36 THE PRIESTHOOD: BARRIERS TO ENTRY Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When a man shall make a singular vow, the persons shall be for the LORD by thy estimation. And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years old, even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary. And if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels. And if it be from five years old even unto twenty years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male twenty shekels, and for the female ten shekels. And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver. And if it be from sixty years old and above; if it be a male, then thy estimation shall be fifteen shekels, and for the female ten shekels. But if he be poorer than thy estimation, then he shall present himself before the priest, and the priest shall value him; according to his ability that vowed shall the priest value him (Lev. 27:2-8).
The theocentric basis of this passage is that the God of the covenant does allow vows. The question is, what kind of vow is in view here? This is one of the most peculiar passages in the Mosaic law. The rabbinical commentators do not do a better job than the Christians in explaining it, and the Christians are universally perplexed. It is obvious that vows were involved. Money payments were also involved. We need to answer two questions: What was the nature of the vow? What was the function of the money payment?
Vows and Succession To begin to sort out this pair of problems, we must answer this question: What is a vow? Biblically, a vow is a lawful invocation of God's covenantal sanctions, positive and negative.(1) To escape God's corporate negative sanctions, there must be individual vows of repentance: covenant renewal. Covenant renewal involves a public reaffirmation of God's covenant: His sovereignty, authority, law, sanctions, and triumph: historical and eschatological. These are the five points of the biblical covenant model.(2) A lawful public affirmation of God's covenant always comes in the form of a vow. In order to set oneself apart judicially before God, one takes a vow. Vows necessarily involve sanctions. They are self-maledictory oaths that invoke God's sanctions, positive and negative. Formal judicial separation is based on a vow; it always points to God's sanctions in history. This is why holiness (point three of the biblical covenant model) points to judgment (point four).
The vows in this instance were ecclesiastical. The Hebrew word that describes these vows, pawlaw, is translated here as "singular." The translation itself is singular: pawlaw is translated as "singular" in the King James Version only in this singular verse. It is elsewhere translated as "marvelous," "wondrous," or "separate." Lawful vows are always out of the ordinary, and these vows were very special vows among vows. They were marvelous vows. The question is: In what way?
Commentators argue about the possible reasons for the placement of this chapter at the end of Leviticus. Why should a section on vows appear at the end of a book on holiness? Gordon Wenham writes: "It is a puzzle why ch. 27, which deals with vows, should appear in its present position, since ch. 26 with its blessings and curses would have made a fitting conclusion to the book."(3) He offers two possible explanations, neither of them convincing. I suggest the following explanation: the end of Leviticus marks a transition from a book that centers on point three of the biblical covenant model -- holiness, boundaries -- to a book that centers on point four: oaths, sanctions.
I suggest the following explanation: the end of Leviticus marks a transition from a book that centers on point three of the biblical covenant model -- holiness, boundaries -- to a book that centers on point four: oaths, sanctions. But what about part five of the book, inheritance? Here is the central theme of this passage: the loss of inheritance in one tribe in exchange for inheritance in another tribe.
The previous chapter, Leviticus 26, deals with God's positive and negative corporate sanctions in history. The move from an emphasis on point four of the biblical covenant model -- sanctions -- in Chapter 26 to point five -- succession -- in Chapter 27 is quite appropriate.(4) Negative sanctions in the context of Chapter 26 have to do with disinheritance. Chapter 26 presents a catalogue of God's corporate covenantal sanctions; Chapter 27 begins with rules governing a particular type of personal vow. This in turn raises the issue of covenantal continuity. Jordan writes: "Payment of vows relates to the fifth commandment, as we give to our Divine parent and thereby honor Him, and to the tenth commandment, since payment of vows and tithes is the opposite of covetousness. Thus, this final section of Leviticus has everything to do with continuity."(5) The passage is where it belongs: in part five. The vow relates to inheritance: family continuity over time.
Devoted to Temple Service: Irreversible The text does not tell us what stipulations governed this type of vow. The text also does not provide a context. This is why the commentators get so confused. The old line about "text without context is pretext" is applicable. The law was addressed to priests: "the persons shall be for the LORD by thy estimation." Whose estimation? The priests. Anything dedicated to the Lord is assumed by commentators to have been dedicated to or through the priesthood. The text is silent about the nature of the dedication; it speaks only of pricing. A gift of individuals was in some way involved because specific prices are associated in the text with specific genders and ages.
