Leviticus 5:3
Or if he touches human uncleanness--anything by which one becomes unclean--even if he is unaware of it, when he realizes it, he is guilty.
Sermons
Cases of Concealment of Knowledge and Ceremonial UncleannessR.A. Redford Leviticus 5:1-13
Guilt RemovedS.R. Aldridge Leviticus 5:1-13
The Trespass OfferingJ.A. Macdonald Leviticus 5:1-13
Shunning the ImpureW. Clarkson Leviticus 5:2, 3














We naturally ask, Why such stringent regulations as to everything of man or beast that was "unclean"? We may understand -

I. THE EXPLANATION (THE RATIONALE) OF THESE REQUIREMENTS.

1. The two main truths God was teaching his people were the divine unity, and purity of heart and life. The state of surrounding heathendom made these two lessons emphatically and particularly necessary.

2. God's method of teaching was pictorial: it was by rite, symbol, illustration. The world was in its religious childhood.

3. Under this method bodily ills naturally stood for spiritual evils; as wholeness of the body stood for health of the soul, so the sickness of the body answered to the malady of the soul, and the uncleanness of the one to the impurity of the other.

4. Hence would result the fact that the careful avoidance of the one would be an instructive lesson in the shunning of the other. Associating the two things so closely in their minds, commanded to shun most scrupulously all bodily uncleanness, taught to look at the least defilement as a transgression of the law, they would necessarily feel, with all desirable intensity, that every moral and spiritual impurity must be most sensitively avoided. Therefore such enactments as those of the text.

II. THEIR MORAL SIGNIFICANCE. They say to us:

1. That we should avoid all that is suggestive of impurity..

2. That we should shun everything which can, in any way or in the least degree, be communicative of spiritual evil.

3. That a stain upon the soul may be contracted without our own knowledge; "if it be hidden from him." This may be through books, friends, habits of speech.

4. That we should point out to the unwary their danger or their error.

5. That on the first intimation of error we should penitently return on our way. - C.

He also shall be unclean.
This avoidance of unclean animals and places is not without practical illustration in our own personal experience and action. To-day, for example, we avoid places that are known to be fever-stricken. We are alarmed lest we should bring ourselves within the influence of contagion. The strongest man might fear if he knew that a letter were put into his hand which had come from a house where fever was fatally raging. However heroic he might be in sentiment, and however inclined to boast of the solidity of his nervous system, it is not impossible that even the strongest man might shrink from taking the hand of a fever-stricken friend. All this is natural and all this is justifiable, and, in fact, any defiance of this would be unnatural and unjustifiable. Is there, then, no suggestion in all such rational caution that there may be moral danger from moral contagion? Can a body emit pestilence and a soul dwell in all evil and riot in all wantonness without giving out an effluvium fatal to moral vigour and to spiritual health? The suggestion is preposterous. They are the unwise and most reprehensible men who being afraid of a fever have no fear of a moral pestilence; who running away in mortal terror from influences leading towards small-pox, cholera, and other fatal diseases, rush into companionships, and actions, and servitudes which are positively steeped and saturated with moral pollution. That we are more affected by the one than by the other only shows that we are more body than soul. Literally, the text does not refer in all probability to a purely spiritual action, yet not the less is the suggestion justified by experience that even the soul considered in its most spiritual sense may touch things that are unclean and may be defiled by them. A poor thing indeed that the hand has kept itself away from pollution and defilement if the mind has opened wide all the points of access to the influence of evil. Sin may not only be in the hand, it may be roiled as a sweet morsel under the tongue. There may be a chamber of imagery in the heart, i man may be utterly without offence in any social acceptation of that term — actually a friend of magistrates and judges, and himself a high interpreter of the law of social morality and honour, and yet all the while may be hiding a very perdition in his heart. It is the characteristic mystery of the salvation of Jesus Christ that it does not come to remove stains upon the flesh or spots upon the garments, but to work out an utter and eternal cleansing in the secret places of the soul, so that the heart itself may in the event be without "spot or wrinkle or any such thing" — pure, holy, radiant, even dazzling with light, fit to be looked upon by the very eye of God.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

Pierius Valerianus, in his book of Egyptian Hieroglyphics, maketh mention of a kind of white mouse, called the Armenian mouse, being of such a cleanly disposition, that it will rather die than be any way defiled, so that the passage into her hole being besmeared with any filth, she will rather expose herself to the mercy of her cruel enemy, than any way seek to save her life by passing so foul an entrance.

(J. Spencer.)

Men have looked into the crater of a volcano to see what was there, and going down to explore, without coming back to report progress. Many and many a man has gone to see what was in hell, that did see it. Many and many a man has looked to see what was in the cup, and routed a viper coiled up therein. Many and many a man has gone into the house of lust, and found that the ends thereof were death — bitter, rotten death. Many and many a man has sought to learn something of the evils of gambling, and learned it to his own ruin. And I say to every man, the more you know about these things the more you ought to be ashamed of knowing; a knowledge of them is not necessary to education or manhood; and they ought to be avoided, because when a man has once fallen into them, the way out is so steep and hard.

