A Prophecy of Esau and Jacob

Leviticus 26

¹ “‘Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land to bow down unto it; for I am the Lord your God.

— the words here rendered “images of stone” to indicate beholding or worshipping stones; that is, stones set in the ground in places of worship upon which the worshippers prostrated themselves to perform their devotions.

² Ye shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lord. — ye shall keep my Sabbaths (plurals), and reverence my sanctuary; very frequently, in this Book of the Law, the Sabbath and the sanctuary are mentioned as antidotes to idolatry.

³ “‘If ye walk in My statutes and keep My commandments and do them, — if ye walk in my statutes; in that covenant into which God graciously entered with the people of Israel, He promised to bestow upon them a variety of blessings, so long as they continued obedient to Him as their Almighty Ruler;

⁴ then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. — rain in due season; the periodical rains, on which the fertility of the holy land so much depends, are here spoken of.

⁵ And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time; and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

— from MSG

“If you live by my decrees and obediently keep my commandments, I will send the rains in their seasons, the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit.

“You will thresh until the grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting time; you’ll have more than enough to eat and will live safe and secure in your land” (Leviticus 26:3-5 MSG)

⁶ And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid; and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.

— and I will give peace; not only are they to have rich harvests, but the Lord will grant them peace among themselves, so that they shall be able to retire at night without any anxiety, or fear of robbers.

⁷ And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. — and ye shall chase your enemies; if, covetous of their prosperity, the enemies should dare to attack them, God will inspire His people with marvellous courage, so that they will not only pursue them, but put them to the sword.

⁸ And five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. — five of you shall chase; a proverbial mode of expression for superiority in warlike prowess; Deuteronomy 32:30; Isaiah 30:17.

⁹ For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful and multiply you, and establish My covenant with you. — and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you; that is, by multiplying them as the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea, God fulfil the covenant which He made with their fathers.

¹⁰ And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new. — and bring forth the old because of the new; and remove the old on account of the new: they will always have such abundant harvests that they will be obliged to remove from the barns and garners the old stock of corn, in order to make room for the new.

¹¹ And I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you. — not only will God bless them with these material blessings, but will permanently abide with them in the sanctuary erected in their midst.

¹² And I will walk among you and will be your God, and ye shall be My people. — ye shall be my people; I will own you for that peculiar people which I have singled out of the mass of mankind, to bless you here, and to save you hereafter.

¹³ I am the Lord your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.

— I am the Lord your Lord, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt; who, having done that, was able to fulfil the above promises; and which may be considered as an earnest and pledge of them, as well as be a motive to the Israelites, and an obligation upon them to obey the commandments of God, and walk in his statutes.

¹⁴ “‘But if ye will not hearken unto Me and will not do all these commandments, — the glowing promises of blessings for obedience are now followed by a catalogue of calamities of the most appalling nature, which will overtake the Israelites if they disobey the Divine commandments;

¹⁵ and if ye shall despise My statutes, or if your soul abhor My judgments so that ye will not do all My commandments, but that ye break My covenant,

— and if ye shall despise my statutes; from passive indifference to the Divine statutes mentioned in the preceding verse, their falling away is sure to follow. Hence what was at first mere listlessness now develops itself into a contemptuous education of God’s ordinances.

¹⁶ I also will do this unto you: I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague that shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart; and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. — ague, plague or perhaps pestilence.

¹⁷ And I will set My face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies; they that hate you shall reign over you, and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.

— and ye shall flee when none pursueth you; of such faint-hearted spirits should they be, and filled with such dread and terror of their enemies, so contrary from what is promised them on their obedience.

¹⁸ And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. — I will punish you seven times more; that is, indefinitely or unceasingly; many more times. Seven being a complete number is often used to indicate thoroughness.

¹⁹ And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron and your earth as brass. — the pride of your power the pride with which ye rely upon your prosperity and the fruitfulness of your land; will be broken;

— and I will make your heaven as iron; so that neither dew nor rain shall descend from thence to make the earth fruitful; but, on the contrary, an heat should be reflected, which would parch it, and make it barren.

²⁰ And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits. — and your strength shall be spent in vain; that is, with the heaven over them as metal, their labour expended in ploughing, digging, and sowing will be perfectly useless.

²¹ “‘And if ye walk contrary unto Me and will not hearken unto Me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins. — and if ye walk contrary unto me; to his laws, commands, and ordinances, showing no regard unto them by a walk agreeably to them, but neglecting and breaking them continually;

— I will bring seven times more plagues upon you, according to your sins; greater and sorer punishments still, and these more frequently repeated, and in proportion to their transgressions of his righteous laws.

