What Does Leviticus 27:13 Mean?
But if he at all wills to buy it back, then he adds a fifth part of it to your arranged worth.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But if he will at all redeem it, then he shall add a fifth part thereof unto thy estimation.THE KEY
Redemption does not erase the item’s valuation; it reclaims it by adding a fifth to the assessed amount.
THE MEANING
When a valued thing is reclaimed, its assessed worth remains in view and a fifth is added. The return is a fuller accounting: redemption restores the thing while also increasing the amount reckoned.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief undone is that reclaiming what has been dedicated simply restores the old arrangement at its original value.
THE ROOT
גָּאַל
ga'al
GROWS FROM
גאל
g-ʾ-l
To reclaim or redeem, especially as a relative with a right or duty to reclaim.
“buy back” in this verse is ga'al. The same seed describes both the act of reclaiming and the person who reclaims as kin. Here, the thing is reclaimed while its valuation stays active, with a fifth added.
ALSO GROWS
go'el: Kinsman-redeemer; one who reclaims.
גֹּאֵל
This branch shows redemption as a relational act of taking back, a sense carried into the verse’s return of the valued thing.
ge'ullah: Redemption; the right or act of reclaiming.
גְּאֻלָּה
This noun makes the reclaiming itself visible: the item returns, but the valuation still governs the exchange.
THE PATTERN
When a valued thing or loss is returned, scripture can measure its return as more than the original amount.
And if he who set it apart wills to buy back his house, then he adds the fifth part of the silver of your arranged worth to it, and it is his.If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and slaughter it, or sell it; he shall make whole five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord, I give half of what I have to the emptied, and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I give back fourfold."THE THREAD
He delivered them from the hand of the hater, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.The same root גאל (ga’al, reclaim or redeem) appears in both verses. Here it reclaims a valued thing; there it names Israel’s being reclaimed from the enemy’s hand, giving the word’s accounting sense a wider reach.
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