The LORD said to Moses, "When you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for his life to the LORD when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them. Each one who is numbered in the census shall give this: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel as an offering to the LORD. Everyone who is numbered in the census, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the LORD's offering. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when you give the LORD's offering to make atonement for your lives. You shall take the atonement money from the people of Israel and shall give it for the service of the tent of meeting, that it may bring the people of Israel to remembrance before the LORD, so as to make atonement for your lives."
Exodus 30:11-16
The atonement money is now discussed. Reference has already been made to this passage in the Note on 26:15-30, which refers also to 38:25-28. We should note two points in particular. In the first place, something needs to be said about the need for this ransom money being paid. It was to be paid when the children of Israel were numbered throughout the tribes. One has only to think of the solemn story in 2 Samuel 24 to realise that numbering the people was an activity fraught with danger. Nor is the reason for this hard to understand, for it tended to encourage Israel to trust in the arm of the flesh instead of in God in her battles and campaigns. The true antithesis to such an attitude is expressed in Psalm 20:7, 'Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God'. Thus, even when commanded by God, it could be safely carried out only under the protection of divine grace, symbolised here by the ransom money. Secondly, it is particularly emphasised that the half-shekel of silver was a flat-rate contribution; the rich were not to give more, or the poor less; but all were to be the same, this signifying that so far as atonement is concerned all men are on the same level, and in the same need, rich and poor, high and low. As Paul puts it in Romans 3:22, 23, 'There is no difference: for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God'.