Wenham discusses this law as symbolic of a man's willingness to pledge himself or those under his authority as temple slaves. The vow-taker could not really serve God in this way, Wenham argues. Access to the temple was reserved to Levites and priests.(6) Once the vow was made, Wenham says, the person who had made it was required to redeem himself and any other people under the vow's authority by making an appropriate payment to the temple. These singular vows specifically invoked mandatory payments. "To free themselves from the vow, they had instead to pay to the sanctuary the price they would have commanded in the slave market."(7) Once made, the vow had to be paid. He cites Psalm 116: "I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people. Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. O LORD, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people" (Ps. 116:14-18).(8) This was David's affirmation of the law of vows, which states: "But if thou shalt forbear to vow, it shall be no sin in thee. That which is gone out of thy lips thou shalt keep and perform; even a freewill offering, according as thou hast vowed unto the LORD thy God, which thou hast promised with thy mouth" (Deut. 23:22-23).
We need to answer two questions. First, is Wenham correct about the exclusively symbolic nature of this type of vow? Second, is he correct about the payment as a substitute for literal temple service? Most commentators have agreed with Wenham on this point. I do not. I argue that the terms of the vow were not symbolic, and the payment was not a substitute.
Devotion: Change in Legal Status
In the case of heathen slaves, Israelites possessed lawful title to the slave and the slave's heirs (Lev. 25:44-45). There is no reason to assume that an Israelite could not transfer ownership of his slave to an individual priest or to the temple. The tabernacle-temple already employed permanent pagan slaves: the Gibeonites. They were the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the assembly; hence, they were involved in religious service. This permanent temple slavery had been specifically imposed on them by Joshua as a curse: "Now therefore ye are cursed, and there shall none of you be freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God" (Josh. 9:23). They were permanently set apart -- devoted -- for temple service. This was the result of their deception in gaining the vow of peace from Joshua (Josh. 9). The covenantal blessing -- peace in the land -- because of the Gibeonites' deception became their covenantal curse: permanent slavery under the priests. They had escaped God's covenantal ban of hormah -- either their total destruction or their permanent expulsion from the land -- but they could not escape His covenantal ban of temple servitude. Hormah (chormah) means "devoted." Its frame of reference was God's total destruction: "And the LORD hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities: and he called the name of the place Hormah" (Num. 21:3). A city devoted to total destruction was under hormah: a total ban. This destruction was a priestly act.(9)
We conclude that there is nothing in the Mosaic Covenant to indicate that pagan slaves could not be assigned to temple service even though they could not lawfully assist with the sacrifices. They were not allowed inside those temple boundaries that were lawfully accessible only to priests, but they still could work for the priests outside these boundaries. Thus, a symbolic transfer of ownership of a pagan slave to the priests is not the concern of this passage. The deciding issue contextually cannot be priestly ownership as such. The issue is also not the dedication or sanctification of household slaves. There was nothing special in Israel about the dedication of household slaves -- nothing "singular." It has to be something more fundamental: service within the normally sealed boundaries of the temple.
Then who were the vow-governed individuals of Leviticus 27:2-8? They were family members under the lawful authority of the vow-taker. The vow was a specific kind of vow, a vow of devotion. Devotion here was not an emotional state; it was a change in judicial status.
Devotion vs. Sanctification
At this point, I have to introduce a crucial distinction of the Mosaic law: devotion vs. sanctification. A sanctified item was set apart for God's use, though not necessarily on a permanent basis. A devoted thing was set apart permanently for priestly service or sacrifice. This distinction is based on the law that appears later in this section of Leviticus:
Notwithstanding no devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the LORD of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most holy unto the LORD. None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death (Lev. 27:28-29).
Death here was not necessarily physical death; it was, however, necessarily covenantal death. This meant that the devoted item was placed within the irreversible boundaries of God's ban. This form of covenantal death meant that the item was beyond human redemption. The devoted object came under God's absolute control. In many passages in Scripture, the Hebrew word for "devoted" (khayrem) is translated as "accursed" or "cursed." Such a cursed item could not be used for anything other than sacrifice to God. If it was subsequently misused -- violated or profaned, in other words -- the person who violated God's boundary himself came under the ban: beyond human redemption.
And the city [Jericho] shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the LORD: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it (Josh. 6:17-18).
But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel (Josh. 7:1).(10)
But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal (I Sam. 15:21).
It is worth noting that this Hebrew word is the very last word that occurs in the Old Testament, in the passage that prophesies the coming of Elijah (John the Baptist), the man Jesus identified as the last man of the Old Covenant.(11) "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse" (Mal. 4:5-6). This was God's threatened negative sanction: covenantal disinheritance -- fathers vs. sons -- that involved God's curse on Old Covenant Israel. As Jesus later warned: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household" (Matt. 10:34-36).
The devoted item could not be redeemed by the payment of a price. It had been permanently transferred covenantally to God as a sacrificial offering. This is the meaning of the singular vow. The singular vow was a vow whose stipulations were irreversible. The devoted item was placed within the confines of an absolutely holy boundary: beyond human redemption. The vow was voluntary; the resulting transfer was irreversible: a singular vow.
