At sight of the rays that emanated from Moses' face, the people said to
him: "We were humbled by God owing to that sin we had committed. God,
thou sayest, had forgiven us, and is reconciled to us. Thou, Moses,
were include in our humiliation, and we see that He has once more
exalted thee, whereas, in spite of the reconciliation with God, we
remain humbled." Hereupon Moses betook himself to God and said; "When
Thou didst humble them, Thou didst humble me also, hence shouldst Thou
now raise them too, if Thou has raised me." God replied: "Truly, as I
have exalted thee, so will I exalt them also; record their number, and
through this show the world how near to My heart is the nation that
before all others acknowledged Me as their king, singing by the Red
Sea: 'This is my God, and I will exalt Him.'" Moses then said to God:
"O Lord of the world! Thou hast so many nation in Thy world, but Thou
carest nothing about recording their numbers, and only Israel dost Thou
bid me count." God replied: "All these multitudes do not belong to Me,
they are doomed to the destruction of Gehenna, but Israel is My
possession, and as a man most prizes the possession he paid for most
dearly, so is Israel most dear to Me, because I have with great
exertions made it My own." [313] Moses further said to God: "O Lord of
the world! To our father Abraham Thou made the following promises: 'And
I will make thy seed as the stars in the heavens,' but now Thou biddest
me number Israel. If their forefather Abraham could not count them,
how, then, should I?" But God quieted Moses, saying: "Thou needest not
actually count them, but if thou wouldst determine their number, add
together the numerical value of the names of the tribes, and the result
will be their number." And truly in this way did Moses procure the sum
total of the Jews, which amounted to sixty myriads less three thousand,
the three thousand having been swept away by the plague in punishment
for their worship of the Golden Calf. Hence the difference between the
number at the exodus from Egypt, when Moses had counted them for the
first time, and the number at the second census, after the losses
incurred by the plague. God treated Israel as did that king his herd,
who ordered the shepherds tell the tale of the sheep when he heard that
wolves had been among them and had killed some, having this reckoning
made in order to determine the amount of his loss.
The occasions on which, in the course of history, Israel were numbered,
are as follows: Jacob counted his household upon entering Egypt; Moses
counted Israel upon the exodus from Egypt; after the worship of the
Golden Calf; at the arrangement into camp divisions; and at the
distribution of the promised land. Saul twice instituted a census of
the people, the first time when he set out against Nahash, the
Ammonite, and the second time when he set out in war upon Amalek. It is
significant of the enormous turn in the prosperity of the Jews during
Saul's reign, that at the first census every man put down a pebble, so
that the pebbles might be counted, but at the second census the people
were so prosperous that instead of putting down a pebble, every man
brought a lamb. There was a census in the reign of David, which,
however, not having been ordered by God, had unfortunate consequences
both for the king and for the people. Ezra instituted the last census
when the people returned from Babylon to the Holy Land. Apart from
these nine censuses, God will Himself count His people in the future
time when their number will be so great that no mortal will be able to
count them. [314]
There was an offering to the sanctuary connected with the second census
in Moses' time, when every one above twenty years of age had to offer
up half a shekel. For God said to Moses: "They indeed deserve death for
having made the Golden Calf, but let each one offer up to the Eternal
atonement money for his soul, and in this way redeem himself from
capital punishment." When the people heard this, they grieved greatly,
for they thought: "In vain did we exert ourselves in taking booty from
the Egyptians, if we are not to yield up our hard-earned possessions as
atonement money. The law prescribes that a man pay fifty shekels of
silver for dishonoring a woman, and we who have dishonored the word of
God, should have to pay at least an equal amount. The law furthermore
decrees that if an ox kill a servant, his owner shall pay thirty
shekels of silver, hence every Israelite should have to discharge such
a sum, for 'we changed our glory into the similitude of an ox that
eateth grass.' But these two fines would not suffice, for we slandered
God, He who brought us out of Egypt, by calling out to the Calf, 'This
is thy God, that brought thee up out of Egypt,' and slander is
punishable by law with one hundred shekels of silver." God who knew
their thoughts, said to Moses: "Ask them why they are afraid. I do not
ask of them to pay as high a fine as he who dishonors or seduces a
woman, nor the penalty of a slanderer, nor that of the owner of a
goring ox, all that I ask of them is this," and hereupon he showed
Moses at the fire a small coin that represented the value of half a
shekel. This coin each one of those who had passed through the Red Sea
was to give as an offering.
There were several reasons why God asked particularly for the value of
half a shekel as a penalty. As they committed their sin, the worship of
the Golden Calf, in the middle, that is the half of the day, so they
were to pay half of a shekel; and, furthermore, as they committed their
sin in the sixth hour of the day, so were they to pay half a shekel,
which is six grains of silver. This half shekel, furthermore, contains
ten gerahs, and is hence the corresponding fine for those who
trespassed the Ten Commandments. The half shekel was also to be an
atonement for the sin committed by the ten sons of Jacob, who sold
their brother Joseph as a slave, for whom each had received half a
shekel as his share. [315]