Leviticus 27:23

Summary

The verse describes a priest calculating a monetary valuation based on the years remaining until the jubilee, after which the person pays that assessed amount on the same day as something consecrated to Yehovah. The structure follows a sequential legal procedure: first calculation, then payment.

Key words

• chishav ("he will calculate", H2803) — piel stem, giving an intensive or precise nuance to the act of calculation, not just simple reckoning; sequential perfect continues the narrative logic of the passage.
• mikhsat ("amount of", H4373) — construct noun, meaning it must attach to what follows (ha'erkekha, "your valuation"), forming "the amount of your valuation."
• ha'erkekha ("your valuation", H6187 + H9021) — the noun erek takes the definite article prefixed onto a construct form with a 2nd person masculine suffix, an unusual combination signaling a specific, previously established assessed value.
• yovel ("jubilee", H3104) — anchors the temporal boundary of the calculation; the payment is proportional to time remaining until this cyclical event.
• qodesh ("a holy thing", H6944) — stands in apposition to the payment itself, categorizing the money given as consecrated, not merely describing its destination.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built on two sequential perfect verbs joined by the narrative ve: chishav ("he will calculate") and natan ("he will give"). This chaining structure presents the calculation and the payment as two steps of a single continuous legal action — the priest first computes, then the payer (implied by context, not explicitly named in the Hebrew clause) delivers the sum. The piel stem of chishav suggests a more deliberate, technical act of calculation, appropriate to a precise financial reckoning tied to the specific fraction of years remaining before the jubilee (ad shenat hayovel).

The double appearance of ha'erkekha — construct-plus-suffix each time — ties the two verbs together conceptually: what is calculated in the first clause is exactly what is paid in the second, with no room for reinterpretation of the sum between calculation and payment. The final phrase, qodesh laYehovah ("a holy thing, to Yehovah"), does not use a verb; it simply labels the money already paid, in apposition, as consecrated — the holiness is asserted as a static quality of the payment itself, not as an action of consecration performed at that moment.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders yovel ("jubilee") as ἄφεσις ("release"), a different conceptual emphasis than the Hebrew term itself, which is a proper technical name. The LXX also translates mikhsat ("amount of") as τέλος ("completion/end"), shifting the sense slightly toward a total or final value rather than a proportional amount. The Vulgate adds an explanatory phrase, juxta annorum numerum ("according to the number of years"), not present as a distinct word in the Hebrew, making explicit the calculation-by-years method that the Hebrew leaves implicit in the construct chain mikhsat ha'erkekha ... ad shenat hayovel. The Vulgate further specifies the subject of the payment as ille qui voverat eum ("he who had vowed it"), whereas the Hebrew verb natan carries only an implied third-person subject.