The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 462

APPENDIX. EXPOSITION. to God, when he never would have vowed CHAPTER XXVII. money. Such vows were redeemable, and, THl!I :fl.neJ chapter, attached to the book o.s a rule, were redeemed, though there after the concluding exhortation, is a short were some exceptions, as in the case of treatise on persons (vers. 2-8), animals Samuel. (vers. 9-13), houses (vers. H, 15), lands If beasts were vowed to the Lord (vers. (vers. 16-24), vowed to God; and on the 9-13), they could not be redeemed if they commutation of vows. were such e.s could be sacrificed to him; if A man might vow to the service of God they were not such as could be sacrificed, whatever he had a right over, thnt is, him- they were to be valued by the priest, and self, his wife, his children, his slaves, his either retained as a possession of the sanc- 'beasts, his houses, his fields. In oe.se tuary, or, if the owner preferred it, redeemed persons were vowed, the rnle was that they by him at the price fixed and one-fifth should be redeemed at a certain price, additional •hough occasionally the redemption was If houses were vowed to the Lord (vers. not me.de. Vowing a person to God thus, H, 15), they became the property of the was, as e. rule, no more than vowing so sanctuary, unless they were redeemed at the much money to the nse of the sanctuary e.s veJuation set upon them by the priest, with was fixed as the prioe of the redemption of one-finh additional. the person vowed. Yet there is e. great If hereditary lands were vowed to the di.1l"erenoe between the two acts of vowing Lord (vors. 16-21), they became the pos- a person and vowing the correlative sum 11ession of the sanctuary at the year of of money. A man in great danger or jubilee, unless they had been previously distress might devote himself (Gen. xxviii. redeemed; redemption, however, was in 20) or another (Judg. xi. SO; 1 S:,m. i. 11) this case the ordinary rule, and we do not 428 'l"HE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. [oR. XXVII. 1-34,