Text -- Leviticus 27:1-8 (NET)

Redemption of Vowed People

27:1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 27:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When a man makes a special votive offering based on the conversion value of persons to the Lord, 27:3 the conversion value of the male from twenty years old up to sixty years old is fifty shekels by the standard of the sanctuary shekel. 27:4 If the person is a female, the conversion value is thirty shekels. 27:5 If the person is from five years old up to twenty years old, the conversion value of the male is twenty shekels, and for the female ten shekels. 27:6 If the person is one month old up to five years old, the conversion value of the male is five shekels of silver, and for the female the conversion value is three shekels of silver. 27:7 If the person is from sixty years old and older, if he is a male the conversion value is fifteen shekels, and for the female ten shekels. 27:8 If he is too poor to pay the conversion value, he must stand the person before the priest and the priest will establish his conversion value; according to what the man who made the vow can afford, the priest will establish his conversion value.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Lev 27:2

¹ tn Cf. the note on Lev 22:21. Some take this as an expression for fulfilling a vow, “to fulfill a vow” (e.g., HALOT 927-28 s.v. פלא piel and NASB; cf. NRSV “in fulfillment of a vow”) or, alternatively, “to make a vow” or “for making a vow” (HALOT 928 s.v. פלא piel [II פלא]). Perhaps it refers to the making a special vow, from the verb פָלָא (pala’, “to be wonderful; to be remarkable”), cf. Milgrom, Numbers [JPSTC], 44. B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 151 and 193, suggests that this is a special term for “setting aside a votive offering” (related to פָלָה, palah, “to set aside”). In general, the point of the expression seems to be that this sacrifice is a special gift to God that arose out of special circumstances in the life of the worshiper.

² tn Heb “in your valuation, persons to the Lord,” but “in your valuation” is a frozen form and, therefore, the person (“your”) does not figure into the translation (see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 73). Instead of offering a person to the Lord one could redeem that person with the appropriate amount of money delineated in the following verses (see the note on Lev 5:15 above and the explanation in Hartley, 480-81).

NET Notes: Lev 27:3

¹ tn Heb “your conversion value shall be [for] the male.”

² tn Heb “from a son of twenty years and until a son of sixty years.”

³ tn See the note on Lev 5:15.

NET Notes: Lev 27:6

¹ tn Heb “five shekels silver.”

NET Notes: Lev 27:8

¹ tn Heb “and the priest shall cause him to be valued.”

² tn Heb “on the mouth which the hand of the one who vowed reaches.”