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The Half-Shekel Offering in Biblical and Post-Biblical Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

J. Liver
J. Liver
Affiliation:
Tel-Aviv University, Israel
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Extract

It is still an accepted opinion of biblical scholarship that the regulation governing the offering of half a shekel in Exodus 30:11–16 belongs to one of the late trends of the Priestly Code. This text in Exodus, which enjoins upon the people of Israel the offering of half a shekel for the service of the tent of meeting in the desert, is thought also to reflect the conditions of the early Second Commonwealth, when an annual tax of half a shekel was collected for the maintenance of the sanctuary.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , July 1963 , pp. 173 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1963

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References

1 Cf. J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena6, 1919, pp. 77, 153. Also cf. H. Holzinsrer, Exodus, 1900, p. 145; Beer-Galling, Exodus, 1939, pp. 147 ff.; M. Noth, Exodus, 1959, p. 193; and others.

2 Cf. the recent survey of J. Bright, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, Essays in Honor of W. F. Albright, 1961, pp. 22 ff.; G. E. Mendenhall, ibid., pp. 40 ff. Of special interest is the position of Y. Kaufmann (Religion of Israel, 1960, pp. 153 ff.; and in greater detail, his History of the Religion of Israel, I, 1937, pp. 113 ff. [Hebrew]), who adheres in principle to the Documentary Hypothesis but considers the Priestly Document to be of an early date. While I do not agree with the Documentary Hypothesis as regards the literary analysis of Pentateuchal narrative (cf. my treatment of Num. 16–17 in Scripta Hierosolymitana 8, 1961, pp. 189–217) and the composition of the Pentateuch as a whole, I agree with Kaufmann in considering the Priestly system of laws and regulations, in toto, as much earlier than the Second Commonwealth.

3 A wartime census is quite another matter. Cf. Judg. 20:15 ff.; I Sam. 11:8; II Sam. 18:1, and elsewhere. A military census following a battle is recorded in the story of the war between the Israelites and the Midianites (Num. 31:48 ff.), which tells of an offering brought by the warriors from "what each man found" to make atonement for themselves before the Lord. But in this narrative, which is usually assigned to the Priestly Code, it is impossible to determine whether the offering was brought on account of the census or because of a sin that it was presumed they had committed during the fighting.

4 E. A. Speiser, BASOR 149 (1958), pp. 23 ff.

5 In this article I have intentionally refrained from treating the matter of the ransom offering in Exodus in juxtaposition with the census administration of Mari. In the Mari texts there is information concerning censuses for conscription purposes and in conjunction with which there was a redistribution of property; there were even arrangements made in the realm of taxes. These activities, or some of them, are called in these documents “têbibtum,” a word which in Accadian has the meaning of cleansing and purifying, including ritual purification: cf. J. R. Kupper, Studia Mariana, 1950, pp. 99–110, and E. A. Speiser, BASOR 149 (1958), pp. 17–25. Those scholars who see in the word “têbibtum” a name for the census (Kupper, Speiser, and others) deduce from this that the very conduct of the census involved an act of purification, and as a result that it was considered an act fraueht with danger that had to be fended off by ritual measures. These scholars have also pointed to the parallel in this regard between the conduct of the census in Mari and the half-shekel regulation in Exodus. In contrast to this, the “têbibtum.” according to the Mari texts, involves no ritual ceremonies and the priests do not participate; it is carried out by secular officials. In fact, the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (Vol. 4, pp. 3–4, s.v. “ebêbu”) explains the term “têbibtum” in the Mari texts not as an act of religious purification, but as a purge and clearing of men and property from debts and claims.

