NOTES for Num 15:1-41
God gives His people many commandments through Moses, and we see that He clearly distinguishes intentional failure to keep the law from unintentional failure, committed through ignorance or mistake. The first case is conscious lawlessness, and its consequences are the most terrible, because here a person openly resists God. In the second case, however, the Lord offers a comparatively simple procedure for reconciliation. Thus already in the Old Testament we see that for God what matters is not so much the person's act itself as his inner orientation.