And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying,
And the Lord said to Moses,
And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
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.
30:11 Perhaps the repetition of those words, the Lord spake unto Moses, here and afterwards, Exodus 30:17 ,22,34, 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.