²² I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children and destroy your cattle and make you few in number, and your highways shall be desolate. — I will also send wild beasts among you; either in a literal sense, as lions, bears, wolves; and so is the reverse of what is promised to them on their doing well;

— and your high ways shall be desolate; or ways, the word high not being in the text, and may signify both their public and private ones, which would be all forsaken, none caring to venture to walk in them for fear of beasts of prey.

²³ “‘And if ye will not be reformed by Me by these things, but will walk contrary unto Me, — God is setting conditions for He will avenge the outraged cause of His covenant, by the sword, pestilence, famine, and captivity;

²⁴ then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins. — and will punish you yet seven times for your sins; add fresh corrections, and these greater than before, and more numerous in proportion to their aggravated transgressions.

²⁵ And I will bring a sword upon you that shall avenge the quarrel of My covenant; and when ye are gathered together within your cities I will send the pestilence among you, and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

— and I will bring a sword upon you; war upon them by the sword of their enemies; they that use and kill with the sword;

— for more details from prophet Ezekiel, see The Flaming Sword and Fire from the South!

²⁶ And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight; and ye shall eat and not be satisfied.

— and when I have broken the staff of your bread; or when I break you the staff of bread, that is, when God cuts off their supply of bread, which is the staff of life.

²⁷ “‘And if ye will not for all this hearken unto Me, but walk contrary unto Me, — and if ye still will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me;

²⁸ then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. — and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins; add new and many more chastisements, and that in hot displeasure, for their sins;

— and the repetition or doubling of the phrase, “I, even I, will do it,” indicates its certainty, and that he will do it himself, and his hand should be visible in it; and they should feel the weight of it, and be obliged to own that these were punishments inflicted by him for their sins.

²⁹ And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. — which Jeremiah thus bewails, “the hands of pitiful women have sodden their own children, they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people” (Lamentations 4:10).

³⁰ And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you. — and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols; nothing could show a greater contempt both for the idol-worshippers and the idols than the picture here given;

— when the apostate Israelites have succumbed to the sword, famine, and pestilence, they will not even have a seemly burial, but their carcases will be mixed up with the shattered remains of their gods, and thus form one dunghill;

— a parallel picture is given by Ezekiel,

“Your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken, and I will cast down your slain men before your idols, and I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones round about your altars” (Ezekiel 6:4-5).

³¹ And I will make your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors.

— I will make your cities waste; not only will the elevated spots outside the cities with their idols be destroyed, and the carcases of the deluded worshippers be scattered among their remains, but the cities themselves will be converted into ruins and desolations.

³² And I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies who dwell therein shall be astonished at it. — note: “your cities” and “the land” but not “your land” indicating the land they are currently living on are not quite their own, but those designated land are “between the two rivers” Genesis 15;

— Targum says “your country” facing hostile invasions and conquests, the desolation of the whole country and the dispersion of the Israelites described in the following verses are to be the work of God Himself.

³³ And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. — mentioned belatedly, “your land” and will draw out a sword after you; draw it out of its scabbard, and with it pursue after them.

³⁴ “‘Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate and ye are in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest and enjoy her sabbaths. — then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate; a long arrear of sabbatic years had accumulated through the avarice and apostasy of the Israelites,

— who had deprived their land of its appointed season of rest; this early prophecy is very remarkable, considering that the usual policy of the Assyrian conquerors was to send colonies to cultivate and inhabit their newly acquired provinces; but as determined by the duration of the Babylonian captivity, the number of those sabbatic years seems to have been seventy.

³⁵ As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest, because it did not rest in your sabbaths when ye dwelt upon it; — because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when you dwelt upon it; they manured and tilled it on the seventh years, as on others, neglecting the command which God had given them;

— II Chronicles 36:21 says, “The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah.” This is a reference to  Jeremiah 25:11;

— for a related prophecy, see Ezekiel 4 – 390/40 Years Timeline

³⁶ And upon them that are left alive of you, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee as fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when none pursueth.

— and upon them that are left alive of you; in the land of Judea, or rather scattered about among the nations, suggesting that these would be comparatively few;

— I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; or “a softness” so that they should be effeminate, pusillanimous, and cowardly, have nothing of a manly spirit and courage in them; but be mean spirited and faint hearted;

— and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; either the sound of a leaf that falls from the tree shall put them to flight, as the Targum of Jonathan says, or which the wind beats one against another;

— and they shall flee as fleeing from the sword; as if there were an army of soldiers with their swords drawn pursuing them; and they shall fall when none pursueth; fall upon the ground, and into a fit, and drop down as if dead, as if they had been really wounded with a sword and slain.

