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external point of view; see B. T. Arnold, The Use of Aramaic in the Hebrew Bible: Another Look at Bilingualism in Ezra and Daniel, JNSL 22 (1996); cf. J. W. Welch, Chiasmus in Ugaritic, UF 6 (1974), p. 427. One other item which may also be a component of the inclusio consists of yaad in iv 3 and "ed in vi 20, two words from the same semantic eld. 13 Cf. S. Talmon, Ezra and Nehemiah, in R. Alter and F. Kermode (eds.), The Literary Guide to the Bible (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), pp. 359-60. Talmon sees Ezra iv 4-5a as a summary notation that defines iii 2-iv 5a as a single literary unit. Against this view, however, Ezra iv 4-5a, in fact, does not summarize iii 2-iv 3. Ezra iv 4-5a is concerned with opposition to the rebuilding project and not with the two primary issues of chapter iiithe reinstitution of the sacri cial system and the founding of the temple. Talmons view is conceivable only upon the assumption that the events of Ezra iii must be assigned to the reign of Darius, an assumption that actually finds little warrant in the text of Ezra i-vi. See Halpern, pp. 104-10; cf. J. Lust, The Identi cation of Zerubbabel with Sheshbazzar, ETL 63 (1987), pp. 90-5.

LEV. XXVII 20: SOME FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS

Walter Houston makes out a powerful and persuasive case for his interpretation of Lev. xxvii 20, VT 49 (1999), pp. 416-20. However, there are perhaps some points which merit further consideration. As his article shows, the issue is complex and it has never proved easy to establish the precise import of the passage in question. This may be because Lev. xxvii, which appears to constitute a distinct section,1 perhaps re ects a period when new social and legal developments were aVecting the operation of the older laws and the compilers had some problems in reconciling the two. Thus, as Houston notes, it might be expected, on the basis of the ancient legislation of Lev. xxv, that a piece of dedicated land would revert to the original owner at the jubilee. Lev. xxvii 20 is deliberately formulated to exclude this and to make clear that the act of dedication involved a permanent and irrevocable gift to the sanctuary. The redemption procedure has the same eVect: it ensures that the priesthood receives the full value of the propertyand indeed somewhat moreand is thus the equivalent of an outright gift of land. That this is the case is shown by the following verses, Lev. xxvii 2225. They deal with the case of a man who has bought a piece of land which, by de nition, is not part of his ancestral patrimony, and then dedicates it to Yahweh. When this is done, the purchaser, in contrast to the situation in Lev. xxvii 16-21, is at once obliged to pay the redemption price, which makes the dedication an irrevocable gift, holy to the Lord, v. 23. The reason for this is because the property in question had to revert to the seller at the jubilee, v. 24, and hence, if the
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monetary equivalent was not paid, the priests would lose out and the whole purpose of the dedication would be nulli ed. On the other hand, ancestral land which is dedicated but not redeemed before the jubilee, at that point reverts not to the original owner but to Yahweh, that is, to the sanctuary. The problem arises with the mention of the sale of such land in Lev. xxvii 20. Houston is no doubt justi ed in his complaint that exegetes have paid insuYcient attention to the tense of the verb mkar here, although it is worth noting that many translations have recognized the force of the perfect form: so the rendering of the venerable AV is virtually identical to Houstons preferred translation. Houston argues that an individual could sell a piece of land and at the same time or subsequently decide to dedicate it, in anticipation of the time when it would revert to him at the jubilee and so what is envisaged is not the sequence of a eld vowed and sold but of a eld sold and vowed, in Houstons words. Such may be a possibility but one wonders if there is any evidence to support it and it must be questioned whether Houstons order of events does not go against the sense of Lev. xxvii 20. The section Lev. xxvii 16-21 deals with the situation where dedication has taken place and the redemption procedure which thereafter applies. In v. 20, the words but if he does not redeem the eld can only refer to property already dedicated: is it not more natural to take the following words if he had sold the eld to another in the same way, that is, the land he has sold is land previously dedicated, the eld in both clauses having the same sense? Again, while Lev. xxvii 22 perhaps does not absolutely exclude Houstons contention, it seems to suggest that, on the sale of a piece of land, the power of dedication would then pass to the buyer, unless the seller had already dedicated it. Hence, there may be still much to be said for the view that Lev. xxvii 20 is dealing with a case of sharp practice. As Hartley has argued,2 the sale of a dedicated piece of land would enable the seller to recover some of the loss to him that dedication incurred and thus as hedging and limiting the scope of his vow to Yahweh. Again, since the provisions of Lev. xxv are pre-supposed by the verse in question, it is possible that the sale of the property could allow the original owner to be able to claim it back at the jubilee: Lev. xxvii 20, as already noted, is expressly designed to make sure that in fact it would go to Yahweh. Houston objects that the penalty imposed by v. 20 is surprisingly mild. But the loss of ancestral patrimony was a very grave matter,

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aVecting not merely the current owner but, as Elliger notes,3 the whole of his descendants. As suggested above, the character of Lev. xxvii as a whole, and v. 20 in particular, is to be understood from its setting in the Persian period. At this time, the Temple and the priesthood became of central importance in the nations life and the chapter is a product of the priestly circle. While the basic structures of Israels age-old family laws are preserved,4 these are now adapted in various respects to safeguard and consolidate the position of the sanctuary, above all with respect to its nances. London
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J.R. Porter

J.R. Porter, Leviticus, CBCNEB (Cambridge, 1976), p. 218. J.E. Hartley, Leviticus, Word BC 4 (Dallas, 1992), p. 483. K. Elliger, Leviticus, HAT 4 (Tbingen, 1966), p. 389. J.R. Porter, op. cit., pp. 196-7.