Devotion Through Adoption
Could an Israelite lawfully devote his child to priestly service? Yes; as we shall see, Jephthah's daughter was so devoted by her father. Once a person was adopted into the family of Aaron specifically or into the tribe of Levi, he could not re-enter another Israelite tribe by a subsequent act of adoption. He had been devoted to the temple: beyond redemption. So had his covenantal heirs. If I am correct about this, then in the context of marriage -- another form of legal adoption(12) -- there was no option for an Israelite father to buy back his daughter from her priestly husband by returning the bride price to his son-in-law.(13) Similarly, there was no way for a man to buy back himself, his wife, or his children from formally devoted service to God. In short, there was no redemption price for this kind of vow. This is why the vow was pawlaw: "singular."
There is no indication that a man could place his adult male children into mandated priestly service. An adult son was not eligible for compulsory adoption. He was a lawful heir to the land and the legal status of his tribe and family. He could not be disinherited at his father's prerogative. The crucial legal issue for identifying adulthood for men was military numbering. An adult male was eligible to be numbered at age 20 to fight in a holy war: "This they shall give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary: (a shekel is twenty gerahs:) an half shekel shall be the offering of the LORD" (Ex. 30:13). At age 20, a man came under the threat of God's negative sanctions: going into battle without first having paid blood money to the temple.(14) Once he became judicially eligible for numbering as a member of his tribe, he became judicially responsible for his own vows. He became, as we say, "his own man." He became a member of God's holy army. A father could no longer act in the son's name.
The Disinheritance of Jephthah's Daughter
A daughter could not legally be numbered for service in God's army. Thus, an unmarried daughter could be delivered into a priestly family, as we see in the case of Jephthah's daughter (Jud. 11:34-39).(15) Jephthah's vow to sacrifice the first thing to come out of his house could not legally be applied literally to a person. He could not lawfully burn a person, nor could the priests; therefore, any person who came under the terms of such a lawful vow had to be devoted to God in temple service.(16) Jephthah had made a singular vow. It was irreversible. This means that his daughter had to be disinherited.(17) She was beyond redemption.
There was a distinction in Mosaic law between someone or something dedicated (sanctified) to the priesthood and someone or something devoted to the priesthood. The former could be redeemed by the payment of the market price plus a premium of one-fifth. The latter could not be redeemed.
Disinheritance was permanent in Old Covenant Israel. This could only be by covenant: specifically, by covenantal death. This is why disinheritance was a form of devoted giving. The head of the household publicly gave his heirs over to God. He(18) publicly broke the family's covenant with such a person. There were only three means of lawful disinheritance in Old Covenant Israel: civil execution for a capital crime, expulsion from the congregation for an ecclesiastical crime, or adoption into another family or tribe. All three involved broken covenants: civil, ecclesiastical, and familial. In the third instance, the broken family covenant was simultaneously replaced by a new family or tribal covenant. A daughter was normally disinherited by her father in this way, and if she was to become a wife rather than a concubine, she was to receive a dowry from her father.(19)
Jephthah's daughter was disinherited in a unique way: by legal transfer into a priestly family. She bewailed her virginity (Jud. 11:37) because this was the mark of her unmarried condition, and therefore of her eligibility for transfer into the tribe of Levi apart from her own will. The standard interpretation of the story of Jephthah's daughter rests on the assertion that as a temple servant, she would have had to remain a virgin.(20) I am aware of no evidence from the Book of Leviticus or any other biblical text regarding the mandatory and therefore permanent virginity of female temple servants. Then why did she bewail her virginity? Not because she was bewailing her supposed future virginity, but because she was bewailing her present virginity. It was her virginity that bound her to the terms of her father's vow; otherwise, her husband's authority would have negated the father's vow.
Jephthah's daughter was, as the phrase goes, "her daddy's girl": a dynasty-coveting power-seeker. When her virginity cost her the inheritance of her father's political dynasty, she bewailed her virginity. Her heart was not right with God. What was an enormous honor -- adoption into the tribe of Levi, the spiritual counsellors of the nation -- she saw as a thing to bewail in the mountains for two months (Jud. 11:37).
Jordan raises a question: "Why didn't Jephthah substitute a money payment for his vow? These monetary substitutes are set out in Leviticus 27:1-8."(21) He says that commentators who have addressed this question have no easy explanation for it. He refers to Leviticus 27:28-29: "Notwithstanding no devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the LORD of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most holy unto the LORD. None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death." Thus, he concludes, Jephthah's daughter could not be redeemed. "Since Jephthah vowed to offer this person as a whole burnt sacrifice, we realize that he was `devoting' him or her to the Lord, and thus no ransom was possible."(22) This is the correct interpretation.(23) But this answer raises a more important question: If she could not legally be redeemed from this vow of temple service, how could anyone be redeemed from a vow of temple service? If the answer is that no person could be redeemed from such a singular vow under Mosaic law -- and this is the correct answer -- then what are we to make of Leviticus 27:2-8? What was the meaning of all those prices?
