The Ransom of Souls. - Exodus 38:25-28. On comparing these words with those of Numbers 1:1-3, we may perhaps infer that the first passage relates to a mere counting of the adult Israelites at the time when the money was taken from each, and that what the latter passage enjoins was a formal enrolment of them according to their genealogies and their order of military service.
A ransom for his soul - What the sincere worshipper thus paid was at once the fruit and the sign of his faith in the goodness of Yahweh, who had redeemed him and brought him into the covenant. Hence, the payment is rightly called a ransom inasmuch as it involved a personal appropriation of the fact of his redemption. On the word soul, see Leviticus 17:11.
That there be no plague - i. e. that they might not incur punishment for the neglect and contempt of spiritual privileges. Compare Exodus 28:35; 1-Corinthians 11:27-30; and the exhortation in our communion Service.

And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... Continued his discourse; or, there being some intermission, reassumed it:
saying; as follows.

The tribute was half a shekel, about fifteen pence of our money. The rich were not to give more, nor the poor less; the souls of the rich and poor are alike precious, and God is no respecter of persons, Acts 10:34; Job 34:19. In other offerings men were to give according to their wordly ability; but this, which was the ransom of the soul, must be alike for all. The souls of all are of equal value, equally in danger, and all equally need a ransom. The money raised was to be used in the service of the tabernacle. Those who have the benefit, must not grudge the necessary charges of God's public worship. Money cannot make atonement for the soul, but it may be used for the honour of Him who has made the atonement, and for the maintenance of the gospel by which the atonement is applied.

When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel, &c.--Moses did so twice, and doubtless observed the law here prescribed. The tax was not levied from women, minors, old men (Numbers 1:42, Numbers 1:45), and the Levites (Numbers 1:47), they being not numbered. Assuming the shekel of the sanctuary to be about half an ounce troy, though nothing certain is known about it, the sum payable by each individual was two and four pence. This was not a voluntary contribution, but a ransom for the soul or lives of the people. It was required from all classes alike, and a refusal to pay implied a wilful exclusion from the privileges of the sanctuary, as well as exposure to divine judgments. It was probably the same impost that was exacted from our Lord (Matthew 17:24-27), and it was usually devoted to repairs and other purposes connected with the services of the sanctuary.

The Atonement-Money, which every Israelite had to pay at the numbering of the people, has the first place among the supplementary instructions concerning the erection and furnishing of the sanctuary, and serves to complete the demand for freewill-offerings for the sanctuary (Exodus 25:1-9).

Perhaps the repetition of those words, the Lord spake unto Moses, here and afterwards, Exodus 30:17, Exodus 30:22, Exodus 30:34, intimates, that God did not deliver these precepts to Moses, in a continued discourse, but with many intermissions, giving him time either to write what was said to him, or at least to charge his memory with it.