6 See S. Loewenstamm in Encyclopedia Biblica, Vol. IV, coll. 231 ff. (Hebrew).

7 Ex. 38:25 ff. gives as the total amount of the silver from those of the concregation who were numbered 100 talents and 1775 shekels, i.e., half a shekel per capita offered by 603,550 persons. This figure is identical with that of the census in Num. 1, in which the shekels are not mentioned. According to Num. 1:1 Moses received the command to conduct that census on the first day of the second month of the second year of the Exodus, while Ex. 38:25–28 relates that the money from those numbered was used to build the sanctuary which had already been completed on the first day of the first month (Ex. 40:17). M.D. (U.) Cassuto (Commentary on the Book of Exodus, 1952, pp. 328 ff. [Hebrew]) maintains that in both cases the reference is to the same census which was carried out in stages; its beginning, including the collection of the atonement money, preceded the completion of the tabernacle. But according to Num. 1:1, Moses received the order regarding the census in the tent of meeting on the first day of the second month, and there is no continuation of an earlier census involved. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that Ex. 38 and Num. 1 represent two divergent traditions regarding the time of the execution of the census of Israel in the desert. Regarding the question of agreement between the texts concerning the atonement money, we may conclude that the narrator (or editor) did not feel constrained to mention the atonement money, which was not the essential element in the census, either in Num. 1 or in Num. 26, owing to the fact that a general instruction appears earlier in Ex. 30:11–16. The historical value and time of origin of the census list of Num. 1,26 need not concern us here. I consider the treatment of W. F. Albright, JPOS 5 (1925). pp. 20–25, to be still the most convincing. A more recent study is that of G. E. Mendenhall, JBL 77 (1958), pp. 52–66.

8 Cf. the account in Num. 31:48 ff. concerning the atonement money offered to the Lord by those who had fought in the battle with Midian, where the same terminology is used (v. 54): “And Moses and Eleazar … brought it into the tent of meeting, for a memorial for the children of Israel before the Lord.” In the account of the temple repair under Joash, the narrator states explicitly that the consecrated money which was brought to the house of the Lord was given to those who repaired the house: “But there were not made for the house of the Lord cups of silver, snuffers, basins, trumpets, any vessels of gold, or vessels of silver, of the money that was brought into the house of the Lord” (II Ki. 12:14). Perhaps the narrator took pains to point out that the silver was not cast for serving vessels for the sanctuary because this was the usual application of the consecrated money; and Joash, in allocating these funds to temple repair, deviated from the accepted earlier custom.

9 The wording of the text in specifying the classes of consecrated money in II Ki. 12:5 is problematic; cf. M. Delcor, VT 12 (1962), 360 ff.

10 Cf. n. 8.

11 So, for example, Curtis-Madsen, Chronicles, 1910, p. 435, and W. Rudolph, Chronikbücher, 1955, p. 275.

12 Cf. Ez. 20:40. Note the use of this word in Phoenician and Punic inscriptions, especially in the sacrificial tariff from Marseilles; cf. N. Slouschz, Thesaurus of Phoenician Inscriptions, 1942, pp. 140 ff. and pp. 164 ff.

13 Cf. Num. 1:2, 26:2, and elsewhere. Also cf. E. A. Speiser, BASOR 149 (1958), pp. 22 ff.

14 Cf. Y. Kaufmann, History of the Religion of Israel, Vol. VIII, 1956, p. 333, n. 46 (Hebrew).

15 Cf. Neh. 12:44 and 13:12; Mai. 3:10. Also cf. G. Allon, Studies in Jewish History, Vol. I, 1957, pp. 84 ff. (Hebrew).

16 The text of Neh. 10:33–34 reads: “Also we made ordinances for us, to charge ourselves yearly with the third part of a shekel for the service of the house of our God; for the showbread, and for the continual meal-offering, and for the continual burnt offering, of the sabbaths, of the new moons, for the appointed seasons, and for the holy things, and for the sin-offerings to make atonement for Israel and for all the work of the house of our God.” For the phrase “to make atonement for Israel,” cf. the phrase “to make atonement for the house of Israel” in Ez. 45:17, where the sacrifices are the responsibility of the prince and not of the community. Cf. further on.

