A Prophecy of Esau and Jacob

Leviticus 27

¹ And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying,

² “Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them: ‘When a man shall make a singular vow, the persons shall be for the Lord by thy estimation. — shall make a singular vow; that is, shall consecrate a vow; the form of the vow is nowhere given in the Bible; hence, many other points of detail, the wording of it was left to the administrators of the law;

— Samuel, who was thus vowed to God, was not redeemed, because he was a Levite but not of the priesthood, and designed by his parents to be lent to the Lord as long as he lived, (1 Samuel 1:28).

³ And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years old, even thy valuation shall be fifty shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary. — from twenty years old even unto sixty years old; the estimation not only begins with the male, who is the most important person, but takes special notice of his age;

— the years here represent the prime of his life, and he is to be rated not according to his rank or position, but according to the value of his services.

⁴ And if it be a female, then thy valuation shall be thirty shekels. — and if it be a female, thirty shekels; as the woman is the weaker vessel, and her labour is of less value, if she vows herself or dedicates by a vow any other one of her own sex to the sanctuary, she is to pay thirty shekels;

⁵ And if it be from five years old even unto twenty years old then thy valuation shall be for the male twenty shekels and for the female ten shekels.

⁶ And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy valuation shall be for the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy valuation shall be three shekels of silver.

⁷ And if it be from sixty years old and above, if it be a male, then thy valuation shall be fifteen shekels and for the female ten shekels.

⁸ But if he be poorer than thy valuation, then he shall present himself before the priest and the priest shall value him; according to his ability who vowed shall the priest value him. — a discretion is left with the priest to lower these valuations in case the man who has made the vow is very poor;

⁹ “‘And if it be a beast whereof men bring an offering unto the Lord, all that any man giveth of such unto the Lord shall be holy. — all that any man giveth of such unto the Lord shall be holy; shall be set apart to sacred uses, either were for the use of the altar or of the priests;

¹⁰ He shall not alter it nor change it, a good for a bad or a bad for a good; and if he shall at all change beast for beast, then it and the exchange thereof shall be holy. — he shall not alter it, nor change it; the identical animal vowed is to be delivered; no change whatever, even if it is in the substitution of a better for an inferior animal, is permitted.

¹¹ And if it be any unclean beast, which they do not offer as a sacrifice unto the Lord, then he shall present the beast before the priest. — then he shall present the beast before the priest; to be viewed, examined, and judged of as to its worth, and a value put upon it, that it might be sold or redeemed;

¹² And the priest shall value it, whether it be good or bad; as thou, who art the priest, valuest it, so shall it be. — whether it be good or bad; that is, the priest shall estimate its value according to the condition of the animal, whatever that may be, whether it is of good quality or bad.

¹³ But if he will at all redeem it, then he shall add a fifth part thereof unto thy valuation. — he shall add a fifth part; whilst anyone else could purchase the animal at the valuation put upon it by the priest, its former owner is to pay a fifth more than the valuation price.

¹⁴ “‘And when a man shall sanctify his house to be holy unto the Lord, then the priest shall evaluate it, whether it be good or bad; as the priest shall evaluate it, so shall it stand. — and when a man shall sanctify his house; that is, devotes it to the service of God by a vow;

— when it has to be sold and the money used by the authorities for the maintenance and repair of the sanctuary, unless it is required as a dwelling for the priests, or for some other purpose connected with the duties of the Temple.

¹⁵ And if he that sanctified it will redeem his house, then he shall add a fifth part of the money of thy valuation unto it, and it shall be his. — then he shall add the fifth part of the money of thy estimation unto it, and it shall be his; that is, he was to give a fifth part more for the house than it was valued at by the priest;

¹⁶ “‘And if a man shall sanctify unto the Lord some part of a field of his possession, then thy valuation shall be according to the seed thereof: a homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver. — an homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver; that is, if the piece of land which he vowed could properly be cropped with one homer, or five bushels and a half of barley seed;

¹⁷ If he sanctify his field from the Year of Jubilee, according to thy valuation it shall stand. — if he sanctify his field from the year of jubilee; that is, the above-named valuation of fifty shekels only applies if he makes the vow immediately after the expiration of the year of jubilee, when the period covered by this estimation is forty-nine years.

¹⁸ But if he sanctify his field after the jubilee, then the priest shall reckon unto him the money according to the years that remain, even unto the Year of the Jubilee, and it shall be abated from thy valuation. — but if he sanctify his field after the jubilee; if, however, the vow is made after the jubilee, the priest is to value the field according to the number of years from the time of the vow to the next jubilee year.

