Leviticus 27

Verse-by-verse explanation

1. Leviticus 27:1This opening formula introduces the book’s final chapter: how it worked, in practice, to redeem with money a person, animal, or piece of land promised to God by a vow.
2. Leviticus 27:2This vow did not mean physically handing the person over as property of the sanctuary. Someone might promise to dedicate a child, or themselves, to God, and the law converts that vow into a monetary value from a fixed table based on age and sex, given to the sanctuary in the person’s place.
3. Leviticus 27:3A man between 20 and 60 years old was valued at 50 shekels of silver — the highest value on the table, tied to the working capacity expected at that age, not to any judgment about the person’s worth as a human being.
4. Leviticus 27:4A woman in the same age range was valued at 30 shekels — a lower value, following the same logic of assessing physical work capacity typical of the period, the criterion used throughout the chapter’s whole table.
5. Leviticus 27:5Between 5 and 20 years old, the valuation dropped to 20 shekels for a male and 10 for a female — a descending scale reflecting the working capacity expected at each stage of life, not a person’s worth.
6. Leviticus 27:6From one month to five years old, the values were the lowest on the table — 5 shekels for a boy, 3 for a girl — showing the whole table’s real criterion was estimated productive capacity, not affection or human dignity.
7. Leviticus 27:7Above 60 years old, the values dropped again — 15 shekels for a man, 10 for a woman — keeping the same criterion of expected physical work capacity used from beginning to end of the table.
8. Leviticus 27:8The fixed-price table at the start of the chapter had a safety valve: anyone unable to pay the standard value could ask the priest to reassess it, adjusting the charge to what they could actually afford. Poverty never blocked anyone from fulfilling a vow.
9. Leviticus 27:9If the vow involved an animal already acceptable for sacrifice, it automatically became a holy offering — with no need for a monetary valuation, because the animal itself already fulfilled the role of the offering.
10. Leviticus 27:10Once an animal had been promised to God, it could not be swapped for a worse one later. If someone tried to make the exchange anyway, the penalty was losing both animals to the sanctuary, not just the one originally promised.
11. Leviticus 27:11An unclean animal, on the other hand — one of those that did not qualify for the sacrificial system — had to be brought to the priest to be valued in money, since it could not become the offering itself.
12. Leviticus 27:12The priest decided the value of that unclean animal, whether it was good or bad — and whatever value he set was final, with no room for negotiation.
13. Leviticus 27:13If the person wanted to redeem that animal instead of handing it over, they had to pay the assessed value plus 20 percent — the same restitution formula used in other laws in the book about sacred things.
14. Leviticus 27:14The same valuation system applied to a house dedicated to God: the priest set the price. The original owner could buy it back by paying that value plus one-fifth more, a surcharge meant to discourage vowing and then having second thoughts.
15. Leviticus 27:15Anyone who dedicated their own house to God could likewise redeem it, paying the value assessed by the priest plus that same 20 percent surcharge.
16. Leviticus 27:16A field was not valued by a unit of area the way we do today: it was valued by the amount of seed needed to plant it. A “homer” of barley seed served as the land’s unit of measure, tied to agricultural output, not to square footage.
17. Leviticus 27:17If the field was dedicated right at the start of a new cycle, from the year of Jubilee, it was worth the full price on the table, with no discount at all.
18. Leviticus 27:18But if the dedication happened after the Jubilee, the priest calculated the value in proportion to the years still remaining until the next Jubilee — the same proportional pricing principle already seen in chapter 25.
19. Leviticus 27:19Anyone who wanted to redeem their own field paid the assessed value plus 20 percent, following the same formula used for houses and unclean animals.
20. Leviticus 27:20But if the field was not redeemed, or if it was sold to someone else in the meantime, the window for redemption closed for good — there would be no more chance to get that land back.
21. Leviticus 27:21At the Jubilee, a field that had been dedicated and never redeemed became the permanent property of the priest, and did not return to the original family as it would after an ordinary sale — dedication had a more final consequence than selling.
22. Leviticus 27:22A different case: when someone dedicated a field they had bought, rather than a field inherited from their own family.
23. Leviticus 27:23In that case, the priest calculated the value up to the year of Jubilee, and the person paid that value all at once, that same day, as an offering — without it ever becoming anyone’s permanent possession.
24. Leviticus 27:24At the Jubilee, that field, bought and then dedicated, returned to the original owner it had been bought from; it had never been the dedicator’s family inheritance, so it could not become the priest’s possession.
25. Leviticus 27:25Every valuation in the chapter followed the same official standard: the shekel of the sanctuary, equal to twenty gerahs — a fixed unit of reference meant to prevent disputes over values.
26. Leviticus 27:26The firstborn of the animals could never be offered as a special vow, because it already belonged to God by default — there was no promising, all over again, something that was already owed regardless.
27. Leviticus 27:27But if the firstborn was of an unclean animal, such as a donkey, it could be redeemed for the assessed value plus 20 percent, or sold at that same value if no one redeemed it.
28. Leviticus 27:28This category is different from, and stricter than, the ordinary vows described in the rest of the chapter. A “devoted thing” could not be bought back at any price, unlike the animals, houses, and fields discussed earlier, which allowed redemption for an added amount.
29. Leviticus 27:29A far more severe category appears here: something “devoted” involving a person could not be redeemed under any circumstances — unlike the ordinary vows in the rest of the chapter, this kind of devotion was irreversible.
30. Leviticus 27:30The tithe — a tenth of the produce of the land and of the trees — belonged to God by default, treated as a category distinct from the voluntary vows described in the rest of the chapter.
31. Leviticus 27:31Anyone who wanted to redeem part of their own tithe instead of handing over the physical produce paid the value plus 20 percent — the same restitution formula applied once again.
32. Leviticus 27:32“Passeth under the rod” describes the physical method for counting the herd’s tithe: the animals filed past one by one before the shepherd, and every tenth animal counted was set apart automatically, with no choosing which one to give.
33. Leviticus 27:33In the tithe of the herd, the owner could not simply hand over only the worst animals, nor swap one for another after it was counted — if they tried anyway, both the original and the substitute became holy, and neither could be redeemed.
34. Leviticus 27:34The book closes with this formal note: these are the commandments that the Lord gave to Moses for the people of Israel, on Mount Sinai — ending Leviticus in the very place where it began.