The Fallacy of Ownership and the Sin of Commodification

The Ownership of Human Life

There is a curious passage in 2 Samuel 24, retold in 1 Chronicles 21, wherein King David provokes God to anger by, of all things, taking a census of the Israelites (and in 2 Samuel, also the people of Judah). Why should this act incur the wrath of God, when censuses had been taken before (just read the book of Numbers) and would be taken afterwards (a couple of chapters later in 1 Chronicles, in fact) without entailing any such consequences?

One possibility, which I would imagine is the one that is usually touted, is that God did not command David to take the census; rather, it was Satan who ‘tempted’ David to do so (in 2 Samuel, most translations suggest that it was God who “incited” David to take action, but apparently this is an erroneous rendering; I’m afraid that I lack the knowledge of ancient Hebrew required for me to comment on this point). Surely, though, a given act is only sinful if it contravenes the Law of God. After all, why would Satan tempt somebody to do something, unless that thing was contrary to God’s commandments?

In fact, in Exodus 30:11-14, we find precisely such a commandment: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘When you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for his life to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them. Each one who is numbered in the census shall give this: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel as an offering to the Lord. Everyone who is numbered in the census, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the Lord's offering.’” It would appear from this passage that the sin, and the ensuing judgement of pestilence, lay in the fact that David undertook the census without imposing its attendant tax. This is undoubtedly why Joab, the commander who David ordered to carry out the census, was so hesitant to do so, and did so rather unenthusiastically, omitting the Levites and the Benjamites – he understood the grave consequences of such a crime. But why did God require this ‘census tax’, and why did David not implement it?

Fictitious Commodification

Here, I think, we arrive at the crux of the passage. In those days, one was only allowed to count what one owned. This is reflected in Jesus’ teaching that we are more valuable than sparrows because God Himself has numbered the hairs of our head (Matthew 10:29-33; Luke 12:6-7). In this light, the census tax existed as a way of acknowledging that human life belongs to God and God alone, with the king acting merely as a sort of representative; its purpose was to “bring the people of Israel to remembrance before the Lord, so as to make atonement for [their] lives” (Exodus 30:16). David, it would appear, had grown haughty as king, having just defeated the kingdoms of Ammon, Aram, Rabbah, and the Philistines, even smiting the great Philistine giants with his mighty men (1 Chronicles 19-20). As a result, he perhaps felt a sense of ownership over the kingdom, and thus reckoned that it was within his mandate to number ‘his’ people without paying the tax. In other words, he had falsely commoditised something – namely human life – which in fact was owned only by God Himself. The inevitable result was judgement, as symbolised by David’s vision of the sword-wielding angel of the Lord standing by the threshing floor of Onan (Araunah in 2 Samuel) the Jebusite, ready to destroy Jerusalem (see Micah 4:12), and as materialised in the three-day pestilence that God inflicts upon all of Israel.

In our modern, capitalist world, we have committed the same sin on an even wider scale, and to an even greater extent. We have quantified and commoditised all things sacred, even to the point of assigning a monetary value to human life. Indeed, it is surely no coincidence that in economic techniques of cost-benefit analysis, lives are valued according to their (potential) incomes. This stands in direct contravention of the stipulations of the census tax, which state that “[t]he rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when you give the Lord's offering to make atonement for your lives” (Exodus 30:15). All lives were seen as equally valuable, just as God saw them. If pestilence across an entire nation is the punishment for failing to pay the census tax, I dread to imagine what kind of judgement is commensurate with our ubiquitous, unabashed commodification of human life.

The Ultimate Atoning Sacrifice

Thankfully, there are a number of clear messianic overtones in this passage that point towards mercy, grace, and redemption. Jesus was born during a census; echoing the stipulations in Exodus, He came “as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45); He was an innocent “sheep”, as David refers to the Israelites who experience God’s judgement in 2 Samuel 24:17 and 1 Chronicles 21:17 (an interesting contrast - one innocent man taking the sins of many versus many innocent people taking the sins of one person); and mirroring the three-day judgement of pestilence, He was in the grave for three days before rising again. As if this were not already striking enough, there are a number of uncanny similarities between this passage and the episode of Abraham binding Isaac for sacrifice, which in itself is a vivid messianic picture (Genesis 22). Just as the innocent Isaac was to be slaughtered, so too the innocent Israelites were to be punished for David’s sin; and just as the angel intervened before Abraham could do the deed, so too the Lord stopped His angel from destroying Jerusalem at the last minute. The most telling detail is that, as we later dsicover in Chronicles 3:1, Onan’s threshing floor was located on Mount Moriah – the very place that Abraham offered Isaac for sacrifice!

