🔢WEB · Numbers 15:27
What does Numbers 15:27 mean?
"“‘If one person sins unwittingly, then he shall offer a female goat a year old for a sin offering."
— Numbers 15:27 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
then it shall be, if it was done unwittingly, without the knowledge of the congregation, that all the congregation shall offer one young bull for a burnt offering, for a pleasant aroma to Yahweh, with its meal offering, and its drink offering, according to the ordinance, and one male goat for a sin offering.
The priest shall make atonement for all the congregation of the children of Israel, and they shall be forgiven; for it was an error, and they have brought their offering, an offering made by fire to Yahweh, and their sin offering before Yahweh, for their error.
All the congregation of the children of Israel shall be forgiven, as well as the stranger who lives as a foreigner among them; for with regard to all the people, it was done unwittingly.
“‘If one person sins unwittingly, then he shall offer a female goat a year old for a sin offering.
The priest shall make atonement for the soul who errs, when he sins unwittingly before Yahweh, to make atonement for him; and he shall be forgiven.
You shall have one law for him who does anything unwittingly, for him who is native-born among the children of Israel, and for the stranger who lives as a foreigner among them.
“‘But the soul who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native-born or a foreigner, the same blasphemes Yahweh. That soul shall be cut off from among his people.
Explanation
Numbers 15:27 addresses what happens when a single individual, rather than the whole community, commits a sin unintentionally. The instruction is straightforward: that person is to bring a one-year-old female goat as a sin offering. This law is part of a larger section in Numbers 15 that distinguishes between unintentional sins, which could be atoned for through prescribed offerings, and defiant, willful sins, which carried far more serious consequences, including being cut off from the community (Numbers 15:30-31).
The context for this verse is the wilderness period after Israel left Egypt. Moses received this law from God as part of the broader legal code governing Israel's worship, ethics, and communal life. Earlier in the chapter, verses 22-26 deal with unintentional sin committed by the whole congregation, which required a bull and a goat offered together. Verse 27 then narrows the focus to the individual case, showing that the sacrificial system accounted both for corporate failure and personal failure. This reflects the meticulous care with which Israel's worship system addressed sin at every level of communal life, ensuring that no one, whether a whole nation or a single person, remained outside the means of atonement.
Theologically, this verse underscores several important truths. First, it acknowledges that people sin even without deliberate intent — through ignorance, oversight, or human weakness — and that such sin still requires atonement before God. God's holiness is not casual; even unintentional wrongdoing disrupts the relationship between the sinner and God, and it needs to be addressed through blood sacrifice, since
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