Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Exodus · About this commentary
Ransom, Basin, Oil and Incense
Exodus 30:11-38
11 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, · WEB
Every man counted pays the same price for his life, and the holy oil and incense may not be reproduced for private use.
Each man shall give a ransom for his soul to Yahweh when you count them, that there be no plague among them Exodus 30:12.
A census in this book is dangerous, and the reason is implied rather than stated: counting a nation is how a ruler measures what he commands. The remedy is a payment made by each man for his own life, which converts the count from an inventory of assets into an acknowledgment that every life in it is owed.
The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel Exodus 30:15.
The most striking clause in the paragraph. A tax scaled to wealth would be fairer by any ordinary standard, and it is forbidden in both directions. What is being priced is not a contribution but a life, and lives do not vary in value with income. The rich man may not buy a larger share of the atonement and the poor man is not permitted a smaller one.
The money goes to the service of the Tent of Meeting Exodus 30:16, which means the sanctuary is built on identical sums from every adult in the nation. Not one board could be attributed to a wealthy donor.
You shall also make a basin of bronze... in which to wash. You shall put it between the Tent of Meeting and the altar Exodus 30:18.
Its position is its meaning. Between the place of sacrifice and the door of the tent, so that a priest who has just handled a burnt offering washes before going in. They shall wash their hands and their feet, that they not die Exodus 30:21 — hands for what has been done, feet for where he has walked, and the warning is repeated twice in three verses. Sacrifice does not remove the need for cleansing; the basin stands after the altar, not instead of it.
No dimensions are given for the basin, which is the only major item left unspecified.
The chapter closes with two formulas, an anointing oil and an incense, each compounded after the art of the perfumer Exodus 30:25 Exodus 30:35, and each protected by the same prohibition. It shall not be poured on man's flesh, and do not make any like it, according to its composition Exodus 30:32. Of the incense: you shall not make this incense, according to its composition, for yourselves Exodus 30:37.
The recipes are published and their reproduction is a capital matter. Anyone in Israel could read the ingredients and no one could mix them, which is a deliberate arrangement rather than a secret. What sets these compounds apart is not that their formula is hidden but that they have been assigned; the same substances used for pleasure would be theft of something devoted. Holiness in this book is consistently a matter of designation rather than of composition.
settled What this mark means