Leviticus 4 explained: Making Amends for Unknowing Wrongs

Mistakes, not defiance (vv. 1-2)

This offering covers wrongs done by accident or without knowing the rule. Wrongs done in open defiance are treated elsewhere as having no such remedy (Numbers 15:30).

When the high priest sins (vv. 3-4)

The high priest stood for the whole people, so his mistake brought guilt on everyone and called for the costliest animal, a young bull. He pressed his hand on its head to mark it as standing for him, though scholars debate whether this meant passing his sin onto it.

Blood inside, body outside (vv. 5-12)

The bull's blood was carried into the tent, sprinkled seven times before the inner curtain and put on the incense altar, which many scholars read as cleansing the holy place his error had stained. The rest of the body was burned outside the camp, which Christians later linked to Jesus dying outside the city (Hebrews 13:11-12).

When the whole community errs (vv. 13-21)

If the whole people did wrong without realizing it, they brought the same large offering, and the elders laid hands on the bull on everyone's behalf. Unlike the high priest's section, this one closes with a promise that the people will be forgiven.

When a leader sins (vv. 22-26)

A leader brought a male goat, a less costly animal, and its blood went only on the large altar outside the tent. By a rule given later, its meat went to the priests rather than being burned (Leviticus 6:26).

When an ordinary person sins (vv. 27-35)

An ordinary person could bring a female goat or a female lamb, a cheaper animal. The fat, seen as the best part, was burned for God, and the section ends, as the leader's did, with the promise that the person will be forgiven.

Key verse: Leviticus 4:35

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on whether these offerings worked mainly by the animal dying in the sinner's place or by cleansing the holy place, and on whether they truly brought forgiveness in their own time or only pointed ahead to Jesus.

Something to think about

When someone causes harm without meaning to, what do you think it takes to set things right?