Leviticus 6:2-7 If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the LORD, and lie to his neighbor in that which was delivered him to keep… I can conceive no law more beautiful, more impartial, more fitted to do the highest good, than the very first requirement with which this chapter begins: "If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the Lord." But mark what constitutes a trespass against the Lord. It consists in "lying to his neighbour," or in that which was delivered to him to keep, or in fellowship, or in taking .anything away from his neighbour by violence. Now, in doing so, he commits a trespass against the Lord: the injury is done against his neighbour, but in its rebound it is sin against God. Every deed of injustice, whether it break the last six commandments or the first four, is sin against God — if it be one of the last six commandments of the law, it has in it two aspects: one aspect towards man, or injury done to man — a neighbour; and its aspect towards God, or sin committed against Him. We never sin against each other — we do injury to each other — but, when we do so, we sin always against God. And hence the distinction is so important — especially in these days when errors are abroad — that the person against whom the thing is done can forgive in the thing which relates to him: if I steal, or if I injure or wound the neighbour, he from whom I plunder can forgive me the injury, because he is injured and the owner; but the sin that underlies the injury, reaching to God, God alone can forgive. See, too, how very comprehensive the law is — "shall sin in that which was delivered him to keep." Are you made a trustee? — is property deposited with you? — are you a banker? — has some client left his money in your hands? Then it is your duty to be faithful; it is your duty to remember that the least breach of that trust is injury against your neighbour and sin against your God. "Or in fellowship" — that is, as we call it in modern days, "in partnership." Are you a partner in a house of business? You are bound to look to your co-partner's interests as if they were your own; and your co-partner is bound to look to your interests just as if they were his. "Or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour," such a one commits sin. "Or hath found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely." Among the Romans, it was always regarded as theft to appropriate anything you found upon the streets, whether you could find the owner of it or not: and this law here says — from which that was evidently a reflection that if you find anything of which you cannot find the owner, or if you find anything and know the owner, and either conceal it, or deny it, or swear falsely concerning it, all that is sin against God. "Then it shall be, because he hath sinned and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found, or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal" — that is, the sum itself — "and shall add" not as an atonement, but as what may be fairly due — "the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth." And then, not only was he to do so, but he was also to do it at the time of his confession and his trespass-offering made by the priest. The sin was forgiven through the trespass-offering as a type of Christ's atonement; the injury against the brother was rectified by returning the principal, and a fifth of the principal added to it, and receiving from that brother he had injured his forgiveness. (J. Cumming, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the LORD, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour; |
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