“If anyone commits a trespass, and sins unwittingly regarding Yahweh’s holy things, then he shall bring his trespass offering to Yahweh: a ram without defect from the flock, according to your estimation in silver by shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering.
To offer the guilt offering (asham) according to its prescribed ritual
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְהֵבִיא אֶת אֲשָׁמוֹ לַיהוָה אַיִל תָּמִים מִן הַצֹּאן בְּעֶרְכְּךָ כֶּסֶף שְׁקָלִים בְּשֶׁקֶל הַקֹּדֶשׁ לְאָשָׁם
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו מי שחטא חטאים ידועים שיקריב קרבן אשם ויתכפר לו, והוא הנקרא אשם ודאי, והחטאים שיתחייב עליהם זה הקרבן הם המעילה והגזלה ובא על שפחה חרופה ונשבע לשקר על שבועת הפקדון, וזה שכל מי שמעל בשגגה והוא שיהנה בשוה פרוטה מן ההקדש בין הקדש בדק הבית בין הקדש מזבח, ומי שיגזול חבירו שוה פרוטה או יותר ונשבע או בא על שפחה חרופה בין בשוגג בין במזיד, הנה הוא חובה עליו שיקריב קרבן על חטאתו, ואינה קרבן חטאת. ואמנם הוא אשם והוא הנקרא אשם ודאי. ואמר במעילה וחטאה בשגגה וגו' והביא את אשמו וגו' אמר וכחש בעמיתו ונשבע על שקר ואת אשמו יביא ואמר והיא שפחה נחרפת לאיש והביא את אשמו. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו במסכת כריתות. (ויקרא אל משה, מעילה פי"א, ושגגות פ"ט):
And that is that He commanded us that one who does certain sins must offer a guilt-offering sacrifice. And that is what is called a definite guilt-offering. And the sins for which one is liable for this sacrifice are misappropriation; theft; one who has sexual intercourse with a designated maidservant; and one who swears falsely with an oath over a deposit. And that is one who misappropriated in error and derived benefit worth a perutah (a small coin) from sanctified property - whether sanctified for Temple upkeep or whether sanctified for the altar; one who robbed the value of a perutah or more from his fellow and took an oath; one who had sexual intercourse with a designated maidservant, whether inadvertent or volitional. [In these cases,] he is obligated to offer a sacrifice for his sin, and it is not a sin-offering sacrifice; indeed, it is a guilt-offering, and it is called a definite guilt-offering. And He said regarding misappropriation, "and he sinned in error, etc. and he shall bring his guilt offering" (Leviticus 5:15). He [also] said, "and he denied his countryman [...] and swore falsely, etc. his guilt offering shall he bring." (Leviticus 5:21-25). And He said, "and she is a designated maidservant for a man [...]. And he shall bring his guilt offering" (Leviticus 19:20-21). And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in Tractate Keritot. (See Parashat Vayikra; Mishneh Torah, Offerings for Unintentional Transgressions 9.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a ritual instruction
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Requires a standing Temple
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox As the catalog records it: binding in principle inoperative
- Conservative Not binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Not binding
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)
- 11QTª (Temple Scroll) cols. 35-37 The catalog describes this reception as: reorganized/expanded ritual prescription
Rabbinic aggadah
- Leviticus Rabbah 7:3 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.234-238 rationalized it
Josephus
- Antiquities 3.230-232 paraphrased it
The New Testament
- Hebrews 10:1-10 treated it as abrogated treats Levitical sin/guilt offerings as superseded by the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ
- Romans 8:3 reinterpreted it peri hamartias reflects the LXX sin-offering (chatat) idiom and is applied christologically; it has no specific connection to the asham
The Church Fathers
- Origen, Homiliae in Leviticum 3-4 read it allegorically
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- code of hammurabi elevated restitution — multiple-fold repayment — prescribed for theft of property belonging to a god or palace, paralleling the asham's requirement of principal-plus-one-fifth restitution for sacrilege against sacred property (ma'al) Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §8 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 1997)
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.