Furthermore, when David purchases the threshing floor from Onan, we witness a ‘strange exchange’. Recognising the infinite value of the sacred, Onan offers the land to David for free, and even throws in some extras, including the threshing sledges along with the wood, the wheat, and the grain for the various offerings that David subsequently performed. The supposed ‘owner’ of the threshing floor states, “[a]ll this, O king, Araunah gives to the king” (2 Samuel 24:23), and “I give it all” (1 Chronicles 21:23). David, however, feels obligated to pay something, perhaps as a tribute to the Lord, and so offers 50 shekels of silver (in 2 Samuel) or 600 shekels of gold (in 1 Chronicles). This exchange is strange because transactions are normally negotiated in the opposite way, with the buyer and seller respectively vying for the lowest and highest possible price. Indeed, there is a sense in which the final price is more or less arbitrary, especially considering that even the currency differs between the two accounts. Surely this is points forward to the New Covenant; and perhaps it provides a model of the New Economy.

The Infinitude of the Divine

The significance of Mount Moriah is even more marked when it is chosen as the site for the Temple in the subsequent chapter of 1 Chronicles, with the construction itself beginning in 2 Chronicles 3 under the reign of Solomon. In fact, the tax was originally used to pay for “the service of the tent of meeting” (Exodus 30:16), and the stipulations for the tax are outlined smack in the middle of the stipulations regarding the Temple. The construction of the Temple on the site of the threshing floor is an interesting juxtaposition of judgement and blessing; indeed, the threshing floor is often portrayed as a place not only of the former, but also the latter (Numbers 18:30; Joel 2:24). It is almost as if God’s presence could not be established until a sort of purification had taken place.

What is peculiar, however, is that, as we know from numerous passages, the measurements of the Temple were comprehensively quantified; there are chapters and chapters in Exodus, for example, meticulously outlining the specifications of the Tabernacle, which are reflected in the specifications of the Temple outlined in, for example, 2 Chronicles 3 and 4. At the same time, the building of the Temple involved seemingly unquantifiable amounts of resources; in 1 Chronicles 22, we are told of “great quantities of iron for nails for the doors of the gates and for clamps, as well as bronze in quantities beyond weighing, and cedar timbers without number”, as well as “craftsmen without number”. The Temple is the place of meeting between God and man, divine and worldly, sacred and profane, temporal and eternal, numerical and infinite.

After it has been decided that the Temple will be built, eventually permitting the return of the Ark of the Covenant and the re-establishment of God's presence as King of Israel, we witness a change in David’s attitude. Although the various categories of people (stewards, musicians, builders, etc.) are still referred to as David's “property” (1 Chronicles 27:31), in his final public prayer as king David himself avers, “O Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own” (1 Chronicles 29:16, emphasis added). Furthermore, now that God is acknowledged  the “own”-er, quantification serves to glorify Him rather than to glorify His earthly representative: vast censuses are taken of the people without incurring any punishment; indeed, wrath comes upon Israel because Joab does not fully complete the census (1 Chronicles 27:24). Note that Joab also failed to complete the first census that David ordered, but in that case, his refusal may well have averted rather than invited further judgement.

Just as it was Solomon, of whom it was prophesied “Behold, a son shall be born to you who shall be a man of rest” (1 Chronicles 22:9) who built the Temple, so it was Christ, the Son of God and the Man of Rest who has rebuilt the Temple and reclaimed the Kingdom, which now resides within and between us. As ‘walking temples’, we know that our lives are not our own; they were bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). With His own life, Christ has paid the ultimate atonement, the ultimate ransom, the ultimate tax for our lives. In response, we should “give it all to the king”, just as Onan did, including our own lives, as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1); for in doing so, we live in the New Covenant. One day, when Christ returns, the world will be judged on the threshing floor once again, with the wheat separated from the chaff (Matthew 3:11, Luke 3:17). Just as the Temple was built on the site of Onan's threshing floor, from this judgement will descend a New Jerusalem, defined according to the same measurements but with Christ Himself is the Temple (Revelation 21).