Not a Redemption Price In the section of Leviticus 27 that follows this one, we read of the redemption price of animals that are set apart (sanctified) to be offered as sacrifices (vv. 9-13). Then, in the section following that one, we read of the redemption price of a house sanctified to the priesthood (vv. 14-15). Finally, in the next section, the laws governing sanctified fields are listed (vv. 16-25). In the second and third cases, the term "sanctify" (kawdash, holy) is used.(24) In all three cases, the redemption price was the market price at the time of the redemption plus 20 percent (vv. 13, 15, 19).
Then comes Leviticus 27:26: "Only the firstling of the beasts, which should be the LORD'S firstling, no man shall sanctify it; whether it be ox, or sheep: it is the LORD'S." This law specifically denies the legitimacy of sanctifying the animal. This means that no redemption of the animal was legal. It was a devoted animal, not a sanctified animal. Sanctification in this context meant "set apart until redeemed." This legal condition was less rigorous than devotion. Devotion meant that the legal boundary around the object was permanent. The same is true of the vow of Leviticus 27:2-8. In this passage, there is no mention of a supplemental payment of one-fifth. This is evidence that what is being considered in verses 2-8 is not a series of redemption prices. Then what does this section refer to?
The preliminary answer was given in 1846 by Andrew Bonar. He concluded that the list of prices in Leviticus 27:2-8 is not a list of redemption prices. "There seems to me a mistake generally fallen into here by commentators. They suppose that these shekels of money were paid in order to free the offerers from the obligation of devoting the person. Now, surely, the whole chapter is speaking of things truly devoted to God, and cases of exchange and substitution are referred to in ver. 10, 13, 15. As for persons devoted, there was no substitution allowed. The mistake has arisen from supposing that this amount of money was ransom-money; whereas it was an addition to the offering of the person, not a substitution." He pointed to the case of Jephthah's daughter as evidence.(25)
Bonar explained the additional monetary payment in terms of the giver's gratitude. A person who was really grateful to God, he said, would add money to the transfer. This misses the judicial point. What we have here is an entry fee: a payment analogous to a marriage dowry. A person who desired to transfer himself or a member of his family into the tribe of Levi had to provide a "dowry" -- not to the family, but to the temple.(26) Why a dowry? Because, theologically speaking, the bride of God is not a concubine. She is a free wife. The free wife in Israel had to be provided with a dowry. Judicially speaking, the Levites were freemen in Israel. For anyone within another tribe to become a member of the tribe of Levi, the person's family -- the head of the household -- had to offer an additional payment. This payment was judicial. It established the person's legal status: a freeman (wife) rather than a slave (concubine).
Members of the tribe of Levi could not normally own rural land outside of 48 specified cities (Num. 35:7).(27) Thus, any person who was delivered by a vow and payment into temple service lost his or her claim on his or her ancestral land. We see this in the case of Jephthah's daughter. As his only child (Jud. 11:34), she was the lawful heir of his land and its accompanying legal status, but only so long as she did not marry outside his tribe (Num. 35:6-9). By being adopted into the tribe of Levi, she could not thereafter marry outside of the tribe of Levi. Thus, she had to forfeit her inheritance from Jephthah. She could not extend her father's dynasty, a point Jordan makes.(28) A father alienated his family's inheritance forever from his heirs if his male children were under age 20 or his daughters were unmarried at the time he made his vow. This did not mean that they lost their legal status as freemen; Levites possessed freeman status. But the heirs did lose their former claim on the family's land.
Could the priest annul the vow? Yes. There was no compulsion that he adopt someone into his family. The vow was analogous to the vow of a daughter or married woman: it could be annulled within 24 hours by the male head of the household (Num. 30:3-8). The priests, acting in God's name, as the heads of God's ecclesiastical household, could lawfully annul someone's vow of adoption into the tribe. But if the vow was accepted by a priest in authority, the vow-taker and any other members of his family covered by his vow were then adopted into the tribe of Levi if they could pay the entry fee. There was no way back into non-Levitical freemanship in Israel; the adopted family's original inheritance had been forfeited to the kinsman-redeemer, the closest relative in their original tribe (Num. 27:9-11). They could retain their status as freemen only as members of the tribe of Levi.
The Restrictive Function of Price These prices were not market prices. They had nothing to do with comparative rates of economic productivity. They were instead barriers to entry into the tribe of the priests. Primary judicial authority in Israel was supposed to be inside the tribe of Levi, for the Levites had unique access to the written law of God. They were the spiritual and therefore the judicial counsellors in Israel.(29) It was not easy to gain access to this position of honor and authority. Adoption into the tribe of Levi was legal, but it was not cheap.
The entry price for an adult male was set at 50 shekels of silver.(30) The price for an adult female was 30 shekels.(31) The male child's price was 20 shekels; the female child's was 10 shekels. Very young children's prices were lower: 5 shekels (male) and 3 shekels (female). For the elderly, the prices were 15 shekels (male) and 10 shekels (female).
