Exodus 30 English Standard Version (ESV)

The Census Tax

¹¹ The Lord said to Moses, ¹² “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. ¹³ 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. ¹⁴ Everyone who is numbered in the census, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the Lord’s offering.¹⁵ 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. ¹⁶ 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.”

The Bronze Basin

¹⁷ The Lord said to Moses, ¹⁸ “You shall also make a basin of bronze, with its stand of bronze, for washing. You shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it, ¹⁹ with which Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet. ²⁰ When they go into the tent of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn a food offering to the Lord, they shall wash with water, so that they may not die. ²¹ They shall wash their hands and their feet, so that they may not die. It shall be a statute forever to them, even to him and to his offspring throughout their generations.”

 

REFLECTION

• This chapter contains instructions not mentioned in the other chapters. Read this passage, or read the whole chapter if time allows.
• The half shekel tax “atonement money”(11-16) is to be collected from each Hebrew male, rich and poor, everyone has to pay the same small amount. This is to remind us that God’s redemption is equal to all.
• Eph 2:8-9 says: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast”. This tells us that our redemption is free to us, and we don’t need to pay the “atonement money”. However, the redemption is not cheap, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer called it, it is indeed very costly.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.

“Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like the cheap jack wares. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

• PRAY: An excerpt from “The Cost of Discipleship” can be found at: www.crossroad.to/Persecution/Bonhoffer.html. Reflect on your life as a disciple of Christ. What kind of grace is expressed in your life? Ask God to show and direct you.