Leviticus 27--Laws About Dedicating People, Money, and Property to the Lord

Leviticus 27
English Standard Version

Laws About Vows
27 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, If anyone makes a special vow to the Lord involving the valuation of persons, 3 then the valuation of a male from twenty years old up to sixty years old shall be fifty shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary. 4 If the person is a female, the valuation shall be thirty shekels. 5 If the person is from five years old up to twenty years old, the valuation shall be for a male twenty shekels, and for a female ten shekels. 6 If the person is from a month old up to five years old, the valuation shall be for a male five shekels of silver, and for a female the valuation shall be three shekels of silver. 7 And if the person is sixty years old or over, then the valuation for a male shall be fifteen shekels, and for a female ten shekels. 8 And if someone is too poor to pay the valuation, then he shall be made to stand before the priest, and the priest shall value him; the priest shall value him according to what the vower can afford.

9 “If the vow is an animal that may be offered as an offering to the Lord, all of it that he gives to the Lord is holy. 10 He shall not exchange it or make a substitute for it, good for bad, or bad for good; and if he does in fact substitute one animal for another, then both it and the substitute shall be holy. 11 And if it is any unclean animal that may not be offered as an offering to the Lord, then he shall stand the animal before the priest, 12 and the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall be. 13 But if he wishes to redeem it, he shall add a fifth to the valuation.

14 “When a man dedicates his house as a holy gift to the Lord, the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall stand. 15 And if the donor wishes to redeem his house, he shall add a fifth to the valuation price, and it shall be his.

16 “If a man dedicates to the Lord part of the land that is his possession, then the valuation shall be in proportion to its seed. A homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver. 17 If he dedicates his field from the year of jubilee, the valuation shall stand, 18 but if he dedicates his field after the jubilee, then the priest shall calculate the price according to the years that remain until the year of jubilee, and a deduction shall be made from the valuation. 19 And if he who dedicates the field wishes to redeem it, then he shall add a fifth to its valuation price, and it shall remain his. 20 But if he does not wish to redeem the field, or if he has sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed anymore. 21 But the field, when it is released in the jubilee, shall be a holy gift to the Lord, like a field that has been devoted. The priest shall be in possession of it. 22 If he dedicates to the Lord a field that he has bought, which is not a part of his possession, 23 then the priest shall calculate the amount of the valuation for it up to the year of jubilee, and the man shall give the valuation on that day as a holy gift to the Lord. 24 In the year of jubilee the field shall return to him from whom it was bought, to whom the land belongs as a possession. 25 Every valuation shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs shall make a shekel.

26 “But a firstborn of animals, which as a firstborn belongs to the Lord, no man may dedicate; whether ox or sheep, it is the Lord's. 27 And if it is an unclean animal, then he shall buy it back at the valuation, and add a fifth to it; or, if it is not redeemed, it shall be sold at the valuation.

28 “But no devoted thing that a man devotes to the Lord, of anything that he has, whether man or beast, or of his inherited field, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy to the Lord. 29 No one devoted, who is to be devoted for destruction from mankind, shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death.

30 “Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord's; it is holy to the Lord. 31 If a man wishes to redeem some of his tithe, he shall add a fifth to it. 32 And every tithe of herds and flocks, every tenth animal of all that pass under the herdsman's staff, shall be holy to the Lord. 33 One shall not differentiate between good or bad, neither shall he make a substitute for it; and if he does substitute for it, then both it and the substitute shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed.”

34 These are the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses for the people of Israel on Mount Sinai.

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This is it!  The last chapter of the book of Leviticus!  We're going to end with a section about special vows and oaths that the people would take before the Lord.  First comes some kind of special vow that involves the valuation of persons.  I have no idea what such a vow would entail, but this wouldn't seem to have anything to do with slavery or redemption as we've already talked about those issues.  Since the priests are involved in this then it can probably be interpreted as an oath to pay some special kind of offering, I would guess for thanksgiving for all the Lord has provided, where a donation is being made to the Tabernacle (or later the Temple).

The valuation of an adult male aged 20 to 60 years old should be 50 shekels of silver and for a female was 30 shekels of silver.  A shekel is a unit of weight and not so much of currency, though they would later make silver coins that each contained a shekel of silver that would be called shekels.  That is why we'll also see this as a measure of capacity sometimes.  The Levites were to keep accurate weights and measures that were to be used when the people measured out the price they were to pay in such situations so that the people would not use dishonest scales or weights and measures.

For a child from 5 years old up to 20 years old, then the valuation would be 20 shekels of silver for a male child and 10 shekels of silver for a female child.  For an infant or young child from the age of 1 month old to an age of 5 years old the valuation would be 5 shekels for a male child and 3 shekels for a female child.

For an elderly person over the age of 60, the valuation for a male would be fifteen shekels and for a woman would be 10 shekels.  There is then one more stipulation at the end of this first section to say that the priest could adjust the amount to be paid if the person in accordance with their means, but if they were a person of sufficient means they should be asked to pay the full price.

