Text -- Leviticus 27:16-25 (NET)

Redemption of Vowed Fields

27:16 “‘If a man consecrates to the Lord some of his own landed property, the conversion value must be calculated in accordance with the amount of seed needed to sow it, a homer of barley seed being priced at fifty shekels of silver. 27:17 If he consecrates his field in the jubilee year, the conversion value will stand, 27:18 but if he consecrates his field after the jubilee, the priest will calculate the price for him according to the years that are left until the next jubilee year, and it will be deducted from the conversion value. 27:19 If, however, the one who consecrated the field redeems it, he must add to it one fifth of the conversion price price and it will belong to him. 27:20 If he does not redeem the field, but sells the field to someone else, he may never redeem it. 27:21 When it reverts in the jubilee, the field will be holy to the Lord like a permanently dedicated field; it will become the priest’s property. 27:22 “‘If he consecrates to the Lord a field he has purchased, which is not part of his own landed property, 27:23 the priest will calculate for him the amount of its conversion value until the jubilee year, and he must pay the conversion value on that jubilee day as something that is holy to the Lord. 27:24 In the jubilee year the field will return to the one from whom he bought it, the one to whom it belongs as landed property. 27:25 Every conversion value must be calculated by the standard of the sanctuary shekel; twenty gerahs to the shekel.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Lev 27:16

¹ tn Heb “a conversion value shall be to the mouth of its seed.”

² tn Heb “seed of a homer of barley in fifty shekels of silver.”

NET Notes: Lev 27:17

¹ tn Heb “from the year of the jubilee.” For the meaning of “jubilee,” see the note on Lev 25:10 above.

NET Notes: Lev 27:18

¹ tn Heb “And if.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have adversative force here.

² tn Heb “the silver.”

NET Notes: Lev 27:19

¹ tn Heb “And if redeeming [infinitive absolute] he redeems [finite verb] the field, the one who consecrated it.” For the infinitive absolute used to highlight contrast rather than emphasis see GKC 343 §113.p.

² tn Heb “the silver of the conversion value.”

³ tn Heb “and it shall rise to him.” See HALOT 1087 s.v. קום 7 for the rendering offered here, but see also the note on the end of v. 14 above (cf. J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 476, 478).

NET Notes: Lev 27:20

¹ tn Heb “and if he sells.”

NET Notes: Lev 27:21

¹ tn Heb “When it goes out” (cf. Lev 25:25-34).

² tn Heb “like the field of the permanent dedication.” The Hebrew word חֵרֶם (kherem) is a much discussed term. In this and the following verses it refers in a general way to the fact that something is permanently devoted to the Lord and therefore cannot be redeemed (cf. v. 20b). See J. A. Naudé, NIDOTTE 2:276-77; N. Lohfink, TDOT 5:180-99, esp. pp. 184, 188, and 198-99; and the numerous explanations in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 483-85.

³ tn Heb “to the priest it shall be his property.”

NET Notes: Lev 27:22

¹ tn Heb “his field of purchase,” which is to be distinguished from his own ancestral “landed property” (cf. v. 16 above).

NET Notes: Lev 27:23

¹ tn Heb “give” (so KJV, ASV, NASB, NLT).

NET Notes: Lev 27:25

¹ tn See the note on Lev 5:15.