“Adonai said to Moshe, “Tell the people of Israel, ‘When a man or woman commits any kind of sin against another person and thus breaks faith with Adonai, he incurs guilt. He must confess the sin which he has committed; and he must make full restitution for his guilt, add twenty percent and give it to the victim of his sin. But if the person has no relative to whom restitution can be made for the guilt, then what is given in restitution for guilt will belong to Adonai, that is, to the cohen — in addition to the ram of atonement through which atonement is made for him.”-Numbers 5:5-8
Okay, we’re following on the heels of my last post dealing with the situation whereby one person has committed a sin against another person and has lied about what he or she did to God (meaning when he or she went to the temple).
And by the way, this specific instance was brought up by Yeshua in Matthew 5.
“So if you are offering your gift
at the Temple altar
and you remember there
that your brother has something against you,
leave your gift where it is by the altar,
and go, make peace with your brother.”
-Matthew 5:23
Notice the part where it says “he must make full restitution for his guilt”?
Out of all the five sacrifices we’ve studied so far, do you have any idea which one this could be?
The words “restitution” and “guilt” are practically giving you the answer.
That’s right.
The answer is the ASHAM.
Most Bibles will normally translate the ASHAM as a “Guilt Offering” but I have chosen to use the more apt term “Reparation Offering” because that is what this sacrifice achieves.
It pays reparations for the damage done.
This is THE sacrifice offered when either bodily or material damage is done to a third party.
In a nutshell, when a crime was committed against another person, the following three things had to be done:
-Reparations had to be made to the injured party
-A penalty had to be paid to the injured party
-An atonement sacrifice (the ASHAM) had to be made
WOW!!!
What an expensive lesson for the criminal that was.
Contrast that with what goes on in our society.
If somebody commits a crime in our society, he goes to prison (in some cases, a hotel really) and the tax payers pay.
Imagine instead if the criminal was forced to work to pay reparations in addition to the penalty paid to the injured party and then afterwards had to go to the Temple and make a sacrifice for his sins.
Such a procedure would be far more rehabilitating, don’t you think?
And that’s not all actually.
Let’s say the injured party died as a result of what happened.
The criminal would still have to pay reparations and the penalty to the living relatives of the person he now killed as a result of his wrongdoing.
Now what if there was no living kin left to pay?
Then all of the reparation and penalty money would go to the priesthood!
This nice little stipulation was something unique to the Hebrews actually.
In other nations, money from unclaimed property or reparations went to the monarchy (the king).
But in Israel, it went to God.
In other words, the priesthood.
To conclude, what we have to understand is that God is establishing a very practical means to maintain peace among about 600,000 men who will be organized into a HOLY army to take God’s Promised Land.
If there was constant fighting and bickering among the men, they would lose all sense of focus and productivity as an armed forces.
And these verses (Numbers 5:5-8) have very practical implications for us.
These verses teach us that it does us no good to go merrily about with our praying and doing good works for God if “our brother has something against us“.
You can’t ignore your relationships with other believers and expect things to go well.
At least, that’s what I’m getting from today’s study.
I’m done.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“So if you are offering your gift at the Temple altar
and you remember there
that your brother has something against you,
leave your gift where it is by the altar,
and go, make peace with your brother.
Then come back and offer your gift.”
Matthew 5:23-24
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