Surprising Truths Leviticus 27 Teaches about Vow, Valuation, and the Gospel
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Leviticus is a book of laws and instructions for the Israelite people. Over the course of 26 chapters, God instructed the Israelites through Moses about what it means to be clean or unclean, how to administer justice, and the sorts of offerings he requires. Then Leviticus 27 finishes the book with laws regarding vows.
God indicated the value of people, animals, land, and possessions in the event that “anyone makes a special vow to the Lord involving the valuation of persons” (Leviticus 27:2). How does this connect with the rest of the book, and where do we see the gospel in the idea of valuation?
What Are Vows?
A vow is a promise, but more specifically in this context, “vows were religious promises made to God, for obtaining some blessing or deliverance from some evil or danger, and were accompanied with prayer, and paid with thanksgiving,” writes Joseph Benson. A vow should be serious and binding.
An example of a religious vow is when Hannah promised “O LORD of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head” (1 Samuel 1:11). She kept her vow and Samuel was committed to the synagogue from an early age.
But vows were then, as now, often broken or were made in advance of a payment which had to be decided somehow. Bob Deffinbaugh calls religious vows “credit card worship, [...] a promise to worship God with a certain offering in the future, motivated by gratitude for God’s grace in the life of the offerer.” The person might not be in a position to pay now, but he would do it when he was able. However, God knew that “costly commitments are often hastily made and shamelessly broken,” so he provided laws about how to pay when one wanted to get out of a commitment.
Joseph Benson also noted that “because there might be too great a number of persons thus dedicated, which might be burdensome to the sanctuary, an exchange is allowed, and the priests are directed to receive a tax for their redemption.” In other words, vows were often made foolishly and thoughtlessly, without forethought, consideration for others, or reverence for the Lord. God’s instructions address a frequent issue.
The Issue of Value
Leviticus 27 outlines the tax for breaking vows. Where people were concerned, “the Law ordained that he who had taken such a vow should pay a sum of money to the sanctuary, determined according to the age and sex of the person” explains Albert Barnes. Men were valued higher than women; adults more than very young or very old people. Commentaries sometimes suggest that a cash value was indicative of intrinsic value. Simply too little is said by these commentators to know whether this was what they believed, but such a notion is inconsistent with our understanding of God’s views. He has said that we were all made in his image (Genesis 1:27), so every person is equally valuable to him.
Deffinbaugh digs deeper so we can understand where the valuation price tag comes from. “Their worth seems to be their ‘market value,’ what the person would bring in the market place. There is therefore no demeaning of women here, or of the young or elderly, but only a recognition of what value this person had in the market place.” In other words, God chose a figure related to how the people of Israel regarded their men, women, children, and elderly in a commercial sense; how useful they would be to, say, a builder, or a farmer. A young, healthy male would do more work than an elderly female, and this is typically true.
As God was making provision for the reversal of men’s and women’s vows as related to their own priorities, he used their own terms for the satisfaction of those vows. Money is not relevant to the Lord. This kind of valuation is in keeping with the Lord’s provision for all kinds of human behavior which the Lord did not promote, such as a man abandoning a virgin after he has slept with her (Deuteronomy 22). God does not view people’s worth according to their capacity in trade or commerce, but he provided laws to keep order and protect the vulnerable.
Valuing Animals, Objects, and Land
Deffinbaugh observed that “a 20% penalty is paid by those who would redeem various other possessions devoted to God,” but not for people. They are set apart and above animals or things. As for the promise of belongings and animals, God is clever to deal with the deception of those who would try to make poor substitutions. A person “shall not exchange [an animal] or make a substitute for it, good for bad, or bad for good; and if he does in fact substitute one animal for another, then both it and the substitute shall be holy” (v.10). That is, both animals are now made holy and belong to God. Whatever purpose an individual had in mind for the better animal held in reserve, he could not see that purpose to fruition.
Whether animals, land, or other possessions, “no doubt some devious Israelite may have tried to pay off his debt to the Lord according to some other monetary standard, which was of a lesser value.” This is one reason the Lord was so precise in his measurement of valuation – not because he needed anyone’s property, but because of the dishonor such individuals were demonstrating to their God.
His rules of valuation and of double-payment in the event of a deception were also supposed to deter individuals from defrauding their neighbor. “If the man who dedicated this field attempts to negate his vow by selling this property to another (apparently without the knowledge of the purchaser), the property would then revert to the Lord in the jubilee, and not to the original owner who devoted it to God by a vow,” Deffinbaugh writes. In other words, one might buy property, not realizing he would lose it at the year of Jubilee when the property would return to the original owner, so the Lord intervened to prevent deception of this kind from profiting the deceiver. The priest would receive this property instead and use it to whatever ends he saw fit.
The Cost of Breaking a Vow
Deffinbaugh summarizes the purpose of Leviticus 27 thus: “it is a costly matter to break one’s vow. In some instances, what was vowed could not be redeemed, and when it could be redeemed, the offerer would do so at a high price.” The Lord even tried to make the cost of a foolish vow prohibitive in order to prevent individuals from putting themselves at substantial financial risk. This was to promote greater care in the promises they would make to him and to others. A vow should not be made lightly, when one has no intention of keeping it or is unable to do so.
Deffinbaugh also points out a significant difference between the other 26 chapters and this one: we make vows of our own volition, and there are consequences. We can also choose not to make a vow and thereby prevent disaster, which might be harming a friendship, getting married unwisely, or even losing the confidence of those one has authority over. God gave laws which his people were expected to keep, but a vow is one’s personal choice, something one should consider carefully. People often throw promises around thoughtlessly, and thereby let others down. A friend says “I will always be there when you need me, I swear it,” but is typically absent when trouble arises. A boss says “don’t worry, you won’t lose your job, I promise,” but a financial crisis forces him or her to lay off many employees.
Christians do not commit their children to a synagogue, but we still make commitments and ask for things. In fact, Christians and non-Christians will try to bargain with the Lord. “If you give me this job, I will fast every Friday.” “If you give us a baby, I will donate an extra $100 every month to the church.” “Lord, do what I ask and I will start going to church again.” The cost of these broken vows is astronomical: Jesus’ very life.
The Heart of Leviticus
The heart of Leviticus is not a matter of transaction, but of love for the people. Their relationships were broken; more importantly, their relationship with Him was broken. As such, they made promises they could not or would not keep. In an ideal world, where people revered their Lord and loved him, they would have also respected and loved each other too much to make vows they never intended to keep. Jesus warned: “on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:36-37).
God brought to them a sense of the cost of sin. Valuation in Leviticus 27 points to Christ in the same way that the entire law does. Why should there be a chapter all about how to repay when we break our vows? The topic of valuation itself points to the corruption of our hearts: that we do not value one another and the Lord as we ought to, as seen by the fact that we need a law for this. The fact of Leviticus, following the Lord’s spectacular rescue of Israel, speaks loudly of the problem which is not with God’s rules but with the very need to have them in the first place.
Paid In Full
The Ten Commandments, laws about cleanliness, rules about divorce and death, should not be necessary. Leviticus 27 forces us to ask what our brokenness costs, and if we are offended by the values offered for people and things, this is right. Part of what leads us to break our vows is that we think too little of the value of others and of the cost of our sin: Christ on the cross.
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