Unintentional
then it shall be, when he sins and becomes guilty, that he shall restore what he took by robbery or acquired by extortion, or the deposit which was entrusted to him, or the lost property which he found, Leviticus 6:4 NASB
Becomes guilty – It is often claimed that Leviticus deals only with unintentional sin. Verses like this in context support this claim. If you act, and later you realize that the action was a violation of Torah, then there is a remedy. It’s called the guilt offering, using the same Hebrew word we investigated for “becomes guilty” (ʾāšam).
The verb ʾāšam occurs in the Pentateuch in Leviticus, chapters four, five and six, and in Numbers 5:6–7. The setting is cultic but also ethical. Any individual who had sinned was a guilty person. A procedure of obliterating guilt is outlined. Normally, restitution must be made according to cash values, plus a twenty percent cash penalty. An animal of specified value was brought to the priest, sin was confessed and the animal sacrificed in a specific manner. The goal was atonement and forgiveness.[1]
The guilt offering also involves restitution and penalty. But what do you do about intentional sins. Is Leviticus silent? Are we left with the Christian idea of retroactive forgiveness following the death and resurrection of the Messiah? Does this mean that restitution, so central to the Levitical code, is annulled? Perhaps not. A verse from Psalm 7 provides a different point of view. Actually, it’s not even a numbered verse in English Bibles (it is in the Hebrew Bible, of course). In English, we have this introductory statement:
A [a]Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjaminite.
You’ll notice the footnote. It reads: “Dithyrambic rhythm; or wild, passionate song” as if all this introduction is about musical instruction. But a midrash sees something else: “Lord of the world, do not judge me a willful sinner but an unwitting sinner.” What is the justification for this midrashic interpretation? The word shiggaion comes from the root shâgâh. That root means, “to stray, to mistake, to transgress because of intoxication, to sin through ignorance.” David’s introduction isn’t just about musical style (if it’s about this at all). It’s about his sin.
“King David is preoccupied with this dimension [accepting personal responsibility for unconscious acts] of the mind. When he begins Psalm 7 with the words Shigayon le-David, . . . David is invoking the less serious diagnosis, but at the same time, he is not rejecting all responsibility: he is acknowledging a constitutive blind spot.”[2]
Zornberg quotes Rashi: “I have been wary of errors, but it is impossible to be so wary that one never errs; Clear me of things I am blind to.”[3]
What is happening here is that David is asking God to treat his intentional sin as if it were unintentional because it is, in some sense, humanly inevitable, that is, not entirely within his power to control. There is an Egyptomania, a Golden Calf DNA, embedded in humanity, a nearly unconscious pressure toward disobedience. This is not an endorsement of the Christian doctrine of Original Sin. That doctrine claims that humanity has drive toward sin, implanted since birth, so that sin is not only inevitable but also irresistible. The doctrine of Original Sin claims that God’s grace found in a renewed heart is the only solution to this irresistible and condemnable human trait. It goes so far as to claim that we must sin since we are human. But Psalm 7 and other passages suggest that sin is inevitable not because we are born with a “sin nature”but because the spiral effects of Egyptomania have had epigenetic and cultural impact so that we all have “blind spots.” Paul expressed it as something like an alien force within:
For I do not understand what I am doing; for I am not practicing what I want to do, but I do the very thing I hate. However, if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, that the Law is good. But now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me. Romans 7:15-17 NASB
“It’s not really me—but it is really me. Lord, treat me as if I really never wanted to do this, because in truth I really never wanted to, but I know I did anyway. Help me!”
Shiggaion
Topical Index: sin, unintentional, intentional, sin nature, Original Sin, shiggaion, Psalm 7:1, Romans 7:15-17, Leviticus 6:4
[1] Livingston, G. H. (1999). 180 אָשַׁם. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., pp. 78–79). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Hidden Order of Intimacy: Reflections on the Book of Leviticus (Schocken, 2022), p. 30.
[3] Ibid.