The formal prices of the sexes differed. Males were priced higher than females in every age group. Similarly, old people were priced higher than very young children, but less than children age 5 to 20. Why? Did this have something to do with market pricing? These were not cases of pure market pricing, but can the differences in formal prices be explained in terms of expected productivity, just as market prices can be explained? Yes, but such an explanation is misleading.
Prices always serve as barriers. The question is: Were prices in this instance barriers to entry or barriers to escape; that is, were they entry prices or redemption prices? Were they based on the value of services to be redeemed or were they tests of authority to be honored?
Explanation: Economic Productivity
If we regard the prices as redemption prices, we are tempted to explain the price differences in terms of the varying market value of the individuals. By adopting this explanation, we misunderstand the legal nature of the transaction; nevertheless, we can make a plausible economic case. We can interpret the passage in terms of the repurchase value of the person whose services had been handed over to the temple.
If economic redemption was the meaning of the price structure of Leviticus 27:2-8, then the vow became a peculiar symbolic ritual: people were being handed over to God verbally but then repurchased from the temple economically. Such a ritual would have converted an otherwise simple monetary donation into the formality of a sacred vow. A lawful vow invoked God's name and God's sanctions in history. Why should God's name have been formally invoked? Why didn't the person wishing to give money to the priests just give it? A strictly economic analysis misses the judicial point: the singular vow produced a permanent alteration of someone's legal status. The prices listed in the text were not redemption prices; they were transfer prices analogous to dowries.
Still, it is quite tempting to think of these prices as redemption prices. This is the way men think in a century dominated by various forms of economic determinism, whether left wing (e.g., Marxism) or right wing (e.g., the pure logic of choice).(32) If we begin with this assumption, we are easily tempted to conclude that these prices were shadows of market prices. Here is how we might reason:
Why were adult males priced highest of all? Because they are at the peak of their economic value. Their training was behind them. They had a lifetime ahead of them. To buy back himself from service, the vow-taker had to pay a very high price.
What about the lower price for females in each age group? This would also seem to have been governed by the principle of productivity. For some reason or reasons, females were less valuable economically than males. (See next paragraph.) But females produce children. Weren't these children assets? If they had become the permanent, inheritable property of the owner, yes. This low formal price for women is evidence that the duration of the vow's conditions did not extend beyond the jubilee year. At that time, every heir of the conquest's generation returned to his land. All servitude ended for them. So, the children born of women protected by the jubilee law would not have been equally as valuable as inheritable slave children. The period available for capitalization was shorter.
Even in the late twentieth century -- an era of federally legislated "equal pay for equal work" laws -- the economics of motherhood have not changed significantly. Women still are paid less than men. Why? Because their expected net economic returns are lower than men's. They have children who must be cared for. From 1981 through 1985, 30 percent of American women with paid maternity leave or other benefits did not return to the labor market after six months, while 56 percent of women without maternity benefits did not return to work.(33) The free market places a lower value on capital invested in women in the work force. This lower return on investment is compensated for by lower wages paid to women. Any attempt to mandate equal wages by civil law will produce unemployment for women in general, while subsidizing women with good looks or academic credentials.(34)
Why would older people be more valuable than very young children? Because they are on average more productive. Very young children are net absorbers of scarce economic resources. It takes time for the present losses to be compensated by future returns. The net flow of expected future income discounted by the prevailing interest rate is low because the expected positive income stream is too many years in the future. This was not true of those over age 4. The payoff would be faster. Why the difference? Those above age 4 are expected to become net producers sooner than those younger than 5. An older person was less valuable than a child above age 4. The older person has skills and experience, but he or she also can be expected to have infirmities. The expected net income stream is less for this reason and also because of shortened life expectancy.
So, one can argue on the basis of economic analysis that these were redemption prices. That is to say, one can see a loose correlation between the price differentials of Leviticus 27:2-8 and the free market's pricing of labor services in the late twentieth century, and then conclude that the Mosaic law's stipulations were reasonably consistent with market forces. The evidence of varying prices seems to fit the economic reality of age-specific and gender-specific economic productivity. A person who believes in the continuing validity of this Mosaic statute, and who adopts this approach to explaining Leviticus 27:2-8, is forced to conclude that these gender-related and age-related price differentials are permanent in New Covenant history, with or without human bondage (i.e., the capitalization of expected lifetime net income). If the price differentials are based on productivity differentials, these productivity differentials have to be assumed to be permanent -- part of the human condition. This means that technological changes and educational changes can never overcome productivity differentials, especially gender-based differentials.