¹⁹ And if he that sanctified the field will in any wise redeem it, then he shall add a fifth part of the money of thy valuation unto it, and it shall be assured to him. — the rule here included his wife and his heirs, any one of whom had the right to redeem it; but the family in redeeming it had, as usual, to add one-fifth over and above the valuation price, for the reason already stated.

²⁰ And if he will not redeem the field or if he have sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed any more. — and if he will not redeem the field; that is, if after all the advantages which the law affords to the vower to redeem his patrimonial inheritance before the jubile year, he is base enough to forego the privilege of redemption, thus showing no desire to perpetuate his family name;

²¹ But the field, when it goeth out in the jubilee, shall be holy unto the Lord, as a field devoted; the possession thereof shall be the priest’s. — but the field, when it goeth out in the jubilee; that is, when it quits the hand of the purchaser, since in jubilee every buyer was to part with the land which he bought; —

²² And if a man sanctify unto the Lord a field which he hath bought, which is not of the fields of his possession, — and if a man sanctify unto the Lord a field which he hath bought; but if a man vows a field which he has acquired by purchase, and which is only his till the next jubile, when it reverts to its original owner;

²³ then the priest shall reckon unto him the worth of thy valuation, even unto the Year of the Jubilee; and he shall give thy valuation on that day as a holy thing unto the Lord. — in this case, the priest is to value it in proportion to the number of crops which it will produce up to the year of jubilee, in the same way as fields are valued in ordinary purchases.

²⁴ In the Year of the Jubilee the field shall return unto him from whom it was bought, even to him to whom the possession of the land did belong. — in the Year of the Jubilee, the field thus vowed did not return to the purchaser in the year of jubile, but to the, hereditary owner, of whom the person who had vowed it to the Lord had bought it.

²⁵ And all thy valuations shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs shall be the shekel. — according to the shekel of the sanctuary; as the proceeds of these vows were devoted to the maintenance and repair of the sanctuary, all the valuations are to be made and paid according to the standard weight of the sanctuary shekel.

²⁶ “‘Only the firstborn of the beasts, which should be the Lord’S firstling, no man shall sanctify it; whether it be ox or sheep, it is the Lord’S. — no man shall sanctify it, to wit, by vow; because it is not his own, but the Lord’s already;

— that which is born as a firstling to the Lord, that is, one which, by virtue of its being a firstling, and by its very birth, is the property of the Lord.

²⁷ And if it is of an unclean beast, then he shall redeem it according to thy valuation and shall add a fifth part of it thereto; or if it be not redeemed, then it shall be sold according to thy valuation. — if it be not redeemed; by him, he does not choose to give the price, and the fifth part;

— then it shall be sold according to thy estimation; to another man, without the fifth part, that chooses to purchase it, and then the purchase money was laid out for sacred uses.

²⁸ “‘Notwithstanding, no devoted thing that a man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord. — things or persons devoted, are distinguished from things or persons that were only sanctified; devoted things were most holy to the Lord, and could neither be taken back nor applied to other purposes;

— from MSG

“But nothing that a man irrevocably devotes to God from what belongs to him, whether human or animal or family land, may be either sold or bought back. Everything devoted is holy to the highest degree; it’s God’s inalienable property” Leviticus 27:28 MSG

²⁹ None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed, but shall surely be put to death. — devoted thing; something cut off, cut off from common use and given up in some sense to the Lord, without the right to be redeemed; neither by price nor estimation;

³⁰ “‘And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord’S; it is holy unto the Lord. — and all the tithe of the land; of which there were various sorts, the first tithe, the tithe out of the tithe, the second tithe, and the poor’s tithe, which are generally reduced to three;

³¹ And if a man will at all redeem aught of his tithes, he shall add thereto a fifth part thereof. — and if a man wishes to redeem; if he wishes he may redeem them by adding one-fifth to the actual value.

³² And concerning the tithe of the herd or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, a tenth shall be holy unto the Lord. — whatsoever passeth under the rod; this alludes to the mode of taking the tithe of cattle, which were made to pass singly through a narrow gateway, where a person with a rod, dipped in ochre, stood, and counting them, marked the back of every tenth beast, whether male or female, sound or unsound.

³³ He shall not search whether it be good or bad, neither shall he change it; and if he change it at all, then both it and the change thereof shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed.’” — he shall not search whether it be good or bad; that is, the owner is not to pick out the good ones from the bad, but, as described above, is to mark every tenth one as it comes out of the fold as belonging to the Lord.

³⁴ These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai. — these are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses; either what are contained in this chapter, or rather in the whole book, which he delivered to Moses; for the children of Israel; to be observed by them, priests and people: and these were given to him.

~ by Joel on January 28, 2024.

Posted in Books of Moses