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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Leviticus 27:2 - 27:2
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The vowing of persons. - “If any one make a special vow, souls shall be to the Lord according to thy valuation.” נֶדֶר הִפְלִיא does not mean to dedicate or set apart a vow, but to make a special vow (see at Lev 22:21). The words בְּעֶרְכְּךָ, “according to thy (Moses') valuation,” it is more simple to regard as an apodosis, so as to supply to לַיהֹוָה the substantive verb תִּהְיֶינָה, than as a fuller description of the protasis, in which case the apodosis would follow in Lev 27:3, and the verb יַקְדִּישׁ would have to be supplied. But whatever may be the conclusion adopted, in any case this thought is expressed in the words, that souls, i.e., persons, were to be vowed to the Lord according to Moses' valuation, i.e., according to the price fixed by Moses. This implies clearly enough, that whenever a person was vowed, redemption was to follow according to the valuation. Otherwise what was the object of valuing them? Valuation supposes either redemption or purchase. But in the case of men (i.e., Israelites) there could be no purchasing as slaves, and therefore the object of the valuing could only have been for the purpose of redeeming, buying off the person vowed to the Lord, and the fulfilment of the vow could only have consisted in the payment into the sanctuary of the price fixed by the law.
(Note: Saalschütz adopts this explanation in common with the Mishnah. Oehler is wrong in citing 1Sa 2:11, 1Sa 2:22, 1Sa 2:28 as a proof of the opposite. For the dedication of Samuel did not consist of a simple vow, but was a dedication as a Nazarite for the whole of his life, and Samuel was thereby vowed to service at the sanctuary, whereas the law says nothing about attachment to the sanctuary in the case of the simple vowing of persons. But because redemption in the case of persons was not left to the pleasure or free-will of the person making the vow as in the case of material property, no addition is made to the valuation price as though for a merely possible circumstance.)
Lev 27:1-3
This was to be, for persons between twenty and thirty years of age, 50 shekels for a man and 30 for a woman; for a boy between 5 and 20, 20 shekels, for a girl of the same age 10 shekels; for a male child from a month to five years 5 shekels, for a female of the same age 3 shekels; for an old man above sixty 15 shekels, for an old woman of that age 10; the whole to be in shekels of the sanctuary (see at Exo 30:15). The valuation price was regulated, therefore, according to capacity and vigour of life, and the female sex, as the weaker vessel (1Pe 3:7), was only appraised at half the amount of the male.
Lev 27:8
But if the person making the vow was “poor before thy valuation,” i.e., too poor to be able to pay the valuation price fixed by the law, he was to be brought before the priest, who would value him according to the measure of what his hand could raise (see Lev 5:11), i.e., what he was able to pay. This regulation, which made it possible for the poor man to vow his own person to the Lord, presupposed that the person vowed would have to be redeemed. For otherwise a person of this kind would only need to dedicate himself to the sanctuary, with all his power for work, to fulfil his vow completely.