Leviticus 27

HOLINESS IN PROMISES VOWS.

This chapter is supplementary in its character. The book properly ends with the promises and the threatenings, the solemn sanctions of the law recorded in chapter 26. Nevertheless, this chapter is not an afterthought, nor later legislation awkwardly appended to the book, but a treatise on a subject not included in the law as obligatory. No man was commanded to make a vow. It was a purely voluntary religious act. Deuteronomy xxiii, 21. Since the element of obligation was wanting, vows could not be classified with duties, and hence they were fittingly reserved as a supplement to the law. Their place in the book is justified by the fact that, having been voluntarily made, their fulfilment becomes obligatory. The practice of assuming voluntary obligations to the Deity for deliverance from death or danger, and for success in war and other enterprises, is of extremely ancient date, and is a prominent feature of the ancient pagan religions. Mosaism did not originate but only regulated the practice. Vows are of three kinds. 1) Vows of consecration or devotion, neder; 2) Vows of refraining or abstinence, isar or esar; 3) Vows of destruction, cherem, the Greek anathema. The first class, neder, is the subject of this chapter, comprising persons, (2-8,) cattle, (9-13,) houses, (14-15,) and land, (16-25,) all of which are redeemable except the sacrificed animals, the first-born, (26, 27,) persons and things under the cherem, (28, 29,) and tithes, (30-33.)

CONCLUDING NOTE.

Whenever in human history priests have legislated respecting the financial obligations of the people they have invariably constructed their code in such a way as to drain the wealth of the country into the pockets of the sacerdotal class. The enormous wealth piled up in every age by the Roman Catholic hierarchy is an indisputable fact of history. An incredible amount of the wealth of England was in the coffers of the clergy in the time of Henry Fourth. This was true of Mexico till 1861, when the oppressed people threw off the priestly yoke and confiscated the vast wealth of the Church to the uses of the Republic. Since nothing like this ever occurred in Jewish history, because of the safeguards which the law set about the property, especially the lands of the people, we infer that the legislation on this subject did not originate with the priests of a later age, but with Moses himself. This is consistent with the theory of Dr. Fisher, that the codes were left open to amendment in minor details in harmony with the spirit of Mosaism.