Charles Ellicott Commentary Leviticus 4:22

"When a ruler sinneth, and doeth unwittingly any one of all the things which Jehovah his God hath commanded not to be done, and is guilty;" — Leviticus 4:22 (ASV)

When a ruler has sinned. —The third instance presented is that of a ruler sinning inadvertently (Leviticus 4:22–26). As the word here translated “ruler” is used for a king (1 Kings 11:34; Ezekiel 34:24; Ezekiel 46:2), the head of a tribe (Numbers 1:4–16), or of the division of a tribe (Numbers 34:18), opinions differ as to the exact position of the person intended here.

Now, in comparing the phrase used regarding the sin of ignorance in the case of the high priest, the congregation, and any one of the people, it will be seen that in all three instances it is simply described as a sin “against any commandments of the Lord” (Leviticus 4:13; Leviticus 4:27), whereas in the case of the ruler, we have the exceptional phrase, “against any of the commandments of the Lord his God.”

Hence the interpretation obtained during the Second Temple period that the addition of the phrase his God, which shows a distinctive relationship to his God, denotes here one over whom God alone is exalted—the sovereign who is only responsible to his God.

And is guilty. —Rather, and acknowledges his guilt, as the Authorized Version rightly translates it in Hosea 5:15. (Compare also Zechariah 11:5.) This sense is not only required by the disjunctive particle or, with which the next verse begins, but by the fact that the statement in the current translation, “When men sin they are guilty,” is a truism. The sinner is guilty whether he sins advertently or inadvertently. The case here supposed is that the prince had himself realized that what he had done was a sin, and had acknowledged it as such.