The initial assumption of this line of economic reasoning is incorrect. It is incorrect because it is misapplied. The context of this law was not labor productivity but rather priestly holiness. The focus of concern was not the capitalization of economic productivity but rather the necessity of restricting access into the priesthood. God placed judicial boundaries around the temple. God's presence in Israel was marked by a series of "no trespassing signs" -- restrictions on physical access -- which became more rigorous as men approached the holy of holies. These boundaries were judicial. Lawful access across each boundary was based on a person's judicial status, not his economic status. Vows marked a person's move across these judicial boundaries.
Explanation: Submission to Authority
Let us begin with another assumption: these prices were dowries, not redemption prices. Why was the highest entry price required of an adult male? Because the adult head of a household was a man who was used to exercising family authority and perhaps other kinds of civil authority. By placing a high entry price on his adoption into the tribe of Levi, God protected His priestly servants from invasion by two groups: 1) power-seekers seeking to extend their authority into the church; 2) poor people seeking a guaranteed income as members of the tithe-receiving tribe. The power-seekers first had to abandon all legal claim to their original inheritance and also had to provide a considerable entry fee. Married men also had to pay for their wives' and minor children's entry into the tribe of Levi. This further restricted entry into the priestly class.
God established an entry fee higher for aged people -- age 60 and over (v. 7) -- than for very young children: under age 5 (v. 6). Why? Because old people tend to be more set in their ways, more used to deference from younger people, even priests. They would be more trouble to govern than very young children. The very young child would grow up in the presence of the Levites and the priests. He would learn to respect authority. He would not be a major threat to the ecclesiastical hierarchy. There was less need for a monetary barrier to his entry into the household of the church.
God established lower prices for old men than for male children ages 5-19 (v. 5). The prices for females, young and old, were the same: 10 shekels. Why? The issue was authority: males had more authority than females did. Children of this age group reflected their parents' attitudes. The boys would have been more difficult to control than aged men. Young girls and old women were judged of equal difficulty.
So, the discrepancies in these dowry prices can be explained in terms of expected resistance to ecclesiastical authority. But what about the lower price for females in each age group? This is also consistent with the hypothesis that this law was imposed by God in order to reduce the Levite adoptees' resistance to ecclesiastical authority. Israelite women were accustomed to obey male heads of household. They were more likely to respect hierarchical authority. Thus, they were less of a threat to the established ecclesiastical order. The payment could be smaller because the need to establish a barrier to entry was less.
Sonship Is Judicial It was an honor to be a member of the tribe of Levi. This tribe guarded the law of the covenant, a guardianship symbolized by the two tablets of the law inside the Ark of the Covenant (Deut. 31:26). The priests were in charge of guarding the Ark. That is, the priests policed the boundaries between the Ark and the world outside.
Adoption is always an aspect of God's law. This included adoption into the tribe of Levi, and even the family of Aaron. Sonship is judicial. Biblical sonship must always place covenantal faithfulness above biological relationships. When Eli elevated his sons to the priesthood, judicially ignoring the presence of faithful servant Samuel, God cut off Eli's inheritance by executing his sons. Eli had warned both of them what would happen, but they had refused to listen: "If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him: but if a man sin against the LORD, who shall intreat for him? Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because the LORD would slay them" (I Sam. 2:25). Eli refused to impose the negative sanction of disinheritance through excommunication, so God disinherited them through execution. He did this by subjecting the whole nation to a military defeat by the Philistines. A man of God warned Eli of what was about to happen (I Sam. 2:27-36), but Eli refused to take effective steps to evade God's wrath. He could have adopted Samuel from the beginning, had his mother consented, which she was obviously ready to do, having dedicated him to God for life (I Sam. 1:11). At any time, Eli could have adopted Samuel in place of his sons, making him a priest at age 30.(35) Instead, he honored biological sonship above adoptive sonship. Adoption is fundamental in establishing covenant-keeping sonship; biology is not. Eli had decided to maintain a boundary between Samuel and the altar; God therefore placed a boundary between Eli and his inheritance. Samuel could have become Eli's heir; by honoring his sons, Eli chose to disinherit his family's name.
Eli's decision cost Israel dearly, as priestly rebellion always does. Because Eli had made his sons the priests of Israel, Samuel later became a prophet who brought God's covenant lawsuit against Saul (I Sam. 15). Samuel, not the high priest, anointed David (I Sam. 16). Had Samuel been a priest, the priesthood would have retained more of its temporal authority. God honored Samuel more than He honored the civil authority of the priesthood.
The Kinsman-Redeemer Leviticus 27:2-8 is the passage governing the conditions of adoption into the tribe of Levi. There had to be a payment -- the equivalent of a dowry -- to the temple.(36) In the case of a slave, his owner had to provide the funds. If the adoptee was the head of a household, he had to make the payment on his own behalf, or find someone to make it for him.
