Leviticus 27

It’s not clear what’s going on here. Dedications like this in other ancient religions sometimes involved promising to sacrifice a child to a god. But Israelites weren’t allowed to do that. And there didn’t appear to be any need for people devoting themselves to serving God in the worship center, since Aaron’s fellow Levites did that. Samuel was a rare exception; his mother gave him to the high priest Eli to raise to adulthood (1 Samuel 1). If this worship practice was more about donating money to the tent worship center, the price tag would have made it hard for most Israelites to afford to take this vow and to dedicate anyone (27:3-7).

About 20 ounces, which is 570 grams. The original Hebrew text doesn’t say the shekel was silver, but most shekels recovered so far have been silver. One silver shekel was worth about a month’s wage for the average working man, according to some scholars. Shekels came in different weights. It’s unclear how much these shekels weighed. There was a heavy shekel that weighed about 11.5 grams or .4 ounces. This was sometimes called the King’s Shekel or the Royal Shekel. Some scholars say this was also the weight used in the Israelite worship center and later in the Jerusalem Temple. The lighter shekel weighed about 9.5 grams or .33 ounces. Some scholars say this was probably the shekel accepted at the worship center. So, we get to take our pick until someone figures out the precise weight of an Israelite shekel of weight more than 3,000 years ago.

Likely meaning that the animal becomes the property of the worship center.

For a list of ritually unclean animals that were considered unfit to eat, see Leviticus 11.

It’s unclear what the priest would do with a ritually unclean animal, such as a camel. But, he might ride it, sell it, or kill it and sell the meat and hide.

Presumably, a home dedicated to God belongs to the priests. Who would give away a house, in a special, over-the-top offering? Some scholars speculate that wealthy folk living inside walled cities might make a grand gesture like that. The priests could use it or sell it. Or perhaps a man wanted simply to make a donation equal to the value of his house. He could do that and get it dedicated. He’d just need to make a vow to donate the house, then buy it back for 20 percent above the value the priest had set. So the 20 percent above what he intended to donate gave him bragging rights and the pleasure of having a home dedicated to the LORD.

The ancient measurement is a “homer,” which is equal to about six bushels. That’s a weight that a donkey could carry. A bushel of barley weighs about 48 pounds (22 kg). Six bushels weigh about 288 pounds (131 kg).

Israelites who had sold any of their land were apparently encouraged to buy it back before the jubilee year. If they didn’t, the land went to God and became an asset of the worship center. Every 50 years, in the year of jubilee, land sold to others reverted to the ancestral owner. So, essentially, most Israelites didn’t sell their land. They only rented it. For more on the jubilee year, see Leviticus 25.

This is because the land reverts to the Israelite ancestral owner in the jubilee year (Leviticus 25:23-34). The price for a field like the one in 27:16 would seem to be one shekel for each year until jubilee, since the full price of the field at the beginning of the 50-year jubilee stretch is 50 shekels. So, if someone dedicates the land when there are 30 years until the next jubilee, the price would be 30 shekels.

Another way to interpret this verse: The way this is phrased in Hebrew, it seems possible the man who dedicated a field to the LORD later sold the property to someone without mentioning that the field belonged to the LORD. In that case, the original owner forfeited his right to buy the land back.

An Israelite man couldn’t dedicate land he didn’t own. All he could do was donate money equal to the value of the land, much like people did when they dedicated a person to the LORD. They usually gave money, not the person. Again, the prophet Samuel was an exception (1 Samuel 1).

Crops harvested from that land would belong to the worship center, and could be used or sold by the priests.

There were different ways to measure a hunk of metal before coins became popular. Not all shekels weighed the same. But the worship center’s shekel followed a standard weight. See note about the shekel in 27:3.

Such as a donkey or a camel.