³⁷ And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth; and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies. — and they shall fall one upon another; in their hurry and confusion, everyone making all the haste he can to escape the imaginary danger;

— as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: as if a sword was drawn and brandished at them, just ready to be thrust in them, filling them with the utmost dread and terror, and yet at the same time none in pursuit of them;

— and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies; no heart to resist them, no strength nor spirit to oppose them, and defend themselves but be obliged to surrender their cities, themselves, their families and goods, into the hand of the enemy.

³⁸ And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. — so far as the nation was concerned, those who were left when the kingdom was overthrown would find no rest in the land of their enemies;

— but would perish among the heathen for their own and their fathers’ iniquities, till they confessed their sins and bent their stiffed-necked rebellious hearts under the righteousness of the divine punishments;

— and the land of your enemies shall eat you up; they should die in it through one disease or another; by the pestilence, as the Targum of Jonathan, and so be buried in it; in which sense it may be said to eat them up, or consume them, for the grave swallows up and consumes all that are put into it; this is to be understood of those that die in captivity.

³⁹ And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. — shall pine away; shall languish through diseases and oppressions out the remainder of their days in bitter grief;

— and sad reflections upon the miseries which their own and their fathers’ complicated guilt has brought upon them; and hereby shall be consumed and melt away.

⁴⁰ “‘If they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against Me, and that also they have walked contrary unto Me, — if they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers; “in the time of their distress;” which might serve to bring their sins to remembrance;

— and them to a confession, not only of their own sins, but of their fathers’ also; acknowledging thereby that they had been guilty of sinning against God for a long course of years past; with their trespass which they trespassed against me; along with their own iniquities, and those of their fathers; even 190 years;

— for an upcoming prophecy, see For more, see Ezekiel 4 – 390/40 Years Timeline

⁴¹ and that I also have walked contrary unto them and have brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity,

— and that I also have walked contrary unto them; that is, and they shall also confess that through their walking contrary unto God, He also walked contrary unto them, and brought them into the land of their enemies;

— if then their uncircumcised heart be humbled; their rebellious heart, as the Targums of Jonathan; it signifies a sinful, wicked, hard, and impenitent heart, brought to a sense of sin, to repentance and humiliation for it;

⁴² then will I remember My covenant with Jacob, and also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.

— my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; which He made with their ancestors, and in which He not only promised that the Israelites are to be a numerous people, but that they are to possess the land “between the two rivers” for ever;

— I will remember the land, which now seems to be forgotten, and neglected, and despised, as if I had never chosen it to be the peculiar place of my presence and blessing.

⁴³ The land also shall be left by them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths while she lieth desolate without them; and they shall accept the punishment of their iniquity, because, even because they despised My judgments and because their soul abhorred My statutes.

— the land also shall be left of them; that is, the land shall be deserted by them;

— the solemn warning is here reiterated, that before God will remember His covenant with the patriarchs, and also be mindful of the land, the land must be depopulated of its rebellious inhabitants, and enjoy the Sabbaths which have been denied to it; even 190 years.

⁴⁴ And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly and to break My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God.

— “your land” has now turned into “the land of their enemies” indicating the land they would be living in captivity;

And these are the words that the Lord spoke concerning Israel and concerning Judah:
“For thus saith the Lord: ‘We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear and not of peace.
Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? Why do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?
Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it. It is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it.
 Jeremiah. 30:4-7

“Say thou unto them, ‘Thus saith the LORD God: This burden concerneth the prince in Jerusalem and all the house of Israel that are among them.’ Say, ‘I am your sign: as I have done, so shall it be done unto them. They shall go into exile as captives.’
“And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall scatter them among the nations and disperse them in the countries. But I will leave a few men of them from the Sword, from the Famine and from the Pestilence, that they may declare all their abominations among the nations whever they go; and they shall know that I am the LORD.” Ezekiel 12:10-11, 15-16

⁴⁵ But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.’”

— again, to remind them that their land are “between the two rivers” that were promised to their fathers: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

⁴⁶ These are the statutes and judgments and laws which the Lord made between Himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.

— these are the statutes, judgments and laws; which refer in this book and others in Mount Sinai in the wilderness, while the children of Israel lay encamped about it; by the hand of Moses; they were first delivered to him, and through him to the people.

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.

— one that makes 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 although he was a Levite but he was not of the priesthood, but 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.

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~ by Joel on June 11, 2026.

Posted in Books of Moses