Context No. 2703 of 4322 · Leviticus

Leviticus 27:14-21: in context

14“‘When a man dedicates his house to be holy to the LORD, then the priest shall evaluate it, whether it is good or bad. As the priest evaluates it, so it shall stand. 15If he who dedicates it will redeem his house, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of your valuation to it, and it shall be his. 16“‘If a man dedicates to the LORD part of the field of his possession, then your valuation shall be according to the seed for it. The sowing of a homer of barley shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver. 17If he dedicates his field from the Year of Jubilee, according to your valuation it shall stand. 18But if he dedicates his field after the Jubilee, then the priest shall reckon to him the money according to the years that remain to the Year of Jubilee; and an abatement shall be made from your valuation. 19If he who dedicated the field will indeed redeem it, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of your valuation to it, and it shall remain his. 20If he will not redeem the field, or if he has sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed any more; 21but the field, when it goes out in the Jubilee, shall be holy to the LORD, as a devoted field. It shall be owned by the priests.

Leviticus closes with the law of vows, and this stretch handles what happens when a person dedicates a house or a field to the Lord. The priest sets a value. If the owner wants it back, he redeems it by paying that value plus a fifth. Fields are reckoned by their seed and by the years left until the Jubilee, when land reverts to holiness.

Under the accounting is a serious idea: a gift promised to God is real property, not a passing mood. What has been vowed is not casually snatched back. If you reclaim it, it costs you the added fifth; if you leave it, at Jubilee it becomes permanently holy, belonging to the priests. God treats my promise to him with more weight than I often do, as something with an actual price attached.

Do I treat what I have vowed to God as seriously as he does, or let my promises drift once keeping them costs me?

Sources

Ecclesiastes 5:5: "It is better that you should not vow, than that you should vow and not pay."
Deuteronomy 23:21: "When you vow a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not be slack to pay it, for the LORD your God will surely require it of you."
Psalm 76:11: "Make vows to the LORD your God, and fulfill them! Let all of his neighbors bring presents to him who is to be feared."