(H. W. Beecher.)

People
Ephah, Moses
Places
Teman
Topics
Anything, Becomes, Clear, Defiled, Guilty, Hid, Hidden, Human, Knoweth, Learns, Responsible, Sort, Though, Touch, Touches, Touching, Unaware, Unclean, Uncleanness, Unconsciously, Whatever, Whatsoever, Whereby, Wherewith, Withal
Outline
1. He who sins in concealing his knowledge
2. in touching an unclean thing
4. or in making an oath
6. His trespass offering, of the flock
7. of fowls
11. or of flour
14. The trespass offering in sacrilege
17. and in sins of ignorance

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Leviticus 5:1-13

     7444   sin offering

Leviticus 5:2-3

     5194   touch
     7340   clean and unclean

Leviticus 5:2-4

     5803   carelessness

Library
An Unalterable Law
EVERYWHERE under the old figurative dispensation, blood was sure to greet your eyes. It was the one most prominent thing under the Jewish economy, scarcely a ceremony was observed without it. You could not enter into any part of the tabernacle, but you saw traces of the blood-sprinkling. Sometimes there were bowls of blood cast at the foot of the altar. The place looked so like a shambles, that to visit it must have been far from attractive to the natural taste, and to delight in it, a man had need
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 60: 1914

List of Abbreviations Used in Reference to Rabbinic Writings Quoted in this Work.
THE Mishnah is always quoted according to Tractate, Chapter (Pereq) and Paragraph (Mishnah), the Chapter being marked in Roman, the paragraph in ordinary Numerals. Thus Ber. ii. 4 means the Mishnic Tractate Berakhoth, second Chapter, fourth Paragraph. The Jerusalem Talmud is distinguished by the abbreviation Jer. before the name of the Tractate. Thus, Jer. Ber. is the Jer. Gemara, or Talmud, of the Tractate Berakhoth. The edition, from which quotations are made, is that commonly used, Krotoschin,
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

Sanctification.
VI. Objections answered. I will consider those passages of scripture which are by some supposed to contradict the doctrine we have been considering. 1 Kings viii. 46: "If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near," etc. On this passage, I remark:-- 1. That this sentiment in nearly the same language, is repeated in 2 Chron. vi. 26, and in Eccl.
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology

Entire Sanctification
By Dr. Adam Clarke The word "sanctify" has two meanings. 1. It signifies to consecrate, to separate from earth and common use, and to devote or dedicate to God and his service. 2. It signifies to make holy or pure. Many talk much, and indeed well, of what Christ has done for us: but how little is spoken of what he is to do in us! and yet all that he has done for us is in reference to what he is to do in us. He was incarnated, suffered, died, and rose again from the dead; ascended to heaven, and there
Adam Clarke—Entire Sanctification

Christ a Complete Saviour:
OR, THE INTERCESSION OF CHRIST, AND WHO ARE PRIVILEGED IN IT. BY JOHN BUNYAN Advertisement by the Editor. However strange it may appear, it is a solemn fact, that the heart of man, unless prepared by a sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, rejects Christ as a complete Saviour. The pride of human nature will not suffer it to fall, as helpless and utterly undone, into the arms of Divine mercy. Man prefers a partial Saviour; one who had done so much, that, with the sinner's aid, the work might be
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Second Stage of Jewish Trial. Jesus Condemned by Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin.
(Palace of Caiaphas. Friday.) ^A Matt. XXVI. 57, 59-68; ^B Mark XIV. 53, 55-65; ^C Luke XXII. 54, 63-65; ^D John XVIII. 24. ^d 24 Annas therefore sent him bound unto Caiaphas the high priest. [Foiled in his attempted examination of Jesus, Annas sends him to trial.] ^b and there come together with him all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes. ^a 57 And they that had taken Jesus led him away to the house of Caiaphas the high priest, ^c and brought him into the high priest's house. ^a where
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Earliest Christian Preaching
1. THUS far we have confined ourselves to the words of Jesus. The divine necessity of His death, indicated in the Old Testament and forming the basis of all His teaching regarding it, is the primary truth; the nature of that necessity begins to be revealed as the death is set in relation to the ransoming of many, and to the institution of a new covenant -- that is, a new religion, having as its fundamental blessing the forgiveness of sins. I do not think this view of our Lord's mind as to His own
James Denney—The Death of Christ

Leviticus
The emphasis which modern criticism has very properly laid on the prophetic books and the prophetic element generally in the Old Testament, has had the effect of somewhat diverting popular attention from the priestly contributions to the literature and religion of Israel. From this neglect Leviticus has suffered most. Yet for many reasons it is worthy of close attention; it is the deliberate expression of the priestly mind of Israel at its best, and it thus forms a welcome foil to the unattractive
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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