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27 ‎[1] **The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: **
‎[2] **Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: If a man articulates a vow in accordance with the valuation of persons to the Lord, **when one obligates himself to give to God the value of a certain person. With regard to the term *erkekha *, “valuation,” see commentary on 5:15.
‎[3] **The valuation shall be: For the male from twenty years old until sixty years old, the valuation **of such a man with regard to this form of dedication, **shall be fifty shekels of silver of the sacred shekel. **
‎[4] **And if it is for a female, **in the same age range of twenty years old to sixty, **the valuation shall be thirty shekels. **Someone of this age is considered to be in his or her prime.
‎[5] **And if from five years old until twenty years old, the valuation shall be: The male twenty shekels, and for the female ten shekels. **
‎[6] **And if from one month old until five years old, the valuation shall be: The male five shekels of silver, and for the female, the valuation three shekels of silver. **
‎[7] **And if from sixty years old and above: If a male, the valuation shall be fifteen shekels, and for the female ten shekels. **
‎[8] **And if he, **the one who vowed, **is too poor **to pay **for the valuation, he shall be set before the priest, and the priest shall assess him; on the basis of what the one who vowed can afford, the priest shall assess him. **The priest shall grant him a deduction.
‎[9] **And if it, **the subject of one’s vow, **is a type of animal from which one would present an offering to the Lord, **an animal fit for the altar, **any that one gives of it to the Lord shall be sacred. **The sanctity of the vow applies to the body of the animal itself.
‎[10] Consequently, the animal itself must be sacrificed upon the altar.
**One shall not exchange it and not substitute it, **replacing a **good **animal **with **a **bad **one, **or **even a **bad **one **with **a **good **one; **if he substitutes an animal for an animal, it and its substitute shall be sacred. ** On the other hand, if one dedicates produce or other items, he is permitted to exchange them, to give the value of the object in its stead. Such an exchange is prohibited in the case of an animal that is fit for the altar, as the body of the animal itself is sanctified; it is not consecrated merely for its monetary value. 14 And yet **if he substitutes an animal for an animal, it and its substitute shall be sacred. ** Although it is prohibited to say that another animal should replace a consecrated animal, this declaration is not entirely without effect. This contrasts with most other situations, as the *halakha *generally does not recognize the validity of an action which constitutes a prohibition. In the formulation of the Talmud, if there is a matter about which God said: Do not do it, and one did it, his action is ineffective. 15 In this case, however, the animal which one sought to use as a substitute is indeed consecrated, although the original animal also retains its sanctity.
‎[11] **And if **a man consecrates an animal, and **it is any type of nonpure animal **or an animal **from which one does not present an offering to the Lord **for other reasons, e.g., if it is blemished, 16 **he shall set the animal before the priest. **
‎[12] **The priest shall assess it, whether good or bad; as the priest’s valuation, so shall it be. **The priest shall evaluate the worth of the animal standing before him, and his determination is final.
‎[13] **And if, **after the owner consecrates the non-pure animal, **he redeems it, **seeks to reacquire it from Sanctuary property, **he shall add its one-fifth to the valuation **of its worth.
‎[14] This verse presents a similar
*halakha *: **And when a man consecrates his house sacred to the Lord, then the priest shall assess it, whether good or bad; as the priest assesses it, so shall it stand. **
‎[15] **And if the one who consecrated it redeems his house **himself, **he shall add one-fifth the silver of the valuation to it, **and **then **the house **shall be his. **
‎[16] It was stated earlier (25:25–28) that one cannot transfer permanent ownership of an ancestral field, as it theoretically remains in the family’s possession forever. Yet
**if from the field of his ancestral portion a man consecrates to the Lord, the valuation, **the value of the field, **shall be according to its seed. **Since the field is not sold forever, this consecration is a gift for a limited number of years. Its value, for the purposes of redemption with money, is based on the following formula: **An area **that is required to be **sown with a ÄĄomer, **a measure of volume **of barley, **shall be redeemed **for fifty shekels of silver. **The Sages refer to this area as a *beit kor *; in modern measurements it is roughly 18 dunams, about 4.5 acres.
‎[17] **If he consecrates his field from, **that is, immediately after, **the Jubilee Year, **when there is maximum time until the next Jubilee, **the valuation shall stand. **It shall be redeemed in accordance with the full sum.
‎[18] **And if he consecrates his field after the Jubilee, the priest shall calculate for him the silver according to the remaining years until the Jubilee Year, and it shall be deducted from the valuation. **If fifty shekels of silver is the valuation of the field for forty-nine years, these must be divided into forty-nine parts, which means that slightly more than one shekel must be deducted from the total sum for each year that has passed.
‎[19] **And if the one who consecrated it **himself **redeems the field, he shall add one-fifth of the silver of the valuation to it, and it shall be his. **This is a general principle with regard to the redemption of consecrated items: If a stranger, not the original owner, seeks to acquire it, he pays the amount determined by the priest, or its fixed valuation, whereas the original owner must add a fifth, a kind of compensation or surcharge to the Sanctuary.
‎[20] **And if he does not redeem the field **from the Sanctuary property in all the years of the Jubilee cycle, **or if, **in the meantime, **he, **the Temple treasurer, **sold the field to another man, it shall no longer be redeemed **by the original owner, and his historical link to the field shall be severed.
