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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Of men, not by men, as some would elude it; but of men, for it is manifest both from this and the foregoing verses, that men here are not the persons devoting, but devoted.
Quest. Was it then lawful for any man or men thus to devote another person to the Lord, and in pursuance of such vow to put him to death?
Answ. This was unquestionably lawful, and a duty in some cases, when persons have been devoted to destruction either by God’s sentence, as idolaters, Exo_22:20 Deu_13:15, the Canaanites, Deu_20:17, the Amalekites, Deu_25:19 1Sa_15:3,26, Benhadad, 1Ki_20:42; or by men, in pursuance of such a sentence of God, as Num_21:2,3 31:17; or for any crime of a high nature, as Jud_21:5 Jos_7:15. But this is not to be generally understood, as some have taken it, as if a Jew might by virtue of this text devote his child or his servant to the Lord, and thereby oblige himself to put them to death, which peradventure was Jephthah’s error. For this is expressly limited to all that a man hath, or which is his, i.e. which he hath a power over. But the Jews had no power over the lives of their children or servants, but were directly forbidden to take them away, by that great command, Thou shalt do no murder. And seeing he that killed his servant casually by a blow with a rod was surely to be punished, as is said Exo_21:20, it could not be lawful wilfully and intentionally to take away his life upon pretence of any such vow as this. But for the Canaanites, Amalekites, &c., God, the undoubted Lord of all men’s lives, gave to the Israelites a power over their persons and lives, and a command to put them to death. And this verse may have a special respect to them, or such as them. And although the general subject of this and the former verse be one and the same, yet there are two remarkable differences to this purpose:
1. The verb is active Lev_27:28, and the agent there expressed, that a man shall devote; but it is passive Lev_27:29, and the agent undetermined, which shall be devoted, to wit, by God, or men in conformity to God’s revealed will.
2. The devoted person or thing is only to be sold or redeemed, and said to be most holy, Lev_27:28; but here it is to be put to death, and this belongs only to men, and those such as either were or should be devoted in manner now expressed.