Leviticus 27:20

Not to him that sanctified it, whether he redeemed it or not; nor to him that bought it of the treasurer of the temple after it was sanctified; but to the original proprietor and owner of it, of whom he bought it that sanctified it, for so it follows: [even] to him to whom the possession of the land [did belong]; which was a possession of his he had by inheritance from his fathers, and therefore, according to the law of the year of jubilee, was then to return to him, and could be retained no longer, nor even converted to holy uses; for as it is said in the Misnah {h}, "a field of purchase goes not out to the priests in the year of jubilee; for no man can sanctify a thing which is not his own;'' as what he had purchased was no longer his than to the year of jubilee, and therefore could not devote it to sacred uses for any longer time. {h} Ut supra. (Hilchot Eracin, c. 4. sect. 26.) Leviticus 27:25 Ver. 25. And all thy estimation shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary,....

And if he will not redeem the field,.... He that sanctified it, does not care to give for it the settled price of the fifth part besides, but chooses it should be disposed of for the uses he devoted it to: or if he have sold the field to another man; that is, either the original owner having bought it and sold it again, or rather the priest, the treasurer, as Jarchi, who had the disposal of it, for the uses and purposes for which it was devoted, when sold by him: it shall not be redeemed any more; it was not in the power of him that sanctified it to make a purchase of it again; the buyer of it might not sell it to him again, for otherwise, by that means, he might come at it cheaper than the law directs; besides, there is another reason for it, which is suggested in Leviticus 27:21.

If he will not redeem the field, to wit, when the priest shall set a price upon it, and offer it to him in the first place to redeem it. If he have sold; he , who? Either, 1. The man that vowed it; if he after such a vow made shall neglect to pay his vow, and shall sacrilegiously sell the same land to another man; or, if he sell it, i.e. suffer it to be sold to another, and will not prevent that by redeeming it to himself. Or rather, 2. The priest, or some in his name, who, though not expressed, is sufficiently understood out of the foregoing clause, If he will not redeem or buy again the field , to wit, of the priest, who is now the seller of it; or, or rather and, for this seems to be added by way of accumulation, if he , i.e. the priest, of whom he might have redeemed it, upon his refusal, offers it to sale, and have sold the field to another man. Add to this, that none but the priest could sell this land, after it was once vowed and declared to be so, and offered by the priest to him again to redeem it, which is apparently the present case. It shall not be redeemed any more, i.e. he shall for ever lose the benefit of redemption.

16-24. if a man shall sanctify unto the Lord some aprt of a field of his possession, &c.—In the case of acquired property in land, if not redeemed, it returned to the donor at the Jubilee; whereas the part of a hereditary estate, which had been vowed, did not revert to the owner, but remained attached in perpetuity to the sanctuary. The reason for this remarkable difference was to lay every man under an obligation to redeem the property, or stimulate his nearest kinsman to do it, in order to prevent a patrimonial inheritance going out from any family in Israel.

(20) And if he will not redeem the field. —That is, if after all the advantages which the law affords to the vower to redeem his patrimonial inheritance before the jubile year, he is base enough to forego the privilege of redemption, thus showing no desire to perpetuate his family name,— Or if he have sold the field to another man.—Better, and if he yet sells the field to another man, that is, if in addition to this absence of family honour he surreptitiously sells the field which he has vowed to the sanctuary to another man, thus adding sacrilege to baseness,— It shall not be redeemed any more,—then he loses all right ever to redeem it at all.

In case he did not redeem it, however, namely, before the commencement of the next year of jubilee, or sold it to another man, i.e., to a man not belonging to his family, he could no longer redeem it; but on its going out, i.e., becoming free in the year of jubilee (see Leviticus 25:28 ), it was to be holy to the Lord, like a field under the ban (see Leviticus 27:28 ), and to fall to the priests as their property. Hinc colligere est, redimendum fuisse ante Jubilaeum consecratum agrum, nisi quis vellet eum plane abalienari (Clericus). According to the distinct words of the text (observe the correspondence of ואם...ואם), the field, that had been vowed, fell to the sanctuary in the jubilee year not only when the owner had sold it in the meantime, but also when he had not previously redeemed it. The reason for selling the field at a time when he had vowed it to the sanctuary, need not be sought for in caprice and dishonesty, as it is by Knobel.

