the firstlings of the flock, the tithes of the cattle, and the first shearings of
the sheep. I would give these to the priests, the sons of Aaron, at the altar;
likewise the tenth of the grain, wine, olive oil, pomegranates, figs, and the
rest of the fruits to the sons of Levi who ministered at Jerusalem.”
In addition to these means of support for the clergy, the sources dis-
close other revenues. First, several foreign monarchs who ruled Judea
made contributions to the Temple. This is attested for three Persian kings
(Ezra 6:1-5 [Cyrus], 8-10 [Darius I]; 7:15-23 [Artaxerxes I]) and for the
Seleucid rulers Antiochus III (Josephus,Ant.12.138-44) and Seleucus IV
(2 Macc. 3:2-3; cf. 1 Macc. 10:40). The passage from 2 Maccabees claims: “it
came about that the kings themselves honored the place and glorified the
temple with the finest presents, even to the extent that King Seleucus of
Asia defrayed from his own revenues all the expenses connected with the
service of the sacrifices.” Ezekiel had envisaged that the prince in Jerusalem
would pay for the sacrifices on holidays and Sabbaths (45:17; see also 45:22–
46:15), but in reality it was foreign rulers who did so. Second, the Jewish
populace worldwide supported the Temple through a tax. Exodus 30:11-16
records an imposition of one-half shekel that each Israelite male twenty
years of age and above was to pay as an atonement; YHWH ordered Moses:
“You shall take the atonement money from the Israelites and shall desig-
nate it for the service of the tent of meeting” (30:16; 38:25-28, where it is ap-
parently for construction of the tabernacle; see also 2 Chron. 24:4-14;
Josephus,Ant.3.194-96). Exodus attaches the payment to a census Moses
was to take and does not say how often the Israelites were supposed to pay
it. In the time of Nehemiah the people not only pledged to bring wood for
the offerings at the Temple, the firsts of the crops and herds, and the tithes
(10:34-39), but also obligated themselves to pay an annual tax of one-third
of a shekel “for the service of the house of our God: for the rows of bread,
the regular grain offering, the regular burnt offering, the Sabbaths, the new
moons, the appointed festivals, the sacred donations, and the sin offerings
to make atonement for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our
God” (Neh. 10:32-33). The reader does not learn why the amount of this
levy differed from the one in Exodus 30, but later one finds references in
the sources to an annual half-shekel payment (see Matt. 17:24-27;m. Šeqal.
4:1-5) — one that Josephus mentions several times and indicates that it ap-
plied to Jews in the Diaspora as well as those in the land (Ag. Ap.2.77;Ant.
16.163; 18.312-13 [Babylon]; see Philo,Spec.1.76-78). After Jerusalem was de-
stroyed in 70c.e., the Romans redirected the tax monies to the temple of
Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome (J.W.7.218). It is interesting that a text from74james c. vanderkamEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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