Leviticus27chapter 27

Leviticus 27:9-13

A clean animal once vowed is holy, and swapping it makes both holy, so an attempt to trade doubles the gift. An unclean animal is valued by the priest, and redeeming it costs a fifth more, a surcharge at verses 13, 15, 19, 27 and 31. Leviticus 5:16 and 6:5 lay the same fifth on restitution for a trespass, so taking back a gift to God is priced like damage.

John Wesley reads the loss of both animals as a penalty for treating a vow lightly. The ban runs both ways, and even a better animal may not be swapped in. Adam Clarke calls such a change impiety.

An unclean animal may be vowed, though never offered. It is brought before the priest, as the person of verse 8 was, and verse 12 has him set its value. Adam Clarke holds that whatever was vowed became the LORD's property from that moment.

John Gill, following Jarchi, reads the priest's figure as the price for any buyer. The owner who wants the animal back pays more, as verse 13 adds a fifth. Jarchi is Rashi, the medieval Jewish commentator.

Adam Clarke reads the added fifth as a check on rash vows and on covetous redemptions. His example is an animal valued at forty shekels, which its former owner bought back for forty-eight. Anyone else paid the plain price.

Leviticus 27:14-21

The priest values a house, redeemable with a fifth added, and a field by its seed, fifty shekels per homer of barley. Its price falls with the years since the Jubilee, and verses 20 and 21 give the one way inherited land leaves a family for good, to the priests. Leviticus 25:13 returns every man to his property that year, and here that year takes a field away.

Adam Clarke notes that while the house stood consecrated, its yearly rent went to the repair of the tabernacle. Redeeming it cost the same added fifth as the unclean animal of verse 13. The rule returns for the field at verse 19.

The Berean reads a parcel of his land, and Adam Clarke explains why a part is meant: no man might vow his whole estate and leave his family beggars. The rabbis priced such a field at forty-eight shekels, Clarke reports.

John Wesley took the date as the time just after a jubilee had passed. A field vowed then has the whole cycle of years ahead of it, and the full price stands. Wesley ties that price to the fifty shekels of verse 16.

Once years of the cycle have gone, the priest lowers the price by the years already spent. John Wesley reads the price of verse 17 as paid without diminution, and this verse sets the reduction for a later vow. Verse 23 counts a bought field the same way.

Matthew Henry works the figure through: fifty shekels a homer with a fifth added comes to sixty. The money went to the sanctuary, and the land went back to the man who had consecrated it. Verse 20 shows what happens if he lets the chance pass.

The verse leaves open who sold the field, and John Wesley reads the seller as the priest. On his reading the owner declines to redeem, the priest sells the field to another, and the owner loses the right of redemption for good. Verse 21 says where the field goes next.

John Wesley reads the release as the field leaving the buyer's hands at the jubilee and passing to the priests for their maintenance. Adam Clarke gives the Hebrew for devoted as cherem, which puts the field beyond redemption for good. Verse 28 sets out the full rule.

Leviticus 27:22-25

A field a man bought is handled differently from a field he inherited. He pays its value up to the Jubilee on the day he vows it, and at the Jubilee it returns to the original owner, so he gives only the years he holds. Verse 25 fixes every figure in the chapter to the sanctuary shekel of twenty gerahs, as Exodus 30:13 had already done.

The buyer pays the whole value at once, on the day he makes the vow. John Wesley reads the valuation as the field's worth for the span between the vow and the jubilee. An inherited field was priced by its seed at verse 16.

John Wesley reads this verse as the reason the buyer's price stops at the jubilee, his right in the field ending in that year. The field returns to the family whose inheritance it was. The unredeemed field of verse 21 passes to the priests, and a bought field always goes home.

Adam Clarke describes the sanctuary shekel as a standard weight kept in the sanctuary, by which all the weights in the land were tried. Clarke traces the same weight back to Genesis 20:16 and 23:15.

Leviticus 27:26-29

A firstborn is already the LORD's and cannot be vowed, and verse 28 puts the devoted thing, the Hebrew cherem, beyond sale or redemption. Verse 29 condemns any person set apart for destruction and explains nothing. Adam Clarke reads it of persons under judicial ban, Matthew Henry sees in Jephthah's daughter at Judges 11 the law misread, and John Wesley limits it to what a man lawfully controls.

John Wesley reads the verse as the firstborn of an unclean animal, carrying on from verse 26. Such an animal could not be vowed, being a firstborn, and could not be offered, being unclean. It is redeemed with a fifth, or sold.

John Wesley reads the devoted thing as given with a curse on the giver or on others if the vow went unkept, which he takes from the Hebrew word. Matthew Henry ranks such things with the sacrifices called most holy, which only the priests might touch. The form of the vow made the difference.

Adam Clarke records a second reading held by some, in which the devoted person stays the LORD's property and serves Him until death. Clarke refuses the charge that the law allowed human sacrifice. The Berean's set apart for destruction renders the same word as devoted in verse 28.

Leviticus 27:30-33

The tithe "belongs to the LORD" before anyone hands it over, and a crop tithe may be redeemed with a fifth added, unlike the herd tithe. Verse 33 forbids choosing the better animal and makes both holy after a swap, so the tenth is whatever passes under the rod. Abram tithed at Genesis 14:20 and Jacob vowed a tithe at Genesis 28:22, so the practice reached this book already formed.

John Gill, following Jarchi, limits the fifth to a man redeeming his own tithe. A man buying his neighbour's tithe paid the plain value. Gill's example is a tithe worth fifty shillings, bought back for sixty.

Adam Clarke gives the rabbinic account of the count. The whole flock was shut in a fold with a narrow door, and the animals went out one at a time. The owner stood at the door with a rod dipped in vermilion or red ochre, and the tenth that passed was the LORD's.

Verse 10 laid this rule of substitution on a vowed animal, and here it falls on the tithe of the herd and flock. In Adam Clarke's account the tenth was whichever animal came through the door at the count. The count made the choice.

One sentence signs off the whole book, and it names Sinai as the place the commandments were given. Leviticus opened with the LORD calling to Moses out of the tent at 1:1, and it ends by putting every word of it back on the mountain. A book about how a man comes near to God closes on a table of what a promise costs, and the last thing it prices is the offering a man brings of his own will.