‎[21] **When the field goes out in the Jubilee, it shall be sacred to the Lord. **Just like all fields in Israel, this field shall leave the possession of the buyer at the Jubilee Year. However, as its owner consecrated it, the field now reverts to become Temple property. It is considered **like a proscribed field, **as explained below (verses 28–29); **his portion shall belong to the priest. **
‎[22] **And if he consecrates to the Lord a field of his acquisition, **a field that he purchased from another, **that is not a field of his ancestral portion. **He does not have full ownership of this field, but merely the right of usage for fifty years at the most.
‎[23] Consequently,
**the priest shall calculate for him the sum of the valuation until the Jubilee Year, **the valuation in accordance with the number of years remaining until the Jubilee, and **he shall give the valuation as of that day **on which he comes to redeem it. The field shall thereby return to the possession of the redeemer, and **it **, the payment, **is sacred to the Lord. **No payment of an additional fifth is mentioned here, as the current owner is considered like a stranger with regard to this purchased field. The Sages disagree whether an acquired field is redeemed by its actual sale value, or in accordance with the fixed value established in verse 16 for an ancestral field. 17
‎[24] **In the Jubilee Year, the field shall return to the one from whom he acquired it, **the original seller, **to the one whose ancestral portion of the land it is. **The person who consecrated it did not have the right to permanently dedicate a field that did not belong to him. To summarize, in all cases the fields return to their original owners in the Jubilee Year, apart from an ancestral field that was consecrated and not redeemed.
‎[25] **Every **payment of **valuation **discussed above **shall be in the sacred shekel; twenty gera shall be **the value of **the shekel. **These *gera *are called *maot *in the terminology of the Sages. 18 Although there were smaller units of weight and coins, the *ma’a *was the basic silver coin, ten of which were worth a regular shekel, while twenty were worth the holy shekel, which was double in size. 19
‎[26] Pursuant to the discussion of consecration and redemption, the Torah presents a related law:
**However, **with regard to **a **male **firstborn that is born first to the Lord, from an animal, no man shall consecrate it, **since it is not anyone’s property; **whether it is an ox or a sheep, it is the Lord’s, **and must be brought as an offering. 20
‎[27] **And if it, **the firstborn animal, **is a non-pure beast, **which cannot be brought as an offering, **he, **the owner, **shall redeem it according to the valuation, **by paying the animal’s worth, **and he shall add one additional fifth of it to it, **as one always must when redeeming consecrated items. **And if it is not redeemed **by the owner, **it shall be sold for the valuation. **Unlike pure animals, impure animals cannot be consecrated in and of themselves as offerings. Only their value is consecrated, and therefore the animal itself can be redeemed by paying its value to the Temple. 21 In practice, among all impure animals, only the firstborn of a donkey must be redeemed. As mentioned elsewhere in the Torah, it is redeemed in exchange for a sheep, or for silver or other objects equal in value to itself. 22
‎[28] **However, **in contrast to consecrated objects, which may be redeemed or sold, **anything proscribed that a man proscribes for the Lord from all that is his, whether man, **e.g., one of his slaves, **or animal, or the field of his ancestral portion, **which is in the absolute possession of its owner, **shall not be sold and shall not be redeemed; anything proscribed is a sacred sacrament to the Lord. **
‎[29] **Anything proscribed with regard to people, **captives of war who have been proscribed, or one who has been sentenced to death for political or halakhic reasons 23 **shall not be redeemed; he shall be put to death. **This is referring to a human *ĥerem *, but there is also the *ĥerem *of an area or a city. In such cases all the objects go to Heaven, and they are prohibited for all benefit and earthly uses, and may not be redeemed or sold. 24
‎[30] **All the tithe of the land, **a tenth separated **from the seed of the land, **such as wheat or barley, **or from the fruit of the tree, **wine, oil, and possibly other types of fruit as well, 25 **is the Lord’s; it is sacred to the Lord. **It may not be treated like other fruit, but must be eaten near the Temple in a state of ritual purity. 26 The Sages call this the second tithe.
‎[31] **And if a man shall redeem from his tithe, **if he wants to reacquire his tithe and be permitted to treat his produce like regular produce, **he shall add one-fifth of it to it, **like all who buy back their consecrated property from the Sanctuary.
‎[32] In addition to the better-known tithe of produce, there is also an animal tithe:
**And all the tithe of cattle or the flock, any that passes under the rod, **the herdsman’s staff, **the tenth shall be sacred to the Lord. **All herd and flock born during each year shall pass under the rod and be counted in that manner, and the herdsman shall mark every tenth animal. 27
‎[33] **He shall not distinguish between good and bad, nor shall he substitute it. **The counting of the animals serves to establish which is the tithe. The animal that is counted as tenth is consecrated and cannot be exchanged. it must be sacrificed to God, while its meat is eaten by the owner in compliance with the *halakhot *of offerings. **And if he substitutes it, it and its substitute shall be sacred, **in accordance with the *halakha *of substitution stated above (verse 10); **it shall not be redeemed. **The tithe remains consecrated to God; one may not redeem it.
‎[34] This verse concludes the book of Leviticus:
**These are the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai. **
Version: The Steinsaltz Tanakh - English
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License: Copyright: Steinsaltz Center