Leviticus 5:1 - Exposition

The case of a witness on oath. If a man hear the voice of swearing , that is, if he was one of a number of persons adjured to speak according to the manner in which oaths were administered in Jewish courts of justice (see Matthew 26:63 ; 2 Chronicles 18:15 ), and he did not give evidence of what he had seen or heard, he had to bear his iniquity , that is, he was regarded as guilty; and as this was an offense which could be atoned for by a sacrifice, he was to offer as a sin offering a ewe lamb, or a female kid, or two turtle-doves, or two pigeons, or the tenth part of an ephah of flour. This injunction is a direct condemnation of the approved teaching of Italian moral theologians of paramount authority throughout the Roman Church, who maintain that, in case a crime is not known to others, a witness in a court of justice "may, nay, he is bound to, say that the accused has not committed it" (St. Alfonso de' Liguori, 'Theol. Mor.,' 4:154).