Commentary - Leviticus 6:1-7

Bird's-eye view

This passage in Leviticus addresses sins that are both horizontal, against a neighbor, and vertical, against God. The central point is that you cannot separate the two. To defraud your neighbor is to act unfaithfully against Yahweh Himself. Consequently, true repentance and forgiveness require a two-fold action. First, there must be horizontal reconciliation through restitution. The wrong must be made right with the person who was harmed, and then some. Second, there must be vertical reconciliation through atonement. After the offender has done everything in his power to fix the earthly mess he made, he must still come before God with a sacrifice, acknowledging his guilt and his need for a substitute. This is a profound picture of the gospel: grace is not a way to sidestep our earthly responsibilities, but rather the power that enables us to fulfill them before seeking the ultimate forgiveness that only God's provision can secure.

The law here is intensely practical. It covers common marketplace sins like theft, extortion, and lying about lost property. It establishes the principle that genuine sorrow for sin results in tangible action. You cannot say you are sorry to God while keeping the stolen goods. The requirement of full restitution plus a twenty percent penalty ensures the victim is made whole and then some, while the guilt offering to God maintains His honor and holiness. This is God's righteous framework for restoring broken relationships, both with Him and with our fellow man.

Outline

Context In Leviticus

This section is a continuation of the laws concerning sacrifices, specifically the guilt offering (asham) introduced in chapter 5. While chapter 5 dealt with issues like unwitting sin or failure to testify, this part of chapter 6 provides concrete examples of intentional sins of fraud and deceit that require a guilt offering. The book of Leviticus is about how a holy God can dwell in the midst of a sinful people. The sacrificial system is the gracious means by which this is possible. These laws are not abstract regulations; they are the curriculum for teaching Israel what holiness looks like in the nitty-gritty of everyday life, including business dealings and personal integrity. This passage follows detailed instructions for burnt offerings, grain offerings, and sin offerings, and it provides a crucial real-world application for how to deal with guilt when community trust has been broken.

Key Issues

Grace Demands Restitution

In our day, many Christians have a flimsy and sentimental view of forgiveness. We tend to think that because we are under grace, our obligations to our neighbor are somehow softened or erased. We want to say we are sorry to God, receive a warm feeling, and then move on, often leaving the person we have wronged to deal with the consequences of our sin. But this is a travesty of biblical grace. Grace does not abolish righteousness; it establishes it. Forgiveness of sin is not a redefinition of sin. This passage from Leviticus is a bucket of cold water on all such cheap-grace notions. It teaches us a foundational principle: true, grace-empowered repentance makes things right. Before you come to God for a sacrifice, you must first go to your neighbor with a checkbook. The grace we receive in Christ does not eliminate the need for restitution; it makes true restitution possible.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 2a “If a person sins and acts unfaithfully against Yahweh...

The very first stroke of the pen here sets the theological framework for everything that follows. The subject is sins committed against a neighbor, but the first one wronged is God. The sin is described as acting "unfaithfully against Yahweh." This is the language of covenant-breaking, of treason. When you lie to your brother about the money he entrusted to you, you are not just breaking a horizontal rule of social convenience. You are committing cosmic treason. You are acting as though the God who sees all and judges all does not exist, or that His law does not matter. Every sin, no matter how private or seemingly small, is an act of defiance against the throne of God.

2b ...and deals falsely with his companion in regard to a deposit or a security entrusted to him or through robbery, or if he has extorted from his companion,

Here we get the specific examples. These are not exotic sins; they are the common, grubby sins of the marketplace. Dealing falsely with a deposit means lying about something left in your care. A security entrusted could be collateral for a loan. Robbery is straightforward theft. Extortion is using leverage or power to squeeze something out of someone unfairly. Notice that the victim is called a "companion." This is not some anonymous transaction; it is a betrayal of a fellow member of the covenant community. God's law is intensely personal and relational.

