15 If a soul commit a trespass, and sin through ignorance, in the holy things of the Lord; then he shall bring for his trespass unto the Lord a ram without blemish out of the flocks, with thy estimation by shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering:

16 And he shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in the holy thing, and shall add the fifth part thereto, and give it unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him.

In the last post we talked about the disagreement Bible scholars have as to which infractions were connected to the special trespass offering, and we didn’t really have time to discuss the ritual itself, so today we will address that. This offering required bringing a ram, presumably to be slaughtered in a way similar to what we have seen before, but also a measure of money. The exact amount of money, it would seem, was proportional to the magnitude of the offense. Since, as we discussed previously, we’re not entirely sure the nature of that offense, it is uncertain exactly how and why this fine was calculated.

As already mentioned, the two prevailing theories were that this offering was for cases of violation against the holy things of the tabernacle, or for causing property damage to one’s neighbor. Presumably if the offense was of the first type, the money portion of the offering was added to the temple treasury, then to be used for the maintenance and affairs of the tabernacle. If the offense was of the second type, then verse sixteen seems to be saying that the full price of the damages would be given to the injured party, and then an extra 20 percent. Thus, the money might have been a punitive fine, or it might have been a way of restoring damages. The ram, meanwhile, would have been for spiritual cleansing. Thus, this offering included both spiritual and terrestrial atonement.