NOTES for Lev 27:1-34
Everything can be dedicated to God, even one's own life. True, on one indispensable condition: what is dedicated to Him is dedicated forever. One can, of course, redeem oneself and one's property, but such redemption is allowed rather because of human weakness, because a person is unable to endure his own vows to the end. The logic is clear: what is dedicated to God is sanctified by Him, becoming part of that sacred space which, on earth before the coming of Christ, existed in places chosen by God and indicated by Him. To dedicate something to God meant to sanctify it, making it part of God's world. In that case, can what has been dedicated be returned to ordinary existence?
Sometimes it can, but what returns will never again become what it was. A meeting with God is always irreversible; it changes both the person and everything God touches forever. Neither a person who has dedicated himself to God nor anything else sanctified by Him will ever be able to return to the state in which they were before God's sanctifying action. The redemption of what has been dedicated to God is rather a concession to a person. If a person wants to take back what has been dedicated, whether his own life or his property, well, he is free.
True, he will have to redeem what was dedicated, to pay for it. At first glance this is only compensation to the priesthood for what it loses when someone who has dedicated himself or something belonging to him to God then takes the dedicated thing back. In reality, however, not everything is so simple. This is not only material compensation; it is a reminder to the person of the obligations he took on when dedicating himself or something belonging to him to God.
Such a reminder, of course, appeals more to a person's finances than to his heart. But if a person already admits that he is unable to fulfill what he promised God, then an appeal to the heart is hardly meaningful. The one who takes back from God what he dedicated to Him understands everything perfectly himself, unless, of course, he has become completely hardened spiritually. Ordinary payment for what one receives back from God is quite enough here. But if a person has hardened so much that he understands nothing, then the payment really becomes for him only material compensation to the priests for what he is taking back from them. Here each person receives his own.