Chapter 27 deals with how vows are to be handled in which a person dedicates himself or another person or thing to the Lord. On Wednesday we learned that various sums of money were donated to the sanctuary based on the age and sex of a person being dedicated to the Lord, with exceptions made for those who are too poor to donate the prescribed amount. Today we'll look at how dedications of animals and property are handled.
"If what they vowed is an animal that is acceptable as an offering to the Lord, such an animal given to the Lord becomes holy. They must not exchange it or substitute a good one for a bad one, or a bad one for a good one; if they should substitute one animal for another, both it and the substitute become holy. If what they vowed is a ceremonially unclean animal---one that is not acceptable as an offering to the Lord---the animal must be presented to the priest, who will judge its quality good or bad. If the owner wishes to redeem the animal, a fifth must be added to its value." (Leviticus 27:9-13) I believe this passage regards sacrificial animals offered to the Lord. A person bringing an animal to the Lord had to bring the best. A person couldn't vow to offer the best male sheep of his flock, for example, and then substitute a less valuable sheep when the time came. A ceremonially unclean animal couldn't be offered to the Lord in sacrifice but a monetary amount could be donated in the animal's place. We'll use the donkey as an example of this type of vow. A donkey was an unclean animal that could not be sacrificed to the Lord but donkeys had value in an agricultural society because they performed work. A person who wanted to dedicate a donkey to the Lord would bring it to the priest and the priest would assess a monetary value to the donkey. Then 1/5 of that value would be added to the total and that's the amount the person would give to the sanctuary. The person then took his donkey back home and kept it.
"If anyone dedicates their house as something holy to the Lord, the priest will just its quality as good or bad. Whatever value the priest then sets, so it will remain. If the one who dedicates their house wishes to redeem it, they must add a fifth to its value, and the house will again become theirs." (Leviticus 27:14-15) A person could sign the deed to his house over to the Lord in the same way we might, in modern times, give a house to our church or leave a house to our church in our wills. The church can then sell the house and put that money in the treasury for use in the Lord's work. Here in Leviticus, if a person vowing to give a house to the Lord wanted to keep his house, the priest would make an appraisal of the house and then the person would pay into the sanctuary treasury an additional 1/5 of the value of the house. He would keep his house and the money would go to the Lord's work.
"If anyone dedicates to the Lord part of their family land, its value is to be set according to the amount of seed required for it---fifty shekels of silver to a homer of barley seed." (Leviticus 27:16) A homer is believed to have been about 300 pounds. For every 300 pounds of seed that it would take to sow the land, fifty shekels of silver are assessed. "If they dedicate a field during the Year of Jubilee, the value that has been set remains. But if they dedicate a field after the Jubilee, the priest will determine the value according to the number of years that remain until the next Year of Jubilee, and its set value will be reduced. If the one who dedicates the field wishes to redeem it, they must add a fifth to its value, and the field will again become theirs. If, however, they do not redeem the field, or if they have sold it to someone else, it can never be redeemed. When the field is released in the Jubilee, it will become holy, like a field devoted to the Lord; it will become priestly property." (Leviticus 27:17-21)
Earlier in Leviticus we studied the Year of Jubilee and learned that land reverts back to its original owner, or his heirs, in the Year of Jubilee. The Lord is going to mark out sections of the promised land to give to each tribe, with the exception of the priestly tribe because they will receive towns, and each section of the promised land is to remain the possession of the tribe to which the Lord bequeathed it. If a person dedicates land to the Lord, that land belongs to the Lord until the next Jubilee. The land can be leased during the years between now and the Jubilee and the money for the lease will go into the treasury. A person can redeem the land (pay a price into the treasury and retain the use of the land for himself) by having the value assessed until the next Jubilee and adding 1/5 of that price to the total. If the person fails to pay the price for redemption, or if he has actually already sold the land to someone else and cannot legally dedicate the land to the Lord, the piece of land cannot ever belong to him again because he has attempted to defraud the Lord. If he retains the use of the land and never pays the money he has vowed to pay, or if he makes a show of dedicating land to the Lord that is not rightfully his to dedicate, he is being dishonest and the penalty is that he loses his right to the piece of land forever.
A person could dedicate a field that is not part of his family's land but is a field that he bought from some other individual. "If anyone dedicates to the Lord a field they have bought, which is not part of their family land, the priest will determine its value up to the Year of Jubilee, and the owner must pay its value on that day as something holy to the Lord. In the Year of Jubilee the field will revert to the person from whose it was bought, the one whose land it was. Every value is to be set according to the sanctuary shekel, twenty gerahs to the shekel." (Leviticus 27:22-25) Let's say a man from the tribe of Judah buys a field from a man from the tribe of Reuben. If he wants to dedicate that field to the Lord, he has the right to do so up until the next Jubilee. The priest will assess the value of the land up til the year of the next Jubilee and the person dedicating the land will pay that price into the treasury. In the Year of Jubilee the land will no longer be in the possession of the man from the tribe of Judah but will revert back to the possession of the man from the tribe of Reuben.
The money paid into the treasury is always the same: the standard weight of the sanctuary shekel. This silver shekel was to weigh 11.5 grams. Having a standard weight helped to prevent dishonesty. Shekels being paid into the treasury had to be weighed when presented to the priest and each shekel had to weigh in at 11.5 grams. If a precise weight had not been set, some citizens could have made a vow to the Lord but could have presented a bag of shekels to the priest that looked to be right size and shape but that weren't the right amount of silver. A person could have presented counterfeit shekels if he wanted to silverplate some other type of coin to make it look like a solid silver coin. Honesty is important to the Lord and honesty should be important to us. We shouldn't be dishonest in our dealings with Him or with our fellow man. Money gained by dishonest means will never profit us in the long run and we should be content with what the Lord has given us and with what He has enabled us to earn by honest means. "Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." (1 Timothy 6:6-10)
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