📖 Biblical Definition
The Mosaic offering for specific sins involving violation of property, sacred things, or guilt requiring restitution. Hebrew asham (guilt offering, trespass offering). Leviticus 5:14-19 and 6:1-7 specify the offering and its context: when a man trespassed through ignorance against the holy things of the LORD, or violated his neighbor through deceit, theft, oppression, or false oath, he had to (1) restore the principal AND add one fifth (twenty percent over) to the injured party, then (2) bring a ram without blemish to the priest as a guilt offering. The order matters: restitution to the injured party first, then the offering to God. The pattern shapes biblical ethics: sin against the neighbor cannot be cleansed by God-ward ritual alone — the neighbor must be made whole. Christ's sacrifice fulfills the typology: He is the once-for-all guilt-offering whose blood cleanses all our trespasses (Heb 10:1-18; 1 John 1:7). The horizontal restitution-discipline remains binding on the Christian (Matt 5:23-24).
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
The guilt offering with restitution.
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The Mosaic sacrifice for specific transgressions involving the property of God or neighbor — sacrilege, fraud, theft, false oaths — requiring not only sacrifice but full restitution plus a one-fifth penalty paid to the wronged party.
📖 Key Scripture
Leviticus 6:5 — "He shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto."
Leviticus 7:1 — "Likewise this is the law of the trespass offering: it is most holy."
Isaiah 53:10 — "When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin (asham)..."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Reduced to dispensational trivia; missing how it required real-world restitution and how Isaiah names the Servant as asham.
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The trespass offering had teeth — sacrifice plus restitution plus a fifth. Forgiveness did not erase what you owed your neighbor. And Isaiah 53:10 names the Suffering Servant as asham — Christ as our trespass offering, paying both God and the wronged.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Hebrew asham — guilt, trespass.
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['Hebrew', 'H817', 'asham', 'guilt offering']
['Hebrew', 'H7999', 'shalam', 'to make whole, restore']
Usage
"Christ is our asham; we still owe restitution to neighbor."
"Forgiven sin still has earthly consequences."