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Exodus 30 Devotional

The Same Ransom for Everyone

“In making the offering to the LORD to atone for your lives, the rich shall not give more than a half shekel, nor shall the poor give less.”Exodus 30:15 (BSB)

Exodus 30 gathers several pieces of the tabernacle: a gold altar where incense burns morning and evening, a bronze basin where the priests wash before serving, and a holy anointing oil and incense that must never be copied for ordinary use (30:1-10, 17-38). Woven among them is a law for the census. Whenever Israel is counted, every man twenty or older pays a half shekel to the LORD as a ransom for his life (30:12-14). The rich may not pay more and the poor may not pay less (30:15).

That last detail is striking. Here no one can buy a better standing before God, and no one is priced out. Every life needs ransoming, and the ransom is the same. Peter says the price of our redemption was not perishable money but the costly blood of Christ, offered like a spotless lamb (1 Peter 1:18-19). Each comes on the same terms, through the same ransom. So before God there is no one to look down on and no one to envy.

To think about: Is there someone you quietly look down on or envy, and how does the equal ransom change the way you see them?

About Exodus 30: The Incense Altar, Ransom, and Anointing Oil

God gives instructions for the golden altar of incense, a half-shekel ransom paid equally by rich and poor at the census, and the bronze basin for the priests' washing. He also gives the recipes for the holy anointing oil and the incense, which must not be copied for common use.

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