Leviticus 27:2-8

27:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When a man makes a special votive offering ¹  based on the conversion value of persons to the Lord, ²  27:3 the conversion value of the male ³  from twenty years old up to sixty years old ⁴  is fifty shekels by the standard of the sanctuary shekel. ⁵  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, ⁶  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; ⁷  according to what the man who made the vow can afford, ⁸  the priest will establish his conversion value.

Joshua 9:23-27

9:23 Now you are condemned to perpetual servitude as woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.” ⁹  9:24 They said to Joshua, “It was carefully reported to your subjects ¹⁰  how the Lord your God commanded Moses his servant to assign you the whole land and to destroy all who live in the land from before you. Because of you we were terrified ¹¹  we would lose our lives, so we did this thing. 9:25 So now we are in your power. ¹²  Do to us what you think is good and appropriate. ¹³  9:26 Joshua did as they said; he kept the Israelites from killing them ¹⁴  9:27 and that day made them woodcutters and water carriers for the community and for the altar of the Lord at the divinely chosen site. (They continue in that capacity to this very day.) ¹⁵ 

Joshua 9:1-2

The Gibeonites Deceive Israel

9:1 When the news reached all the kings on the west side of the Jordan ¹⁶  – in the hill country, the lowlands, ¹⁷  and all along the Mediterranean coast ¹⁸  as far as ¹⁹  Lebanon (including the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites) – 9:2 they formed an alliance to fight against Joshua and Israel. ²⁰ 

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).

³ tn Heb “your conversion value shall be [for] the male.”

⁴ tn Heb “from a son of twenty years and until a son of sixty years.”

⁵ tn See the note on Lev 5:15.

⁶ tn Heb “five shekels silver.”

⁷ tn Heb “and the priest shall cause him to be valued.”

⁸ tn Heb “on the mouth which the hand of the one who vowed reaches.”

⁹ tn Heb “Now you are cursed and a servant will not be cut off from you, woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “your servants.”

¹¹ tn Or “we were very afraid.”

¹² tn Heb “so now, look, we are in your hand.”

¹³ tn Heb “according to what is good and according to what is upright in your eyes to do us, do.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “And he did to them so and he rescued them from the hand of the sons of Israel and they did not kill them.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “and Joshua made them in that day woodcutters and water carriers for the community, and for the altar of the Lord to this day at the place which he chooses.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “When all the kings who were beyond the Jordan heard.”

¹⁷ tn Or “foothills”; Heb “the Shephelah.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “all the coast of the Great Sea.” The “Great Sea” was the typical designation for the Mediterranean Sea.

¹⁹ tn Heb “in front of.”

²⁰ tn Heb “they gathered together to fight against Joshua and Israel [with] one mouth.”