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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 1 Chronicles 21 - &+N revisited
  • Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 21:34:10 -0500

Dear James,

This is starting to go a little off topic but it's not all quite so cut and dried.

At the same period Abraham was married to his half-sister who later became the mother
of Isaac through whom Yah promised that all the nations would be blessed. The law which
came hundreds of years later condemned such yet we see no indication that Abraham was held
in disfavour by Yah for marrying his sister.

Maye it was OK to marry your sister but not to have children with your daughters in that
period. I don't know. But the point is the tanakh doesn't always tell us that something is
bad in exactly the same verse.

HH: You may have a point. But we don't see taking a census criticized anywhere, do we? So it must have been the circumstances. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says: "Clearly it was for David's glory rather than for the Lord's, and this no doubt was part of its sinful character." The author goes on to say that there may be more involved than is now apparent to the modern reader. I know that in a census there was supposed to be a head tax paid, so if David took a census without collecting the head tax, that could provoke the Lord's wrath. He even threatens a plague:

Ex. 30:11 ΒΆ Then the LORD said to Moses,
Ex. 30:12 "When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each one must pay the LORD a ransom for his life at the time he is counted. Then no plague will come on them when you number them.
Ex. 30:13 Each one who crosses over to those already counted is to give a half shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs. This half shekel is an offering to the LORD.
Ex. 30:14 All who cross over, those twenty years old or more, are to give an offering to the LORD.
Ex. 30:15 The rich are not to give more than a half shekel and the poor are not to give less when you make the offering to the LORD to atone for your lives.
Ex. 30:16 Receive the atonement money from the Israelites and use it for the service of the Tent of Meeting. It will be a memorial for the Israelites before the LORD, making atonement for your lives."

Yours,
Harold Holmyard





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