What Does Leviticus 6:5 Mean?
Or anything about which he has sworn falsely, he shall turn it back with its head, and shall add its fifth upon it, and give it to the one to whom it belongs, on the day of his guilt offering.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering.THE KEY
The offering does not absorb the debt: the principal returns to the injured person, increased by a fifth.
THE MEANING
A false oath does not make the loss disappear: the principal returns to its rightful owner with a fifth added. Here, the trespass offering remains joined to concrete repair for the person harmed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A ritual offering can erase the material claim of the person harmed.
THE ROOT
וְהֵשִׁיב
wəhēšîḇ
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
Return, turn back; in this form, bring back or restore.
“turn it back” in this verse is wəhēšîḇ. The verb translated “restore” carries the sense of bringing something back to where it belongs. The verse makes that return concrete: the principal goes back to its rightful owner, and the added fifth makes the repair measurable.
ALSO GROWS
teshuvah: Return, turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
The shared root links restoration with a return from what has gone astray; here, what returns is the value owed to the injured person.
meshiv: One who brings back or restores.
מֵשִׁיב
This related form emphasizes restoration as bringing something back to its rightful place, as the principal returns to its owner.
THE PATTERN
Scriptural repair reaches the person harmed and can return more than the amount taken.
If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and slaughter it, or sell it; he shall make whole five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.Then they speak their falling short into the open, which they have done; and he makes his crossing over whole, with its head, and adds to it a fifth of it, and gives it to the one against whom he crossed over.And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord, I give half of what I have to the emptied, and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I give back fourfold."THE THREAD
Then they speak their falling short into the open, which they have done; and he makes his crossing over whole, with its head, and adds to it a fifth of it, and gives it to the one against whom he crossed over.The same return-root, שׁוּב (shuv), appears in the parallel restitution formula. Its repeated use ties the fifth part to the act of bringing back what is owed, with the injured person named as its recipient.
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