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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Leviticus 27:28 - 27:28
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Moreover, nothing put under the ban, nothing that a man had devoted (banned) to the Lord of his property, of man, beast, or the field of his possession, was to be sold or redeemed, because it was most holy (see at Lev 2:3). The man laid under the ban was to be put to death. According to the words of Lev 27:28, the individual Israelite was quite at liberty to ban, not only his cattle and field, but also men who belonged to him, that is to say, slaves and children. הֶחֱרִים signifies to dedicate something to the Lord in an unredeemable manner, as cherum, i.e., ban, or banned. חרם (to devote, or ban), judging from the cognate words in the Arabic, signifying prohibere, vetare, illicitum facere, illicitum, sacrum, has the primary signification “to cut off,” and denotes that which is taken away from use and abuse on the part of men, and surrendered to God in an irrevocable and unredeemable manner, viz., human beings by being put to death, cattle and inanimate objects by being either given up to the sanctuary for ever or destroyed for the glory of the Lord. The latter took place, no doubt, only with the property of idolaters; at all events, it is commanded simply for the infliction of punishment on idolatrous towns (Deu 13:13.). It follows from this, however, that the vow of banning could only be made in connection with persons who obstinately resisted that sanctification of life which was binding upon them; and that an individual was not at liberty to devote a human being to the ban simply at his own will and pleasure, otherwise the ban might have been abused to purposes of ungodliness, and have amounted to a breach of the law, which prohibited the killing of any man, even though he were a slave (Exo 21:20). In a manner analogous to this, too, the owner of cattle and fields was only allowed to put them under the ban when they had been either desecrated by idolatry or abused to unholy purposes. For there can be no doubt that the idea which lay at the foundation of the ban was that of a compulsory dedication of something which resisted or impeded sanctification; so that in all cases in which it was carried into execution by the community or the magistracy, it was an act of the judicial holiness of God manifesting itself in righteousness and judgment.