Numbers 5:5-10

Payments in compensation for wrongs.

Part of this section (Numbers 5:6) is supplementary to the regulations in Leviticus 6:1-7. It is there laid down that if anyone incur guilt through wronging his neighbour by robbery, or oppression, by appropriating something committed to his keeping as a deposit, or by concealing the fact that he has found lost property, he must confess, and restore the property plusone-fifth, and offer to God as an atonement for his sin a guilt-offering of a ram. It is, to use a modern phrase, -conscience money." In the present passage it is further provided that if the neighbour whom he has wronged be dead, and there be no gô"çl(see note below) to whom the property can be restored, it is to be paid to the priest. The ram of the guilt-offering is, of course, to be offered as well.