"14 And when a man shall sanctify his house to be holy unto the LORD, then the priest shall estimate it, whether it be good or bad: as the priest shall estimate it, so shall it stand. 15 And if he that sanctified it will redeem his house, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of thy estimation unto it, and it shall be his. 16 And if a man shall sanctify unto the LORD some part of a field of his possession, then thy estimation shall be according to the seed thereof: an homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver. 17 If he sanctify his field from the year of jubile, according to thy estimation it shall stand. 18 But if he sanctify his field after the jubile, then the priest shall reckon unto him the money according to the years that remain, even unto the year of the jubile, and it shall be abated from thy estimation. 19 And if he that sanctified the field will in any wise redeem it, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of thy estimation unto it, and it shall be assured to him. 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. 21 But the field, when it goeth out in the jubile, shall be holy unto the LORD, as a field devoted; the possession thereof shall be the priest’s. 22 And if a man sanctify unto the LORD a field which he hath bought, which is not of the fields of his possession; 23 Then the priest shall reckon unto him the worth of thy estimation, even unto the year of the jubile: and he shall give thine estimation in that day, as a holy thing unto the LORD. 24 In the year of the jubile the field shall return unto him of whom it was bought, even to him to whom the possession of the land did belong. 25 And all thy estimations shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs shall be the shekel." — Leviticus 27:14 KJV.
Since religious considerations may prompt a person in the greatness of his joy for his deliverance or the extremity of his distress to pledge as an offering to God the substantial interests of life, as houses and lands, the statutes must regulate the manner of executing such a vow.
14. Sanctify his house — Sanctification, when predicated of a thing, signifies to consecrate or set apart to a holy use. The devotion of the heart to the Giver of all good finds expression in acts of self-denial and sacrifice, especially in divesting ourselves of worldly goods, to which we so tenaciously cling. The use of property is a touchstone of character. As the priest shall estimate — A delicate duty is here laid upon the priest, requiring in him not only a good judgment and an acquaintance with values, but also the qualities of impartiality and freedom from avarice, since his decision involves his own financial interests. A conscientious priest would naturally incline to an under estimate, since the money paid as the redemption of the object vowed is in reality a free will offering which might have been innocently withheld by abstaining from the vow.
16. Some part of a field — The words “some part,” in the authorized version, are in italics for no good reason, since they exactly express the meaning of the Hebrew partitive preposition min — of. It is generally allowed that it was not lawful for a man, under the high pressure of religious impulse, to alienate his whole patrimony and thus pauperize his own family. According to the seed thereof — Since the quantity of seed usually sown upon an acre is quite uniform, this may be taken in lieu of the rods and roods of square measure. A homer of barley — About five and a half bushels — enough to sow two or three acres. To redeem this amount of land fifty shekels of silver, $30 28, were demanded, and at this rate for any number of homers of seed. The average value of the yearly produce of this field was not estimated, but the value of the crops during the complete ante-jubilee period of forty-nine years. Hence the annual redemption was at the rate of about a shekel and a fifth, or seventy-two cents multiplied by the number of homers vowed.
17-19. From the year of jubilee — If the vow covered the entire ante-jubilee period, the whole fifty shekels must be paid either in one payment or in annual instalments. But if a portion of the ante-jubilee period has elapsed before the vow is made, the priest shall deduct the years already past and base his estimate on the years that remain. The aggregate sum varies, but the annual redemption premium is invariable for any given quantity of land. This estimate presupposes that the land was inalienable, and that only the usufruct for a limited time could be vowed, since the land reverted to its original owner or his heirs, without compensation, when the trumpet of jubilee sounded. To this general law there are two exceptions, as stated in verse 20. Assured to him — Or, as we would say, deeded back to him.
20. If he will not redeem — Since the priests were employed in the sanctuary and could not secularize themselves by cultivating patches of land scattered through the country, the land vowed lay idle or was still cultivated by its proprietor. As a penalty for his neglect to pay the redemption year by year, the land was forfeited to the sanctuary in the jubilee. “Hence it is to be inferred that a consecrated field must have been redeemed before the jubilee unless any one manifestly wished it to be alienated.” — Clericus. If he have sold — Knobel thinks that only culpable caprice or dishonesty could have induced the proprietor to sell a field after he had vowed it to the Lord. The fact that it became irredeemable after such an act seems to favour this theory. The fault, for which the forfeiture of the field is a penalty, may have consisted in the fact that he still assumed undisputed ownership of a field which he had solemnly consecrated to the Lord, to whose rights he had done violence by the sale.
22-24. Sanctify… a field… bought — In the case of the vow of a field not inherited but purchased, the amount of the valuation was to be paid all at once in that day, that is, the day of the estimation. From this we infer that the amount of the vow of an hereditary field was paid annually if the proprietor so elected. In the jubilee the purchased field which had been vowed did not revert to the buyer, but to the hereditary owner. The reason for this law is, to prevent a patrimonial inheritance from being finally estranged from any family or tribe in Israel. See Leviticus 25:23-28, notes.
25. Shekel of the sanctuary — This implies that a standard of weights was kept in the sanctuary to try and regulate all the weights in the land. Thus true religion provides things honest. For the value of the shekel see Numbers 3:47, note.
No comments:
Post a Comment