Who was the most likely person to make the payment for him if he could not afford to pay? Both judicially and economically, there is little doubt: the kinsman-redeemer. He would inherit title to the land left behind by a newly adopted family. The entry price was high; no one else was likely to have the same incentive to make so large a payment. This points to the work of Christ as the Kinsman-Redeemer of Israel and mankind. He has paid the fee for all those who are adopted into the New Covenant priesthood. No one else has either the incentive or the ability to pay this price. In His case, the incentive is not economic, for two reasons. First, Jesus Christ already is God the Father's lawful heir in history and eternity. He will inherit everything. Second, the entry price is too high -- far beyond the very high price of 50 shekels in Old Covenant Israel. The price is the death of the Kinsman-Redeemer. His motivation was grace, not profit. Christians inherit as heirs of their Kinsmen-Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Everyone else is eternally disinherited.
Verse 8 reads: "But if he be poorer than thy estimation, then he shall present himself before the priest, and the priest shall value him; according to his ability that vowed shall the priest value him." The high priest, Jesus Christ, has paid the maximum price for each of His saints -- those set apart by God judicially for priestly service. Entering with nothing of our own, we do not need to plead before a priest for a lower entry fee. The high priest has paid it all.
Conclusion If this analysis is correct, then it should be obvious that this law has been annulled with the New Covenant's change in the priesthood. The passage's variations in price -- young vs. old, male vs. female -- have nothing to do with economic productivity. They are irrelevant for the economic analysis of labor markets. They were equally irrelevant for such analytical purposes under the Mosaic Covenant.
The prices listed in Leviticus 27:2-8 were not redemption prices; they were entry barrier prices. They were not based on the expected economic productivity of people who were then immediately redeemed out of God's ecclesiastical service; they were based on the need to screen power-seekers and security-seekers from access to ecclesiastical service. They were not market prices; they were judicial prices. They were not barriers to escape from ecclesiastical service; they were barriers to entry into ecclesiastical service. Thus, rather than applying economic analysis to the productivity of the groups specified in Leviticus 27:2-8, we should apply economic analysis to the question of the judicial boundary separating the tribe of Levi from the other tribes.
Summary This law was a law of vows: self-maledictory oaths.
These vows were ecclesiastical.
These vows were unique.
They appear at the end of the book of holiness.
This is because the book following Leviticus -- Numbers -- is the Pentateuch's book of oaths (sanctions).
Chapter 26 deals with corporate sanctions.
Chapter 27 deals with personal vows.
The economic value of a "singular" vow was to be estimated by the priests.
The vow established a change in someone's legal status.
This law's context was service within the temple's boundaries.
Those affected by the vow were family members under the vow-taker's covenantal authority.
A devoted thing was permanently set apart for priestly service-sacrifice: beyond economic redemption.
A sanctified thing was set apart for God's use, but not necessarily for priestly service: economic redemption was possible.
A person devoted to God's service died covenantally: a sacrifice.
He was placed inside the boundaries of God's ban (hormah): beyond economic redemption.
Anyone who stole an item placed under God's curse would come under the curse (e.g., Achan).
The singular vow's stipulations were irreversible.
An Israelite could offer his minor son to priestly service inside the temple.
The priest had to adopt him to confirm the parents' vow.
A daughter marrying a Levite could not be repurchased by returning the bride price.
Adult male children (numbered for military service: age 20) could not be placed into priestly service by a father.
An adult could not be disinherited from his father's land-citizenship.
A daughter was not eligible for military service.
She could be devoted to a priestly family by her father if she was not married (e.g., Jephthah's daughter).
A father's vow to do this was singular: irreversible disinheritance.
Jephthah's daughter bewailed her virginity because she had been disinherited by her father.
She could not inherit his power or kingdom.
Being a virgin and eligible for priestly marriage, she could not be bought back: the transfer was irreversible.
The prices listed in Leviticus 27:2-8 were not redemption prices.
Redemption prices were market prices plus 20 percent.
The prices in this section were entry fees, analogous to a bride's dowry.
The dowry was paid to the temple.
This dowry established the legal status of freeman for the one being adopted: a wife, not a concubine.
Those so devoted by parents gained their freeman status from membership by adoption into Levi's tribe rather than from their birth tribes.
There was no way back into freemanship outside of Levi: permanent disinheritance.
Levites were the legal advisors in Israel.
Access to tribal membership was legal but not cheap.
Redemption prices were based on market value (asset productivity).
Devotion prices were judicial prices: tied to authority, not productivity.
Any correlation between market prices and these entry prices is illusory.
The context is not economic productivity but priestly holiness.
A high entry price on adult males restricted invasion by two groups: power-seekers and guaranteed income-seekers.
People over age 60 carried entry prices higher than young children, ages 1-4.
The different prices reflected different degrees of difficulty in bringing people under priestly authority.
It was an honor to be a son of Levi.
They were guardians of the boundaries.
Sonship is judicial: by adoption rather than by biology.
The kinsman-redeemer would have made the payment for a poor relative who wanted to serve as a Levite or priest.
