Exodus 30:11-16 Census and Ransom!

11Then the LORD said to Moses, 12“When you take a census of the Israelites to number them, each man must pay the LORD a ransom for his life when he is counted. Then no plague will come upon them when they are numbered. 13Everyone who crosses over to those counted must pay a half shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs. This half shekel is an offering to the LORD.

14Everyone twenty years of age or older who crosses over must give this offering to the LORD. 15In making the offering to the LORD to atone for your lives, the rich shall not give more than a half shekel, nor shall the poor give less. 16Take the atonement money from the Israelites and use it for the service of the Tent of Meeting. It will serve as a memorial for the Israelites before the LORD to make atonement for your lives.”

Census and ransom!

Israel belonged to God and God ordered them to be numbered and a ransom to be paid. Later the “ransom” became the annual temple tax.

“The Lord commanded that every male over twenty years of age should pay half a shekel as redemption money, confessing that he deserved to die, owning that he was in debt to God, and bringing the sum demanded as a type of a great redemption which would by-and-by be paid for the souls of the sons of men.” (Spurgeon)

“The rich were not to give more, the poor not to give less; to signify that all souls were equally precious in the sight of God, and that no difference of outward circumstances could affect the state of the soul; all had sinned, and all must be redeemed by the same price.” (Clarke)

“The half-shekel was not a gift in the sense of a free-will offering. It was a recognition of redemption, a sign of atonement, made and received. Here the rich and the poor stood upon a perfect equality.” (Morgan)

The ransom money was given into the service of the temple.

“It must have weighed something over four tons, and this was dedicated to the use of the tabernacle: the special application of the precious metal was to make sockets into which the boards which made the walls of the tabernacle should be placed.” (Spurgeon)

That’s a lot of silver! Everyone in the census contributed to the temple!

How would your church be if everyone paid a ransom and it was used for the construction of the church?

Blessings, David