17 Cf. infra.

18 This opinion, which appears already in the commentary of Nachmanides (on Ex. 30:12), has been maintained by many modern scholars. Cf., for example, A. Bertholet, Esra und Nehemia, 1902, p. 78, and I. Benzinger, Hebräische Archäologie, 1927, pp. 200 ff. It is true that we are unable to determine the value of “the sanctuary shekel” or even according to what standard the Jews of Nehemiah's time offered a third of a shekel, but in any case the proposition that the half-shekel of Ex. and the third of a shekel of Neh. are identical is extremely doubtful. Although we are unable to decide which of the weights discovered in the excavations served as a standard for the monetary shekel, it may be that the beka () weights from the First Commonwealth, weighing approximately 6 to 6.6 gm. (cf. D. Diringer, PEQ 1942, pp. 89 ff.), are half the sanctuary shekel (cf. Ex. 38:26). The monetary shekel of the Persian Empire, the σίγλoς, weighed about 5.6 gm. But the coins current in Palestine followed primarily the standard of the Attic drachma, which weighed approximately 4.3 gm., or the somewhat lower Phoenician standard. A coin inscribed in Hebrew-Phoenician script from the fifth or fourth century B.C.E. which was acquired in Hebron and bears the inscription weighs approximately 3.9 gm. (cf. A. Reifenberg, PEF QSt 1934, pp. 100 ff., idem, Coins of the Jews, 1948, pp. 7 ff. [Hebrew]), i.e., a drachma by the Phoenician standard. Accordingly, in the Elephantine papyri it is stated explicitly that 2 shekels - 1 stater (cf. A Cowley, Aramaic Papyri, 1923, no. 35, 11. 3–4, 9), viz., 4 drachmas. The LXX generally translates a shekel of money, including the sanctuary shekel, by the word didrachma, and beka by drachma; so in Neh. 10:33 it has a “third of a didrachma.”

19 Cf. M. Shekalim 2:4; cf. also J. XT. Epstein, Prolegomena ad Litteras Tannaiticas, 1957, p. 337 (Hebrew).

20 Cf. II Chron. 31:3; and cf. supra, section III.

21 On the image of the prince in the future regulations of Ezekiel, cf. Y. Kaufmann, op. cit. (n. 14), Vol. VII, 1948, pp. 566 ff.; J. Liver, The House of David, 1959, pp. 66 ff. (Hebrew) ; E. Hammershaimb, Studia Orientals Ioanni Pedersen dicata, 1953, pp. 130 140.

22 Cf. E. Meyer, Die Entstehung des Judentums, 1896, pp. 7-S0; R. de Yaux, RB 46 (1937), pp. 29–57. On the sequence of the Persian Kings in Ezra, cf. my paper in the M. H. Segal Jubilee Volume (1963).

23 Cf. the studies cited in n. 22.

24 Cf. P. T. Shekalim 1:46a, and B. T. Megillah 29b. It is true that according to the tradition quoted in M. Shekalim 2:4 in the name of R. Judah the half-shekel tax was regarded as a regulation that had been operative from the time of the return from the Exile; and the Palestinian Talmud on that Mishnah (P. T. Shekalim 2:46d) even refers to Neh. 10:33 for determining the value of the halfshekel. At the same time, the Sages expounded the verse in Neh. as referring to the requirement to pay the half-shekel three times yearly (P.T. ibid.), or even as referring to charity for the poor (B. T. Baba Bathra 9a).

25 In his account Josephus tries to harmonize the biblical narrative and the desideratum – that is, the inclination to base the half-shekel tax of his own day on a regulation that was issued, as it were, by Moses in the desert. Thus he alludes to the census only indirectly, in giving the number of donors as 605,550 free men 20 years old and upward (the figure is referring to that of the Pentateuch, 603.550, which it approximates) ; but he does not mention a ransom or the conduct of a census. He tells us that the money was allocated for sanctuary needs; but he avoids specifying for which needs it was spent, for this would confute his tendentious exposition.

26 Cf. Antiquities XVIII, 312 ; Matt. 17:24. The sanctuary shekel was equivalent to four drachmas according to the notion that it was a double shekel. Cf. B. T. Baba Bathra 90b and Bechoroth 5a.

27 Cf. also supra, n. 18.

28 Wellhausen, Prolegomena6, p. 153.

29 As Epstein has shown, M. Shekalim is one of the early tractates; in substance it dates to the end of the Second Commonwealth. Cf. J. N. Epstein, op. cit. (n. 19), pp. 25 ff. and 338 ff.

