Comentário sobre Números 3:47

ולקחת חמשת חמשת שקלים, "You shall take 5 shekels apiece, etc." Why did the Torah commence this verse with the conjunctive letter ו before the word לקחת seeing it is part and parcel of the legislation commencing in verse 46 about the redemption of the extra 273 firstborn for whom no equivalent Levites could be found? Perhaps the letter ו alludes to the fact that the money redeeming these 273 people was to come out of the pockets of the firstborn and not out of the pockets of the Levites. You could have reasoned that the process of redemption would be parallel to the redemption of the animals of the Levites when the money for the redemption had to be paid by the Levites. It would have been logical to conclude that the Levites had to pay. To disabuse us of such thinking the Torah had to write מבכור בני ישראל, "from the firstborn of the Israelites" (at the end of verse 46). The Torah spells this out when it came to the actual carrying out of these instructions in verse 50. The Torah describes Moses as taking the redemption money from the firstborn, not from the Levites. In our verse the additional information is the amount of the redemption money per person, i.e. 5 shekels each. The letter ו means that we are dealing with a second commandment. The Torah repeats the word תקח to tell us there is a third commandment i.e. that the five shekels are "holy shekels" worth 20 geyrah each. Every detail mentioned here was an essential part of the procedure.

VV. 47 u. 48. ולקחת וגו׳. Es ist dies die Weise und Summe, die Kap. 18, 16 allgemein für die bereits (Schmot 13, 13) angeordnete Auslösung der Erstgeborenen bestimmt ist. Die Summe entspricht dem mit zurückgelegtem ersten Monat beginnenden ersten ערך eines Knaben (siehe Wajikra Kap. 27, 6). Für jeden der anderen Erstgeborenen war ein Levite dem כהן "gegeben" worden (siehe V. 9). Für diejenigen, für welche die Anzahl der Leviten nicht ausreichte, ward der symbolische Ausdruck des ideellen Wertes einer jungen männlichen Persönlichkeit in ihrer Beziehung zum Heiligtum, ערך, dem כהן gegeben.

ולקחת חמשת חמשת שקלים לגלגלת, “you will take five shekels apiece pr head;” this would be the method by which a census of the Jewish people would be performed also in future generations whenever the need for this arose. If you were to ask why the Levites did not redeem their respective first male children, as did the members of the other tribes, the answer is that all the Levites throughout the generations were descendants of the Levites of this generation who had not become contaminated at the time of the golden calf, so that no residue of that sin cleaved to them, as opposed to the descendants of the other tribes. The firstborn males of the other tribes, are not necessarily descendants of the firstborn who had once been redeemed, so that to be on the safe side all have to be redeemed.

חמשת חמשת שקלים לגלגלת, “five shekel apiece per head count;” this was the standard amount for redeeming firstborns.