If the field was vowed in this sense, that it was not handed over to the sanctuary (the priesthood) to be cultivated, but remained in the hands of the proprietor, so that every year he paid to the sanctuary simply the valuation price, - and this may have been the rule, as the priests whose duties lay at the sanctuary could not busy themselves about the cultivation of the field, but would be obliged either to sell the piece of land at once, or farm it, - the owner might sell the field up to the year of jubilee, to be saved the trouble of cultivating it, and the purchaser could not only live upon what it yielded over and above the price to be paid every year to the sanctuary, but might possibly realize something more. In such a case the fault of the seller, for which he had to make atonement by the forfeiture of his field to the sanctuary in the year of jubilee, consisted simply in the fact that he had looked upon the land which he vowed to the Lord as though it were his own property, still and entirely at his own disposal, and therefore had allowed himself to violate the rights of the Lord by the sale of his land. At any rate, it is quite inadmissible to supply a different subject to מכר from that of the parallel גּאל, viz., the priest.

[Bible] 27:11. An unclean beast, which cannot be sacrificed to the Lord, if any man shall vow, shall be brought before the priest: 27:12. Who judging whether it be good or bad, shall set the price. 27:13. Which, if he that offereth it will give, he shall add above the estimation the fifth part. 27:14. If a man shall vow his house, and sanctify it to the Lord, the priest shall consider it, whether it be good or bad: and it shall be sold according to the price, which he shall appoint. 27:15. But if he that vowed, will redeem it, he shall give the fifth part of the estimation over and above: and shall have the house. 27:16. And if he vow the field of his possession, and consecrate it to the Lord, the price shall be rated according to the measure of the seed. If the ground be sown with thirty bushels of barley, let it be sold for fifty sicles of silver. 27:17. If he vow his field immediately from the year of jubilee that is beginning: as much as it may be worth, at so much it shall be rated. 27:18. But if some time after, the priest shall reckon the money according to the number of years that remain until the jubilee, and the price shall be abated. 27:19. And if he that had vowed, will redeem his field, he shall add the fifth part of the money of the estimation, and shall possess it. 27:20. And if he will not redeem it, but it be sold to any other man, he that vowed it, may not redeem it any more. 27:21. For when the day of jubilee cometh, it shall be sanctified to the Lord, and as a possession consecrated, pertaineth to the right of the priest. 27:22. If a field that was bought, and not of a man's ancestors' possession, be sanctified to the Lord: 27:23. The priest shall reckon the price according to the number of years, unto the jubilee. And he that had vowed, shall give that to the Lord. 27:24. But in the jubilee, it shall return to the former owner, who had sold it, and had it in the lot of his possession.

28 . Midianites ] The first part of this verse resumes E’s narrative from Genesis 37:25 . According to E, “Midianites,” merchantmen, pass by, traders from the desert on the east of Jordan. The term is descriptive, and not genealogical: for Midian, like Ishmael, was a son of Abraham ( Genesis 25:2 ). The suggestion that “Midianites” is a name representing the North Arabian Minaeans seems to ignore the Heb. character of the story. The name is without the definite article; it cannot, therefore, refer to “the Ishmaelites” of Genesis 37:27 , whose description, though similar, is quite distinct. LXX οἱ Μαδιηναῖοι ἔμποροι . Lat. Madianitae negotiators . they drew and lifted up ] According to E, the Midianites did this, and carried off Joseph, while his brothers were engaged in their meal. According to this account, Joseph was kidnapped, or, as he himself says ( Genesis 40:15 ), “stolen away,” not sold. 28 b. and sold ] This is from J. Joseph’s brethren, by Judah’s advice, sell him to the Ishmaelites. This clause follows upon Genesis 37:27 . twenty pieces of silver ] i.e. shekels, as Genesis 20:16 . In Leviticus 27:5 ; Leviticus 27:20 shekels is the price for a slave between the ages of 5 and 20. 30 shekels is the price for a slave in Exodus 21:32 . On the value of a shekel, see Genesis 23:15 .