Some people instead may wish to make a special sacrifice of an animal instead of a special offering of money.  In such a case whatever animal is offered is holy to the Lord and must be sacrificed and no substitutions are to be made.  If the man tries to make a substitution of good for bad or bad for good, both the original animal and substitute were holy and belonged to the Lord.  If the animal that was brought for sacrifice was found to be unacceptable for sacrifice because it was "unclean" for some reason, then the priest would make a valuation of the animal's worth and the man would have to pay 120% of the valuation in order to buy the animal back.

The same kind of rule applies for a man seeking to dedicate his house to the Lord.  The priest will make the valuation and if the man wishes to buy the house back at some point, then he will have to pay an additional 20% to the valuation to buy it back.

​If the man wishes to dedicate his land to the Lord, then the valuation of this will be proportion to the amount of barley seed that it takes to see the land--50 shekels for each homer of barley seed.  This will be the price if the dedication takes place immediately after the year of jubilee if there are 50 years remaining until the next year of jubilee.  If however the donation is made after the year of jubilee then the valuation will be prorated for how many years are remaining (since there are 50 years between years of jubilee, I think it's safe to assume you subtract one shekel of silver for each year in accordance with the number of homers of barley seed needed to seed the land).  If the man wishes to redeem his field before that time, he is to pay 120% of the valuation, but he only has until the year of jubilee to do so.  If he chooses not to redeem the land before that time, then that land permanently belongs to the Lord and is like one of the fields that the Lord gave to the priests.  If however this was land that he bought which is supposed to be returned to someone else on the year of jubilee, then the priest will calculate the valuation of land on that day and the purchaser of the land will pay that price (no additional penalty as he's not redeeming it) to the Lord as a holy offering, and the land will be returned to its original owner.  The man who sells his field to another and then has that new owner dedicate the land to the Lord may not try to redeem the land that he sold--he does not own it.  He must wait for the year of jubilee for the land to be released back to him.  Only the person who made the dedication is able to redeem the property.

The final instructions in this section have to do with exactly what a "sanctuary shekel" is that we've been reading about so far.  God tells the priests that the sanctuary shekel should never change and always be equal to 20 gerahs.  While you and I probably have no idea what this means, the priests did know what it means.  It was a very specific amount that what unchangeable throughout the years so that even if the value of people's currency inflated or deflated, the valuations given to the Lord here would stay the same without need for adjustment for inflation or deflation.

God wraps up with some additional laws based off of other laws we've already read.  No one is to dedicate a firstborn animal to the Lord because it is already holy to the Lord and was to be sacrificed, or if the animal is unclean then it is to be bought back at 120% of the valuation, or sold for the valuation if the man does not wish to redeem it.

That which is devoted to the Lord belongs to the Lord and is not to be sold or redeemed by the priests once it belongs to them.  Anything that is vowed for destruction (we'll see that later in the book of Joshua for instance with the city of Ai) is to be destroyed and there is to be no ransom to be paid for the people or property that is under that vow of destruction.  Any man woman or child that falls under such a vow is to be put to death--again, this has to do with God telling his people to vow to completely and totally destroy their enemies in some instances.  We'll again see this in 1 Samuel 15 where king Saul is to completely destroy the Amalekites--every man, woman, child, animal and all that they owned was to be destroyed.  Saul tried to save some of the spoils of war rationalizing that he could offer them as a sacrifice to the Lord, but the Lord had forbidden this in this law.  God's response to this was that obedience is better than sacrifice and that Saul's kingdom would be taken away from him and given to another (David) because of this.

The tithe that is commanded in the Law also belongs to the Lord and is holy.  If the man needs to redeem some of his tithe (needs some of the seed back for instance), then he is to pay 120% of its valuation.  As for the tithe of his herds and flocks when every tenth animal passes under the herdsman's staff and is given to the Lord, there is no redemption or substitution that can be made.  If the man tries to exchange or make a substituted then both the animals will belong to the Lord.  Each man is to give exactly what he vows and there is to be no deceit in the process.  This is the sin of Ananias and Sephirah that we see in the book of Acts as they vowed to give the full value of their land to the Lord and then held some back and lied to the apostles and the Holy Spirit about the value of the land that they sold, and God struck both Ananias and Sephirah dead for their sin that day.  See here the words of Peter to Ananias:

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Acts 5:3-4
English Standard Version3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.”

We just studied that passage this week in The Gospel Project.  If you're one of the members of our Gospel Project study group on the 99-1 Discipleship Discord server, then you may want to go back and listen to that message again in light of what you read here today as it helps us to understand some of what is going on there.

Jesus will come back an make more more addition to these laws that we read today in the New Testament that such vows should never be used to circumvent the letter or spirit of the Law (for instance, honoring one's parents by taking care of them as they get older).


Mark 7:5-13
​English Standard Version

5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
“‘This people honors me with their lips,
    but their heart is far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
    teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)-- 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”