Leviticus 4:13

“And if the whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance, etc.] That is, all Israel, or the greatest part of them, as Gersom interprets it, through the ignorant teaching of the judges, who by their instruction cause the people to err, and commit sins of ignorance, as Baal Hatturim on the place observes, and Maimonides elsewhere f102; wherefore Jarchi, and some others, by the congregation of Israel understand the sanhedrim, or the bench of judges, consisting of seventy one. Ainsworth remarks on the words, that the church may err: and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly; congregation or church, so that they do not know that it is a sin which they have committed: and they have…”

“if the whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance--In consequence of some culpable neglect or misapprehension of the law, the people might contract national guilt, and then national expiation was necessary. The same sacrifice was to be offered as in the former case, but with this difference in the ceremonial, that the elders or heads of the tribes, as representing the people and being the principal aggressors in misleading the congregation, laid their hands on the head of the victim. The priest then took the blood into the holy place, where, after dipping his finger in it seven times, he sprinkled the drops seven times before the veil. This done, he returned to the court of the…”

“Congregation ... assembly - Each of the Hebrew words signifies the people in a collected body. It does not appear that there is any difference between them in the connection in which they are here used. return to 'Top of Page'”

“The whole congregation - The body of the people, or the greater part of them, their rulers concurring with them. Leviticus 4:14”

“the whole congregation: This may refer to some oversight in acts of religious worship, or to some transgression of the letter of the law, which arose out of the peculiar circumstances in which they were found, as in the case mentioned in Sa1 14:32, et seq. The sacrifices and rites in this case were the same as in the preceding; only here the elders laid their hands on the head of the victim, in the name of all the congregation. through ignorance: Lev 4:1, Lev 4:2, Lev 5:2-5, Lev 5:17; Num 15:24-29; Jos 7:11, Jos 7:24-26; Ti1 1:13; Heb 10:26-29 and are guilty: Lev 5:2-5, Lev 5:17, Lev 6:4; Ezr 10:19; Hos 5:15 \*marg. Co1 11:27 Leviticus 4:14”

“Sin of the whole congregation. - This is still further defined, as consisting in the fact that the thing was hid (נעלּם) (Note: In the correct editions נעלּם has dagesh both here and in Lev 5:2, Lev 5:4, as Delitzsch informs me, according to an old rule in pointing, which required that every consonant which followed a syllable terminating with a guttural should be pointed with dagesh, if the guttural was to be read with a quiescent sheva and not with chateph. This is the case in ויּאסּר in Gen 46:29; Exo 14:6, תּעלּים in Psa 10:1, and other words in the critical edition of the Psalter which has been carefully revised by Bהr according to the Masora, and published with an introduction by…”