3 or has found what was lost and dealt falsely about it and sworn falsely, so that he sins in regard to any one of the things a man may do;

The list continues. Finding a lost item and lying about it, claiming "finders keepers," is theft. The law is clear elsewhere that you are to seek out the owner of lost property. Then it adds the capstone offense: swearing falsely. This means lying under oath, invoking God's name to sanctify your fraud. This elevates the sin to a whole new level of blasphemy. The clause "any one of the things a man may do" is a catch-all, showing that these are just examples of a broader principle that covers all such acts of deceitful gain.

4 then it shall be, when he sins and becomes guilty, that he shall return what he took by robbery or what he got by extortion, or the deposit which was entrusted to him or the lost thing which he found,

Here is the first step in making things right. When the sin is committed and guilt is recognized, either through a pricked conscience or by being found out, the first action required is to give back the thing that was taken. Not an apology, not a promise to do better next time, but the return of the principal. If you stole a hundred dollars, you return a hundred dollars. If you stole a sheep, you return the sheep. This is the baseline of justice. Repentance begins with unwinding the sin.

5 or anything about which he swore falsely; he shall make restitution for it in full and add to it one-fifth more. He shall give it to the one to whom it belongs on the day he presents his guilt offering.

But returning the principal is not enough. The law requires restitution "in full" plus a penalty of one-fifth, or twenty percent. Why? Because the theft did not just deprive the owner of his property; it deprived him of the use of that property for a time. It caused him trouble, anxiety, and loss. The twenty percent penalty makes him more than whole. It is a tangible way for the offender to say, "My sin cost you, and I am acknowledging that and making it right." Crucially, this payment must be made to the victim "on the day he presents his guilt offering." The horizontal and vertical acts of reconciliation are bound together in time. You cannot seek God's forgiveness on Sunday for a sin you are not willing to make right with your neighbor on that same Sunday.

6 Then he shall bring to the priest his guilt offering to Yahweh, a ram without blemish from the flock, according to your valuation, for a guilt offering,

After, and only after, restitution has been made to the neighbor, the offender must come to God. Notice that even after paying back 120 percent, he is still guilty. His debt to man is paid, but his debt to God remains. He cannot fix that himself. He must bring a substitute, a ram without blemish. He needs a perfect sacrifice to stand in his place. This is the gospel in Leviticus. Our best efforts at making things right, which we are absolutely required to do, are never enough to atone for our sin against a holy God. We need an external, perfect sacrifice provided for us.

7 and the priest shall make atonement for him before Yahweh, and he will be forgiven for any one of the things which he may have done to incur guilt.”

The priest, acting as the mediator, performs the ritual of atonement. The word "atonement" here means to cover. The blood of the sacrifice covers the sin, turning away the wrath of God. And the result is the most beautiful word in the language: forgiven. The guilt is removed. The slate is wiped clean. God grants a full pardon, not because the man paid back the money, and not because he felt really bad about it, but because a substitute died in his place. The restitution was the necessary evidence of true repentance, but the sacrifice was the basis of his forgiveness.

Application

The application for us in the new covenant is direct and unavoidable. We no longer bring a ram to a priest. Jesus Christ is our great High Priest, and He was the final, all-sufficient guilt offering on the cross. His blood cleanses us from all sin. But the moral principle of restitution remains fully in force. Grace does not give us a pass on making things right with people we have wronged.

If you have stolen, whether through outright theft, shady business dealings, or by "forgetting" to return something you borrowed, you have a duty before God to make it right. True repentance will lead you to write the check, to return the item, to confess the lie. To cling to the fruit of your sin while claiming the forgiveness of Christ is to make a mockery of the cross. Zacchaeus understood this. When he met Jesus, his immediate response was to promise to pay back everyone he had defrauded four times over. And Jesus' response was, "Today salvation has come to this house."

We are not saved by making restitution, but our salvation will inevitably result in a desire to make restitution. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone. But the faith that saves is never alone. It is a living, active faith that seeks to obey God's righteous commands, and one of the first commands for a sinner who has harmed his neighbor is this: go, and make it right.