Jesus Christ paid the dowry priest so that His adopted children could serve as priests in His kingdom.
His motivation was grace, not profit.
This case law was annulled with the coming of the High Priest and the new priesthood.
Footnotes:
1. Ray R. Sutton, That You May Prosper: Dominion By Covenant (2nd ed.; Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1992), ch. 4.
2. Ibid., chaps. 1-5.
3. Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1979), p. 336.
4. James B. Jordan, Covenant Sequence in Leviticus and Deuteronomy (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989), p. 17.
5. Ibid., p. 39.
6. Wenham, Leviticus, p. 338.
7. Idem.
8. Idem.
9. On "hormah," see James B. Jordan, Judges: God's War Against Humanism (Tyler, Texas: Geneva Ministries, 1985), pp. 10-12.
10. Because Achan had violated the holy ban that God placed around Jericho's spoils, he placed his whole household under the ban. It was legally possible for a father to place his family under God's ban -- disinheritance from the family's land and legal status -- through covenantal adoption into the priesthood. But in this case, Achan placed his family under hormah: God's absolute ban of destruction. As the head of his household, he went through an adoption process: not into the tribe of Levi, but rather into covenantal Jericho. Thus, it was mandatory that the civil government execute his entire household, including the animals, and bury all his assets with them (Josh. 7:24). See Appendix A: "Sacrilege and Sanctions."
11. "The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it" (Luke 16:16).
12. Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990), pp. 218-19.
13. The dowry remained with the wife in any case; it was her protection, her inheritance from her father.
14. Ibid., ch. 32: "Blood Money, Not Head Tax."
15. I accept the standard interpretation of this story: she was not literally executed by her father.
16. Jordan, Judges, pp. 204-13.
17. Ibid., p. 205.
18. Or, in the case of a widow (Num. 30:9), she.
19. North, Tools of Dominion, ch. 6: "Wives and Concubines."
20. Jordan takes this approach: Judges, p. 210.
21. Ibid., p. 206.
22. Ibid., pp. 206-7.
23. Jordan pointed out to me that the only other use of pawlaw -- "singular," as in singular vow -- in the hiphil voice is found in Numbers 6:2, which relates to a Nazirite vow: "Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite, to separate themselves unto the LORD: He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes, or dried. All the days of his separation shall he eat nothing that is made of the vine tree, from the kernels even to the husk" (Num. 6:2-4).
24. In the first case, sacrificial animals, the cognate term for "sanctify" is used: kodesh, holy (vv. 9, 10).
25. Andrew Bonar, A Commentary on Leviticus (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, [1846] 1966), p. 497.
26. This does not mean that the money could never go to the adopting family. Officers of the temple might choose to transfer the funds to an adopting family for various reasons, such as the education of young children who had been adopted, or the care of older people.
27. There were two exceptions: 1) when a family dedicated a piece of land to the priesthood and then refused to redeem it before the next jubilee year; 2) when a family dedicated a piece of land to the priesthood but then leased the whole property to someone else (Lev. 27:16-21). See Chapter 37, below.
28. Jordan, Judges, p. 205.
29. This is why Paul speaks of the double honor of those who labor in the word: "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine" (I Tim. 5:17).
30. This was the same as another judicial price: the formal bride price owed by a seducer of a virgin to her father. North, Tools of Dominion, pp. 649-57. It rests on an interpretation of the false accuser's penalty of Deuteronomy 22:19: "And they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days." One hundred shekels was double restitution.
31. The same price that was owed to the owner of a gored slave (Ex. 21:32)
32. Richard D. Fuerle, The Pure Logic of Choice (New York: Vantage, 1986).
33. Felice N. Schwartz, Breaking With Tradition: Women and Work, The New Facts of Life (New York: Warner, 1992), p. 59. She cites Martha O'Connell, "Maternity Leave Arrangements: 1981-1985," Work and Family Patterns of American Women, Current Population Reports, series P-23, no. 165 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, March 1990).
34. Gary North, "The Feminine Mistake: The Economics of Women's Liberation," The Freeman (Jan. 1971); reprinted in Gary North, An Introduction to Christian Economics (Nutley, New Jersey: Craig Press, 1973), ch. 24.
35. Age 30 was the minimum age of service in the temple (Num. 4:3, 23, 30, 35, 39, 40, 43, 47).
36. I do not think the price was paid to Levite families. Had the money gone to individual families, there would have been a strong motivation for Levites to recruit new members of the tribe. The entry fee was to serve as a barrier to entry, not a motivation to recruit new members. If the money went directly to the temple, local Levites would have had far less incentive to recruit non-Levites into the tribe. Aaronic priests would have possessed a veto over adoption: the men with the greatest authority in Israel. Adoption in this case was tribal, not familial, analogous to circumcised resident aliens who were adopted into tribal cities if they were accepted to serve in God's holy army.
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