Hence the necessity for the general temple-tax, the
prototype of which is found in the poll-tax of half a shekel for
the service of the tabernacle in Exodus xxx. 11 seq. Prior to the
exile, the regular sacrifice was paid for by the Kings of Judah,
and in Ezekiel the monarch still continues to defray the expenses
not only of the Sabbath day and festival sacrifices (xiv. 17
seq.), but also of the _tamid_ (xlvi. 13-15). /1/
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1. Compare LXX*. The Massoretic text has corrected the third person
(referring to the princes) into the second, making it an address
to the priests, which, however, is quite impossible in Ezekiel.
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It is also a mark of the date that, according to Exodus xxx.,
the expenses of the temple worship are met directly out of the poll-tax
levied from the community, which can only be explained by the fact
that at that time there had ceased to be any sovereign. So completely
was the sacrifice the affair of the community in Judaism that
the voluntary _qorban_ of the individual became metamorphosed
into a money payment as a contribution to the cost of the public
worship (Mark vii.
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