Contemporary readers of Leviticus tend to be underwhelmed with the ending of the book. The main reason for this is we have little to no appreciation for vows and how they functioned in the Bible. On a secular level vows are unavoidable; we are making them all the time by signing business and legal agreements, binding us to commitments, and penalizing us if we break them. Outside of this, we avoid vows because they restrict our freedom. God is not real to us, or seems too remote from us, to engage Him with a vow anyway, and we fear binding ourselves to others, even when it comes to marriage. We have so little faith in God or ourselves to give or keep vows. No wonder why we are confused with how this book ends; our passions are drowsy and our desires torpid.
Here we remind ourselves again about the circular structure of this book; when we do this things will begin to make sense. We referenced this chapter as a “latch” that closes the “bracelet,” so to speak, of Leviticus. Leading up to it, we have the Year of Jubilee (Chapter 25) redeeming the people and the land of debts, restoring the social order. Then we have what seems to be the most logical conclusion to the book in Chapter 26 where we find the blessings for obedience, and curses for disobedience leading to exile, with the hopeful prospect of redemption with repentance. Our chapter here on vow legislation takes the community forward in their spiritual lives. It is all about consecrating things and persons to God through vows. This “latches” with the first 9 chapters of the book focused on the sacrificial system which consecrates things and persons to God through sacrifice (Milgrom).
The vow is the most fundamental relational transaction in all of Scripture, and for that matter, all of life. What is covenant, which we have defined as a “kinship bond established by an oath” (Hahn) if not a vow? God and man are making vows all over the pages of Holy Scripture, and they are always made in full throated passion, never with a yawn. Vows are our guarantee by words, and as we all know, we are only as good as our words. We make them because we want something badly, and are willing to stick our necks out, even at the cost of our lives, to get it. We also know we are creatures deceitful by nature. The act of making a vow publicly and before God ties us to our word. Vows are good things: if we keep them, they keep us.
People of the Bible vowed just about anything of worth out of piety or for something they dearly wanted. However good one’s intensions may be, the circumstances of life sometimes work against our ability to fulfill our vows. When this happens, one can never simply walk away from a vow; they must be redeemed. Vows were taken very seriously; there was a way out, but it was costly.
The ultimate vow was to vow themselves or children to God for sacred duty. The Nazirite vow, which must have been very common, is an example of such vows. Sampson was a child vowed for his whole life by his parents, as was Hannah’s vow to give her son Samuel to God’s service. We think of Jephthah’s fatal vow made out of desire for victory. In his case, it seems rash he made the vow in the first place given the ambiguity of vowing what would first come out of his house to greet him. When, to his horror, his beloved daughter came out, he could have redeemed her, but for some reason he felt he could not do so. When one vowed oneself or someone under their authority to God, they can always be redeemed according to a gradation of age and sex, the money set according to the price of slaves.
When it came to things like homes, land or animals, they can be redeemed by paying the value of the thing plus a fifth of its value. Some things can never be redeemed or restored to the one who made the vow, such as clean animals for sacrifice. Firstborn animals automatically belong to God so they cannot by vowed (vv. 26f. See Exodus 13:2, 34:19-20). Under the older Covenant Code, the firstborn of unclean animals, such as a donkey, must be ransomed by a lamb or killed. Here, they may be redeemed by the value of the animal plus twenty percent of its value. In holy war, if the plunder of persons and things are devoted to God and placed under a ban (v. 29 Hebrew ḥerem), they cannot be ransomed. All things vowed to God belong to God, and are holy.
There is a sense of dignity and joy in accomplishing vows as we see the Psalmist say, “I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people” (Psa. 116:14). This did not change with Jesus and His Kingdom. Jesus has plenty to say about the extravagant vows made in His day by those who, in their private affairs, manipulate others to their own advantage, demanding the simplicity of “yes” and “no” in our everyday speech (Matthew 5: 33-37). This is totally different from the religious vows. We see St. Paul himself taking vows as we see in Acts 18:18 and 21:23.
Behind this chapter concluding this great book is the deep sense of value. God made everything good, and the good is something to be valued. Everything a person is and has is a gift from God. We possess the power to do what we want with what we have. We possess the dignity to self-gift what has been gifted to us by the God-like act of vowing ourselves or our possessions back to God. The Catholic Church is built on the vow because she understands the true nature of mankind; though fallen and sinful, we have a God-given integrity of being and something genuine to give. The sacramental life is fundamentally built on the vows of baptism, confirmation, the Holy Eucharist where we self-gift ourselves to Jesus and to one another, the vows of marriage and the religious life. This is what makes it deep, rich, demanding, and human.
Takeaway: The Bible assumes we will make vows of ourselves and/or of our possessions. They cannot be broken without cost.
Questions:
- Many in our culture react negatively when it comes to vows. What do you think is behind this?
- What has been your experience with vows?
Resources Used:
Hahn, S. Kinship by Covenant, pp. 28, 333.
Milgrom, Leviticus, p. 7