Tax Burden

You shall take the expiation money from the Israelites and assign it to the service of the Tent of Meeting; it shall serve the Israelites as a reminder before the LORD, as expiation for your persons. Exodus 30:16   JPS Torah Commentary

Expiation – God does not like taxes (applause, please).  In fact, God doesn’t like a census either since the usual purpose of a census is taxation or conscription.  This is why Joab was so reluctant to carry out King David’s order for a peacetime census.  It should be no surprise to us that the Hebrew term kenas becomes the Latin term census, but you might find it very surprising that the word meant penalty.

Once we understand these facts, we need to ask two questions.  The first is why God prohibited a census in the story of David, and the second is why God commands a census on this occasion in Exodus.

The questions are easily answered.  First, God prohibits a peacetime census because He knows that such information is almost always used for nefarious purposes.  The census is a vehicle for the transfer or accumulation of power.  That vehicle shifts authority from God to men and it creates an atmosphere where men depend on their own plans rather than on a gracious and loving God.  “The census was clearly felt to mark the beginning of the state’s encroachment upon the individual, who had previously found protection within the family, clan, and village, in a sacred order beyond the reach of human calculations.”[1]

You can easily imagine how much more community integration and spiritual dependence occur when no one knows how many of what kind actually live where.  Without a census, everything must be done locally, where community needs and community provisions take priority.  Information in the hands of evil men produces evil, and God opposes it even if it is only counting His children.  It doesn’t take much reflection to see how much power is involved in our version of the census.  That power is inherently dangerous, and God knows it.  The only one in the Bible who needs (and has) all this information is God.

The second question addresses another issue.  The Tabernacle belonged to everyone – equally.  It was the sign of God’s presence within the community.  Therefore, everyone needed to be a contributor to its construction and its operation.  Everyone needed to have a stake in the result.  So every male over the age of 20 made a one-time, equal contribution of a certain weight of silver or gold.  This census was not repeated (although centuries later rabbinic Judaism used this event to institute an annual tax).  God’s census had the purpose of involving everyone in His interaction within the community.  It is not about power.  It is about participation.  It was about building His place of presence.

Now we come to the word ha-kippurim, translated here by “expiation” but in most Christian Bibles by “atonement.”  Baker and Carpenter call this the word “of supreme theological importance in the Old Testament.”  At its root, kaphar is about imposing something that changes the appearance or the nature of a thing, like stamping an invoice, “Paid in Full.”  The invoice is changed from a debt to a statement of fulfillment.  So sin is cancelled, not by covering it up but by stamping it with a mark that shows the debt is paid.  Translated as “atonement,” the word conveys the idea of reparations, that is, making amends for a wrong, paying for a wrong done, or compensating someone.  As “expiation,” the word means (from Latin) “to end by allowing the full consequences to have their expression.”  Atonement and expiation are closely related, but they are not exactly the same.  Atonement carries the nuance of compensation by substitution.  In other words, to atone for a sin would mean to provide some other way of repaying the obligation.  Of course, this is what Yeshua did.  His life was provided as another way of dealing with the obligation of our guilt.  But expiation carries the further nuance that the repayment means suffering the full consequences of the original obligation.  To atone for sin might imply that God merely cancels the debt, but to expiate the sin means that someone has to suffer and die to remove the guilt.

Now apply this subtle difference in the Exodus passage.  The payment of the tax used for the construction of the Tent of Meeting expiates the individual.  What debt does the person carry that needs to be removed?  The debt is the obligation to enter into a living covenant with the presence of God in the midst.  It isn’t free! God in the midst requires personal commitment.  Notice that no one can pay for another.  Each male must pay for himself.  Each male must fulfill the obligation entirely.  He is not to borrow, barter or beg from another.  His is a personal obligation to become part of God’s witness in the community.  And once he pays in full the required amount, his obligation is satisfied.

If you see hints of the sacrifice of Yeshua in this Tabernacle tax, you shouldn’t be surprised.  Perhaps you will discover that reflection on the Exodus census gives you greater insight into the Savior on the cross.

Topical Index:  census, tax, atonement, expiation, ha-kippurim, kaphar, Exodus 30:16