30 Dc Spec. leg. I, 78.

31 The account in Matt, is unquestionably instinct with an opposition to the entire institution of the annual half-shekel tax. Concerning the background of this opposition in the religious usage of Jewish sects of the Second Commonwealth, cf. infra, section VI, and especially n. 60.

32 Cf. A. (V.) Teherikover, The Jews in Egypt in the Hellenistic-Roman Age in the Light of the Papyri, 1945, pp. 102 ff. (Hebrew).

33 Cf. M. Shekalim 2:4.

34 Ibid., i :3–6. There was a dispute, to be sure, about obligating the priests to pay the shekel; cf. ibid., 4. Cf. also P. T. Shekalim 1:46a.

35 Cf. the tradition quoted in the name of R. Judah in M. Shekalim 2:4; and cf. P. T. Shekalim 2:46d.

36 Antiquities XIV, 244 ff., and XVI, 162 ff. Cf. also Cicero, Pro Flacco, par. 66 ff., and cf. J. H. Levy, Zion 7 (1942), pp. 109 ff. (Hebrew).

37 It is interesting that this same Ptolemaios is mentioned in an inscription on a stone recently found in the fields of Kibbutz Hephzibah in central Israel. The entire inscription comprises copies of seven official documents from ca. 200 B.C.E. Six are letters from Antiochus III and are concerned with the seventh document, a memorandum by the military governor (στρατηγòϛ), Ptolemaios. The inscription is to be published by Mr. Y. H. Landau of the Israel Department of Antiquities. Cf. provisionally IEJ 10 (1960), 262–263.

38 Many studies have been written about the degree of reliability of the documents attributed to Antiochus III in Book XII of the Antiquities, and it has been demonstrated that we may consider them reliable. Cf. E. Bikerman, REJ 100 (1935), pp. 4–35; V. Tehcrikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, 1959, pp. 82 ff.

39 Cf. E. Bikerman, Annuaire de l'institut de philologie et d'histoire orientales et slaves 7 (1939–1944), pp. 6 ff.

40 It is a forced interpretation that the funds allocated to the sanctuary by those kings were intended to furnish the sacrifice for the well-being of the ruler; cf. E. Schürer, Geschichle des jüdischen Volkes, II4, 1907, pp. 360 ff.

41 Cf. the studies cited in nn. 38–59.

42 Lichtenstein edition, HUCA 8–9 (1931–1932), p. 323.

43 The text from B. T. Menachot 65a that parallels the account in the Megillat Taanit scholion reads as follows: “For the Sadducees used to say that an individual may offer and bring [i.e., defray the cost of] the daily offering … And what was the reply [of the Rabbis]? … Hence all the sacrifices were to be taken out of the offering of the (temple) chamber.”

44 Cf. supra, n. 35.

44a The ingenious explanation offered recently by M. Beer (Tarbiz 31 [1962], 298–299 [Hebrew]), for the opposition of the sects to the half-shekel sanctuary offering is rather unconvincing.

45 Cf. the detailed discussion in H. Lichtenstein, op. cit. (n. 42), pp. 290–292, and the bibliography there.

46 Cf. the studies listed in n. 1.

47 Cf. E. Bikerman, op. cit. (n. 39), p. 14.

48 Until then the regular sacrifices were the province of the individual, whether Jews made an annual monetary offering for the sanctuary or not. In various periods the regular sacrifices came from the state treasury, i.e., from the ruler; or they came from the funds placed at the disposal of the high priest and were offered in his name. Perhaps the regular sacrifices were offered in the name of the influential priestly families who controlled the tithes and priestly dues. The scholars who have proposed this suggestion rely on the scholion to Megillat Taanit: “One person provides it for one sabbath (week), another for two sabbaths (weeks), another for thirty days;” cf. H. Lichtenstein, op. cit., pp. 291 ff. But it is doubtful whether this excerpt, which does not appear in the baraitha in Menachoth 65a, is an integral part of the early tradition.

