born sons, who were born from the time when the law was given, but all the first-born sons throughout the entire nation, should be offered to the Lord and redeemed with five shekels each, even though they were fathers or grandfathers, or even great-grandfathers, at that time. Now if the law is to be interpreted in this sense, as having a retrospective force, and applying to those who were born before it was issued, as it has been from the time of J. D. Michaelis down to that of Knobel, it is an unwarrantable liberty to restrict its application to the first-born sons, who had not yet become fathers themselves-a mere subterfuge, in fact, invented for the purpose of getting rid of the disproportion, but without answering the desired end.[1]
If we look more closely at the law, we cannot find in the words themselves “all the first-born, whatsoever
- ↑ This is evident from the different attempts which have been made to get rid of the difficulty, in accordance with this hypothesis. J. D. Michaelis thought that he could explain the disproportion from the prevalence of polygamy among the Israelites; but he has overlooked the fact, that polygamy never prevailed among the Israelites, or any other people, with anything like the universality which this would suppose. Hävernick adopted this view, but differed so far from Michaelis, that he understood by first-born only those who were so on both the father's and mother's side, - a supposition which does not remove the difficulty, but only renders it perfectly incredible. Others imagined, that only those first-born were counted who had been born as the result of marriages contracted within the last six years. Baumgarten supports this on the ground that, according to Lev 27:6, the redemption-fee for boys of this age was five shekels (Num 3:47); but this applies to vows, and proves nothing in relation to first-born, who could not have been the object of a vow (Lev 27:26). Bunsen comes to the same conclusion, on the ground that it was at this age that children were generally dedicated to Moloch (sic!). Lastly, Kurtz endeavours to solve the difficulty, first, by referring to the great fruitfulness of the Israelitish women; secondly, by excluding, (a) the first-born of the father, unless at the same time the first-born of the mother; (b) all the first-born who were fathers of families themselves; and thirdly, by observing, that in a population of 600,000 males above 20 years of age, we may assume that there would be about 200,000 under the age of fifteen. Now, if we deduct these 200,000 who were not yet fifteen, from the 600,000 who were above twenty, there would remain 400,000 married men. “In that case the total number of 22,273 first-born would yield this proportion, that there would be one first-born to nine male births. And on the ground assigned under No. 2(a), this proportion would have to be reduced one-half. So that for every family we should have, on an average, four or five sons, or nine children, - a result by no means surprising, considering the fruitfulness of Hebrew marriages.” This would be undoubtedly true, and the facit of the calculation quite correct, as 9 x 22,273 = 200,457, if only the subtraction upon which it is based were reconcilable with the rules of arithmetic, or if the reduction of 600,000 men to 400,000 could in any way be justified.
