The Ransom Money (Exodus 30)
11 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying:
12 “When you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then every man shall give a ransom for himself to the LORD, when you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them.
13 This is what everyone among those who are numbered shall give: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (a shekel is twenty gerahs). The half-shekel shall be an offering to the LORD.
14 Everyone included among those who are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering to the LORD.
15 The rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when you give an offering to the LORD, to make atonement for yourselves.
16 And you shall take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shall appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of meeting, that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD, to make atonement for yourselves.”
The bekah is equal to 10 gerahs. A gerah is equal to the weight of 16 barley grains. What does a bekah weigh? It weighs 160 grains of barley, which, in modern measurements, would be approximately eight grams of silver. Thus the most primary measure of monetary value is associated with Love (16) and barley (the overcomers or the remnant). So the basis of the monetary system that Our Heavenly Father created is mathematically centered around Love and the Remnant.
Each man was to give a bekah during the census “that there be no plague" or judgment to come upon them. This amount was deemed by Our Heavenly Father to be a reasonable sum for any man whether rich or poor. This established the fact that all men are equal and that the rich do not have greater privilege or requirements placed upon them.
Exodus 38:25 And the silver from those who were numbered of the congregation was one hundred talents and one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary:
26 a bekah for each man (that is, half a shekel, according to the shekel of the sanctuary), for everyone included in the numbering from twenty years old and above, for six hundred and three thousand, five hundred and fifty men.
The relation between the talent and the shekel is defined in the above Scripture. The half shekel brought by 603,550 men amounted to 100 talents and 1,775 shekels. Thus a talent was 3,000 shekels.
27 And from the hundred talents of silver were cast the sockets of the sanctuary and the bases of the veil: one hundred sockets from the hundred talents, one talent for each socket.
28 Then from the one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five shekels he made hooks for the pillars, overlaid their capitals, and made bands for them.
The tabernacle stood upon sockets of silver where the Divine interacts with the earth. Both Joseph and Jesus were sold for silver. Judas was paid off in silver (Matthew 26:15). Silver is redemption money. Silver is symbolic of the redemption that comes through Jesus Christ and Him alone. It prefigures the preciousness of Christ as the ransom for sinners. Note that there is no silver mentioned in heaven. The people will already have been redeemed.
Mark 10:45 "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."
Stephen Jones was given the Word that 2013 is the “Year of Release”. The bekah establishes the value of the action required by those who were to be counted. This ransom money was tied to Love and Love is the basis of being released (or redeemed) from bondage, even at the most fundamental measurements of value. More to come…