jehovah had promised, and assure him of it on the authority of what God had revealed in writing through Moses.
The closing clause of this verse is wider than the two promises before it. The comment below quotes an older translation of it.
By this, and this only, the priest was to make atonement for the guilty offerer, "and it shall be forgiven him." Here alone comes the striking addition: "for any one of all which he did to trespass therein."
The law asked for more than bare repayment.
Even this was not enough. A fifth more had to be added. God wanted a surplus of good to come out of the evil, not a mere making up to where things were before. That would not be worthy of Him. How could He have allowed sin at all, merely to show His power in defeating it and no more? Such a victory would be little better than defeat. Yet many Christians perhaps suppose that Christ only brings us back to the point from which Adam wandered. This is a deep degradation of Christ's blessed work.
The one who was wronged ended up better off than before.
The believer can say, as he looks at that cross, "It does not matter how I have been wronged, how I have been trespassed against, how I have been deceived, or what harm has been done to me. I am a gainer by the cross. I have not merely received back all that was lost, but much more besides."
- Wronged man first. God would not take the offering until the man had paid his neighbour back. Worship never cancels a neighbour's rights.
- Money never enough. Repayment settled the human claim. The offence was also against the Lord, and that called for atonement by blood.
- Atonement, then pardon. The priest made atonement first. Only then came the promise, "he shall be forgiven" — pardon resting on a sacrifice.
- Assurance given. The man went home certain, not hoping. The priest could not pardon him. He only announced what God had already promised.
- Fifth part added. God will have more good come out of the evil than there was harm. The cross does not just restore the loss — it leaves the believer with more than he lost.