49 J. M. Allegro, “An Unpublished Fragment of Essene Halakhah (4Q Ordinances),” JSS 6 (1961), pp. 71–73.

50 · A dot over the letter indicates a letter largely preserved.

– A line over the letter indicates a letter partially preserved.

○ A circle in place of a letter indicates illegible traces of a letter.

51 The (third) comprises 3000 persons. This is clear from the amount of the half-talent, i.e., 1500 shekels, which accords with this number of persons. The name itself unquestionably refers to a military unit. Perhaps the term has its origin in II Sam. 18:2; cf. Allegro, op. cit., p. 73. On military units composed of 3000 men in the Bible and in the Dead Sea scrolls, cf. Y. Yadin, The War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness, 1955, pp. 160–161 (Hebrew).

52 At the rate of 50 shekels = 1 maneh. Cf. S. Loewcnstamm, Kiryat Sefer 34 (1959). P. 48 (Hebrew).

53 The verb suits the meaning of gathering and picking up what is scattered, rather than taking what is already collected. Cf. Neh. 12:44; and in the Mishnah, cf. Baba Bathra 3:1, Shebiith 4:9, and others. Prof. Y. Yadin has informed me f a similar use of the verb in tenancy contracts from the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt, recently found in the Naḥal Ḥever caves; I am indebted to him for this information.

54 Cf. the Thanksgiving Scroll, p. 7, 1. 28, and Ex. 15:11; also the I Qumran Benedictions, p. 3, I. 1, and Num. 6:26.

55 Dr. J. Licht has suggested to me the possible alternate reading This reading is based on a certain proximity between the meaning of and the concept of registration and census; cf. the Manual of Discipline, p. 2, ll. 19 ff. and also the Rule of the Congregation, p. 1, l. 21. I should also like to express my thanks here to Dr. Licht for reading the manuscript of section VI of this essay and for his helpful comments.

56 It seems also that in II Ki. 12:5 refers to valuation money of the kind described in Lev. 27.

57 Cf. Ex. 30:12; 31:30; and Lev. 27:2 ff.

58 Comparable ways of quoting biblical texts, though not perfectly parallel, appear in the Dead Sea scrolls.

59 Cf. supra, n. 24.

60 Perhaps the account in Matt. 17:24–27 about Jesus and the collectors of the half-shekel tax in Capernaum is also based on a principled objection to an annual half-shekel sanctuary offering; cf. Allegro, op. cit., p. 73; and especially the detailed treatment by D. Flusser, Tarbiz 31 (1962), 150–156 (Hebrew).

61 For the purposes of this study, it does not matter whether the two census lists (in Num. 1 and in Num. 26) are parallel versions of a single list.

62 Cf. M. D. (U.) Cassuto, Commentary on the Book of Exodus, 1952, pp. 328 ff.

63 The age of those numbered according to the Damascus Covenant is apparently 20 years, as in Ex. 30:14; 38:26; and in Num. 1:3; 26:4, and as in the Rule of the Congregation, p. 1, l. 8. Cf. Ch. Rabin, The Zadokite Documents, 19592, pp. 49, 73.

64 It is noteworthy that in the Manual of Discipline, p. 2, 11. 19 ff. and p. 5, 11. 23 ff., we do not have any expressions from the half-shekel account in Exodus; which contrasts with the texts relating to the census in the Damascus Covenant and the Rule of the Congregation.

65 The half-shekel ordinance in Exodus also refers to a census of the entire community of Israel; cf. Ex. 30:12. On the census of all Israel in the end of days according to the Rule of the Congregation, p. 2, 11. 11–17, cf. Y. Yadin, “A Crucial Passage in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” IQSa 2:11–17, JBL 77 (1959), pp. 238 ff.

66 On the differences between the closed consolidated society described in the Manual of Discipline on one hand, and the more open society described in the Damascus Covenant and the future Israel described in the Rule of the Congregation on the other hand, cf. J. Licht, The Plant Eternal and the People of Divine Deliverance, Essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls, 1961, pp. 67–69 (Hebrew).