Charles Ellicott Commentary Leviticus 4:13

"And if the whole congregation of Israel err, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done any of the things which Jehovah hath commanded not to be done, and are guilty;" — Leviticus 4:13 (ASV)

And if the whole congregation. — As the whole Church, in its corporate body, is no more exempt from human frailty than its highest spiritual chief, the law now prescribes the sin offering for the congregation (Leviticus 4:13–21). The case assumed here is that the whole congregation ignorantly committed an act that, at the time it was committed, they believed to be lawful, but which they later discovered to be sinful. The two terms, translated respectively in the Authorized Version as congregation and assembly, denote the same body of people and are used interchangeably, so that the same congregation or assembly that inadvertently committed the sin later recognized it .

An instance of such a national and congregational sin is recorded in 1 Samuel 14:32, where we are told that the Israelites, after smiting the Philistines, flew upon the spoil, and took sheep, and oxen, and calves, and slew them on the ground, and the people did eat them with the blood. According to the ancient interpretation, however, which was prevalent at the time of Christ, “the whole congregation of Israel” and “the assembly” spoken of here denote the great Sanhedrin, the representatives of the people, who, through error, might proclaim a decree designed to mislead the nation, thus accounting for the apparent discrepancy between this passage and Numbers 15:22-26.