Shemot 30:11-16 (Ki Tissa) – The census by Mount Sinai: A covenantal membership fee

Shemot 30:12 records, “When you take up the head count of the Children of Israel, in counting them, they are to give, each man, a ransom for his life, for G-d, when they count them, that there should be no plague on them, when they count them” (Fox translation, 1995). This verse raises several questions. One, the verse assumes that the people will be counted in the future, but no reason is given why there will be a need to take a census. Was it necessary to have an exact count of the people once Shemot 12:37 already recorded that there were around 600,000 adult males? Secondly, what is this plague in reference to the future count? If the plague is a punishment, then what is it for and why can the people pay a ransom and not be punished? If the plague was not a punishment, so why should there be a plague altogether? There are at least five different ways to answer these questions. 

The first approach is from Rashi (1040-1105) who writes (on Bemidbar 1:1) that G-d would count the people out of love, which means that count was not done to ascertain the exact number of people. With regard to the plague, Rashi (on 30:12) explains that the plague was due to the “evil eye” that exists by things being numbered. With this approach, the goal was to count the people, and the giving of money was a means to count the people in order that there would not be the “evil eye,” since this problem only existed when one counted heads and not when one counted money. Yet, what does the “evil eye” mean and how can it cause a plague? It cannot be some power independent of G-d, and hence is this just another way of saying that the count was a sin? Why then have a count altogether? Was it only a sin to count heads and not a sin to count money that represented the people? 

Luzzatto (on 30:11) suggests that the Torah was accommodating the beliefs of the people who believed in the idea of the “evil eye.” Luzzatto writes that G-d did not want to remove this belief since it diminished the feeling of hubris in the people, which could develop from counting great numbers of people. Also, maybe one could say that really the idea of an “evil eye” is just superstitious, but since the people would have been worried about it, the ransom was instituted to remove this fear from the people.

A second approach is from the Abravanel (1437-1508) that the point of the count and the ransom was to raise money for the mishkan/ ohel moed, as 30:16 records that the ransom money when to supply the mishkan/ ohel moed. With regard to the plague, Abravanel follows the idea of the “evil eye,” though he tries to justify its existence by natural means. Luzzatto writes that he likes this idea that the count was a fund raising technique, with his variation of the understanding of the evil eye, but he notes that the money was not really needed since the people freely donated to the building of the mishkan/ ohel moed, 36:5,6. Instead, he suggests that there was a desire for some donations to be done equally between the rich and the poor, and the ransom was that each person gave exactly a half-shekel, 30:15. This approach is appealing, but as the Torah only mentions that the ransom money went to the mishkan/ ohel moed in the end of the section, it appears that this was not the main purpose of the ransom, just that once the money was collected then the most appropriate use of the money was for the mishkan/ ohel moed.

A third approach is that the plague was due to the sin of the golden calf, and the ransom, the giving of money to G-d, was part of the process of expiation from the sin. With this approach, the main point is the ransom, while the counting is only a means to getting the people to pay the ransom. Yet, why should the ransom save the people if they were really guilty for sinning by the golden calf?

Kli Yakar (1550-1619, on 30:12) suggests that Moshe’s prayers led to the people being forgiven on a national level, but on an individual level, there still remained some level of guilt. The ransom was then efficacious for this relatively smaller level of guilt, whenever there would be a count in the future. Kli Yakar offers an interesting proof for this idea from 32:34. 32:34 refers to some remaining level of guilt from the sin of the golden calf after Moshe’s prayers, and uses the word pakod when referring to this guilt. While pakod is understood to mean to visit in 32:34, the same word means to count in 30:12, and hence the word could suggest some connection between counting the people and the sin of the golden calf. This idea is interesting, but as pointed out by Luzzatto, with this approach, one would have expected the instruction for the count to be after the sin of the golden calf and not before. 

Benno Jacob (1992, p. 835) suggests a fourth approach that the count was to prepare for war, and the ransom was because the soldier might kill somebody. The soldier would not be considered a murderer since he killed in battle, but still he was required to make expiation for killing, which was the ransom. Hertz (p. 352) who quotes Jacob, explains, based on an anonymous Karaite commentator, that the plague meant that the soldiers would suffer defeat in battle if they did not pay the ransom before going to battle. With this approach, both the count and the ransom were equally important, but they were independent of each other. This idea is also interesting, but one wonders why the Torah was recording these instructions at this point, and not when the people were on the verge of going to war? Also, why count the entire male population as a preparation for war? Did all the men fight? 

My preference is that the counting was part of the covenantal process, that the counting delineates who is part of the covenant and who is not. Thus, as the covenant had just been made, there was a need to have a count in the near future. At the end of the 40th year of the people’s stay in the desert they made another covenant (Devarim 28:69) in the land of Moav, and Bemidbar 26 records that the people were counted when they were in the land of Moav. With this idea, the plague would be a punishment if a person was not counted since then the person indicated that he did not want to be part of the covenant. The ransom, the giving of money, was to show that the person wanted to be counted as part of the covenant and hence, there would be no plague. 

With this idea, the count was the crucial aspect and the giving of money was secondary. This idea explains why by the poor and the rich had to give equally, 30:15, since both were equal members in the covenant. Possibly, then the idea of giving a half shekel and not a full shekel was to lesson the tax burden on the poor. 

Why were only men counted and not the women and children? The answer is that the counting was really of families (see Bemidbar 1:18), and the counting of the family and the giving of the half shekel by the adult male relative showed that all the family members were part of the covenant. This would be similar to the korban pesach in Egypt, that was also divided by families, 12:3. According to this idea, the giving of money would only be associated with a count that was part of the covenantal process. 

Why then by the count in Bemidbar 26 is there no mention of giving money as part of the count? One possible answer is that the people did give money, but this was not mentioned in the Torah after this requirement was already recorded here. A second possible answer is that only when the covenant was first established would the people be punished with a plague for not joining the covenant. However, when there were additions to the covenant, then there was no threat of a plague since the people were already part of the pre-existing covenant. The covenant in Moav was an additional covenant, and hence if there was no threat of a plague, then there was also no need to give money in conjunction with the count. 

To conclude, 30:12 should be understood in the following manner: When you count the people, each person should pay a ransom to G-d for his soul when you count them in order that there will be no plague when you count the people. If a person would not pay the ransom he would be excluding himself from the count, which meant he was also excluding himself from the covenant and he would be punished with a plague.

Bibliography:

Fox, Everett, 1995, The Five Books of Moses: A new translation, New York: Schocken Books.

Hertz, J. H. (1872-1946), 1960, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, second edition, London: Soncino Press.

Jacob, Benno (1869-1945), 1992, The second book of the Bible: Exodus, translated with an introduction by Walter Jacob, Hoboken: Ktav Publishing House.