Numbers 1 · a question people ask
Was the half shekel of Exodus paid at this census?
Numbers 1 doesn't mention it. Exodus had said, "When you take a census of the children of Israel… each man shall give a ransom for his soul to the LORD when you count them, that there be no plague among them when you count them" (Exodus 30:12), half a shekel from "Everyone who passes over to those who are counted, from twenty years old and upward" (Exodus 30:14). Exodus 38 records the silver given "for everyone who passed over to those who were counted, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred three thousand five hundred fifty men" (Exodus 38:26), the same total as here (1:46). Neither book says whether the silver was collected at this count, or how the two accounts relate.
The verses
““When you take a census of the children of Israel, according to those who are counted among them, then each man shall give a ransom for his soul to the LORD when you count them, that there be no plague among them when you count them. They shall give this, everyone who passes over to those who are counted, half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs); half a shekel for an offering to the LORD. Everyone who passes over to those who are counted, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the offering to the LORD.”
“a beka a head, that is, half a shekel, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, for everyone who passed over to those who were counted, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred three thousand five hundred fifty men.”
“all those who were counted were six hundred three thousand five hundred fifty.”