Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Leviticus · About this commentary
Vows and Valuations
Leviticus 27:1-25
1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, · WEB
A vow made in a crisis is given a price so it can be discharged, and a man who cannot pay is assessed at what he can afford.
The last chapter deals with promises, and the situation behind it is easy to picture. A man in trouble vows himself, or a child, or a field, to God. The crisis passes. What now?
The answer is a schedule of values, so that the vow can be discharged in silver rather than in persons. A man between twenty and sixty is valued at fifty shekels, a woman at thirty; children and the elderly are less Leviticus 27:3–7.
The figures are not a statement about the worth of people. They track what a person's labor was worth in that economy over the years remaining to them, which is why a man of sixty is valued below a man of thirty and a child below both. What the schedule does is convert a rash promise into a payment, and nobody is ever handed over.
Then the clause that makes the chapter of a piece with the rest of the book.
If he is poorer than your valuation, then he shall be set before the priest, and the priest shall assign a value to him. The priest shall assign a value according to his ability to pay Leviticus 27:8.
The schedule is not the last word. A man who cannot meet it is individually assessed, by a priest who looks at him, at a figure he can actually find. The book that has provided birds for the man who cannot afford a lamb and flour for the man who cannot afford birds ends by providing a personal valuation for the man who cannot afford the standard rate.
Nobody in Leviticus is priced out of anything.
The rest of the chapter applies the same principle to property. An animal vowed may not be exchanged, and if it is, both animals become holy Leviticus 27:10 — which removes the temptation to substitute a worse one after the fact.
A house or a field may be redeemed by adding the fifth part Leviticus 27:15 Leviticus 27:19, the same twenty per cent used for the trespass offering. And a field's value is calculated by the years remaining to the jubilee Leviticus 27:18, so the whole valuation system runs on the calendar of chapter 25.
The surcharge is worth noticing. Buying back what one has given costs more than giving it, which is a mild and effective discouragement to changing one's mind.
settled What this mark means