Leviticus 27

20 Aug 2026 - Theology

Jesus the High Priest

The last chapter in Leviticus explains how sacrifices were turned into the money needed to operate and maintain the Tabernacle and its priests. While offerings of animals and of grain have already been addressed, this chapter details how “alternative” offerings could be valued.

For example, if a man decided to give his house to the Lord, the priests would first assess it to find out how much it is worth. The man could then “buy back” his house from the priests with silver shekels, and that money would be considered as an offering for the Tabernacle. He would give the amount that the priests stated, and add one-fifth (%20) to it. In this way, a man could “donate” his house, but the actual donation was the value of the house in silver shekels.

People could pledge anything of value to the Lord, and whatever was pledged was paid in shekels. If a person was poor and wanted to pledge something to the Lord, the priests would charge an amount based on what the person could afford.

Some things can not be pledged to the Lord because they already belong to the Lord. The firstborn of an animal already belongs to the Lord. Anything already pledged by one person can not be pledged again by another. One-tenth of all crops - grain or fruit, herd or flock - already belongs to the Lord, so it can not be pledged a seond time. But it can be “bought back” from the Lord by paying the value in shekles and adding one-fifth.

The book of Leviticus then closes with one simple verse:

Leviticus 27:34 - “These are the commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses for the children of Israel in mount Sinai.”

Who Wrote Leviticus?

As we have seen, the book of Leviticus is not a simple book. Almost all of the laws in it come from priests or speak to priests. Looking back over our study of the book, we noticed that many portions seemed to be out of order. We can assume that the P-teller was not one priest, but many priests (many P-tellers) who collected these sets of laws at different times and places. Some groups of laws are probably hundreds of years older than others. In the end, though, someone (a final editor, possibly Moses) put it all together in one book.

The authorship of the Torah is heavily debated amongst scholars. The traditional Christian view is that Moses is the author of the entire Torah. Other scholars use what is called the Documentary Hypothesis to explain the origins and composition of the Torah. The documentary hypothesis is not just one theory, rather there are multiple theories that are considered versions of the documentary hypothesis. Proponents for the documentary hypothesis usually argue in favor of four sources for the Torah: the J, E, P, and D sources. See References below for more on the Documentary Hypothesis.

There is evidence both for and against the documentary hypothesis (or versions of it), so I will not attempt to argue for or against it here. Rather, I will argue that whether Leviticus (and the whole Torah) was written by Moses or other sources does not change its truthfulness or the mark of God’s design.

Repeated Themes

You may have noticed that many themes or even individual commands seem to be repeated multiple times in Leviticus. Scholars have identified a large scale chiasm that covers the entire book of Leviticus.

• A: Rituals of Redemption (chapters 1-7)
• B: Priesthood (chapters 8-10)
• C: Holiness Code (chapters 11-15)
• D: Day of Atonement (chapter 16)
• C’: Holiness Code (chapters 17-20)
• B’: Priesthood (chapters 21-22)
• A’: Rituals of Redemption (chapters 23-27)

Regardless of who the author of Leviticus is, or if there are many authors, this chiasm still exists, even though entire chapters seem out of order.

What is fascinating to me is that Leviticus is not just a book of laws. The book of Leviticus is the middle of a chiasm of the five books of the Torah. Leviticus itself is a chiasm, with its middle being Leviticus 16, the Day of Atonement. And Leviticus 16 is a chiasm, with its middle being a few verses where the High Priest makes atonement for the sins of the people.

Leviticus 16, the book of Leviticus itself, and the entire Torah emphasizes the truth of the gospel that Jesus is the High Priest who atones for us, taking our sin and forgiving it.

References

1. The Hebrew - Greek Key Study Bible (KJV Version)
2. The Torah Portion-by-Portion by Rabbi Seymour Rossel (2007)
3. The BEMA Podcast, Episode 25: A Kingdom of What?
4. Documentary Hypothesis - Wikipedia