Leviticus 27: 14-25, “And when a man shall sanctify his house to be holy unto the LORD, then the priest shall estimate it, whether it be good or bad: as the priest shall estimate it, so shall it stand. And if he that sanctified it will redeem his house, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of thy estimation unto it, and it shall be his. And if a man shall sanctify unto the LORD some part of a field of his possession, then thy estimation shall be according to the seed thereof: an homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver. If he sanctify his field from the year of jubile, according to thy estimation it shall stand. But if he sanctify his field after the jubile, then the priest shall reckon unto him the money according to the years that remain, even unto the year of the jubile, and it shall be abated from thy estimation. And if he that sanctified the field will in any wise redeem it, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of thy estimation unto it, and it shall be assured to him. And if he will not redeem the field, or if he have sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed any more. But the field, when it goeth out in the jubile, shall be holy unto the LORD, as a field devoted; the possession thereof shall be the priest’s. And if a man sanctify unto the LORD a field which he hath bought, which is not of the fields of his possession; Then the priest shall reckon unto him the worth of thy estimation, even unto the year of the jubile: and he shall give thine estimation in that day, as a holy thing unto the LORD. In the year of the jubile the field shall return unto him of whom it was bought, even to him to whom the possession of the land did belong. And all thy estimations shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs shall be the shekel.”
A house represents permanency and some people were so confident in their love for the Lord that they were willing to offer him their permanency. However, the Lord doesn’t live in houses (compare 1 Kings 8: 27, 28, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?”) When a person was confident in their trust for the Lord that they gave Him their permanent place the Lord made arrangements for them to buy the house back again at a fair price with an added tax of twenty percent. A person could also dedicate their property and the produce that grew on that land to the Lord as well. In that case the person would need to have access to their source of income and they could buy back the land as well. The issue was complicated by the year of jubilee where everything, event things vowed to the Lord, would return to the original owner. In that case the person was assumed to be offering the Lord their income from the land for the years until the jubilee. The Lord made arrangements so that the land would still be worked and not left idle and unproductive until the time of the jubilee.
(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
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