society
tax
At a glance
In short
Mas is the word typically translated tax, and in Modern Hebrew it is the generic word. Some scholars argue, however, that a more accurate translation is corvée work, compulsory unpaid labor imposed by a sovereign, and the Bible bears that meaning out in several places: the sarei missim over the Jews in Mitzrayim, and Shlomo HaMelech's conscription. Meches is the other Biblical Hebrew word that sometimes means tax. It appears six times in that sense, all in Bamidbar 31, for the consecrated share of the Midianite booty given to Hashem. Its origin is disputed three ways. Dr. Chaim Tawil takes it as a loanword from an Akkadian word for dues or tributes. Menachem Ibn Saruk, Chayyuj, Ibn Janach and Radak find a Hebrew root meaning number. For Rabbi Pappenheim that root means covering, as in kis, a pocket, so meches is the tax that goes into the king's own purse. The Aramaic terms are technical, and the Gemara equates several of them (belo is gulgalta, which is karga; halach is arnona).
Distinctions
Mas (מס)
Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim of Breslau (1740 to 1814) offers three possible etymologies.
- In Yerios Shlomo, from the single letter samech, rejection and disassociation (whence nas, fleeing, and ma'us, disgusting): paying a tax is disassociating oneself from that money and handing it over to the authorities.
- In Cheshek Shlomo, from מ-ס, melting or disintegrating: taxes melt a man's assets away.
- Also in Cheshek Shlomo, from ש-א, carrying or lifting: a tax is a burden one must carry.
Rabbi Klein adds that the Oxford English Dictionary gives the English noun tax two definitions, "a compulsory contribution to state revenue" and "a strain or heavy demand"; if Rabbi Pappenheim is correct, the second meaning is actually the basis for the first.
Although mas is typically translated "tax," some scholars argue that a more accurate translation would be "corvée work," a system of compulsory, unpaid labor or civil service imposed by a sovereign, and that meaning is borne out by the Bible in several places. The Egyptian taskmasters set over the enslaved Jews are sarei missim (Shemos 1:11), and Shlomo HaMelech's mandatory conscription of civilians is called a mas (Melachim I 5:27).
Shadal (to Shemos 1:11): mas is from נ-ש-א, a burden the taxpayer carries, or because those charged with the tax are lifted up from the rest of the people. He cites his son Filosseno that Italian leva, related to English levy, also means to lift and is used of taxes.
Meches (מכס)
Six appearances in Tanach in the sense of tax, all in one chapter (Bamidbar 31:28-41), of the consecrated booty from the war against Midian, to be given to Hashem.
Dr. Chaim Tawil of Yeshiva University argues that the Biblical meches is a loanword from the Akkadian miksu ("dues" or "tributes"), from the Akkadian verb makasu ("to collect a share from a rented field, to collect taxes, duty"). Others, however, have found a Hebrew basis for the word.
- Menachem Ibn Saruk (920 to 970) gives the root as כ-ס.
- Rabbi Yehuda Ibn Chayyuj, Rabbi Yonah Ibn Janach (990 to 1050) and Radak (1160 to 1235) give כ-ס-ס.
Either way these roots mean number. This explains how meches was borrowed to mean a tax, since a rate is usually a function of numbers. The grammarians point to michsas (Shemos 12:4), the number of people collectively offering a single korban Pesach, as evidence that the root means number.
Rabbi Pappenheim agrees that the root is כ-ס but argues that its core meaning is not number but covering. Kis, a pocket, is a covered space into which one puts small items such as coins so as not to lose them; so meches is specifically the tax that ends up in the king's pocket or purse, as against other taxes used for public works. For the Jewish People that King is Hashem, to whom the meches is given. Michsas he calls merely a borrowed usage as well: it refers to several people pooling their money into a single pot or "pocket" to buy the korban.
The Aramaic terms in Tanach
The exemption in Ezra 7:24 releases its beneficiaries from mindah, belo and halach, all Aramaic words.
- Rabbi Baruch Avraham Toledano (1825 to 1917): mindah is related to middah, measure, the fee imposed as a function of the measurement of one's property; belo is an expression of wearing out and refers to food, which is digested and "worn out"; halach is related to holech, walking or travelling, taxes for the upkeep of roads, bridges and the like.
- Bava Basra 8a and Nedarim 62b give a different set: mindah is menas hamelech, the king's portion; belo is gulgalta money; halach is arnona.
Rabbi Klein remarks that the Gemara's mindah seems to be the Aramaic equivalent of meches as Rabbi Pappenheim explains it, a tax for the king's personal profit.
The Aramaic terms in Chazal
Karga, from the Persian karaka and/or the Arabic harag, is a poll tax or head tax, a fixed sum each individual was obligated to pay (see Rashi to Bava Metzia 73b). As the Gemara's ensuing discussion shows, gulgalta means the same thing, and gulgalta is an Aramaicization of the Hebrew gulgoles, skull, since the tax fell on each head.
- Arnona is a crop tax levied on farmers: Rashi (Pesachim 6a, Bava Basra 8a) has it as a tenth of one's animals and grain every year.
- Rabbi Klein adds that historians record a tax in the Roman Empire called annona, used to supply grain and other foodstuffs to the city of Rome, and named from the Latin annus, year (whence English annual), because it was calculated from the sum total of the year's harvests.
- Others say arnona comes from annona, which is cognate with English annual, as it was a yearly tax.
- Alternatively, Rabbi Nosson of Rome (Sefer HeAruch) explains arnona as the meal each city had to supply to the king or army travelling through it (Rabbi Klein glosses the travelling as halach, going). Rabbeinu Nissim (Nedarim 62b) offers two ways of fitting that explanation to the word: arnona is Greek for a meal; or it means partnership, as the Arnon river was the border between Moav and the Emori (Bamidbar 21:13), in effect joining the two territories. Maharam Chalavah and Meiri (to Pesachim 6a) also cite these two explanations.
Taska is a property tax (see Rashi to Gittin 58b, Bava Metzia 73b and 108a). Elsewhere the word means a sack (Rashi to Megillah 7b) or a basket (Tosafos to Avodah Zarah 14b), so it seems that the tax sense is simply a borrowed meaning.
In Modern Hebrew the words have shifted: mas is the generic word for tax, meches means customs duty, and arnona has been redefined as property tax in place of taska.
Also discussed in
- Propertyמכס / meches
Radak on this root
Sefer HaShorashim
כ-ס-ס
Number: תָּכֹסּוּ עַל־הַשֶּֽׂה, you shall make your count for the lamb; and the מֶכֶס, the tax, is named for number, being taken by count.
The word is number
תָּכֹסּוּ עַל־הַשֶּֽׂה (Shemos 12:4), you shall make your count for the lamb, and in the same pasuk בְּמִכְסַת נְפָשֹׁת, by the number of souls; אֵת מִכְסַת הָֽעֶרְכְּךָ (Vayikra 27:23), the count of your valuation; and on another pattern וַיְהִי הַמֶּכֶס (Bamidbar 31:37), and the tax was. All of them are ענין מנין, a sense of number.
Why the tax is called מֶכֶס
The tax is named for number, because those who take the tax take by number from the one who passes them, a fifth or a sixth or a tenth, according to the law and the custom.
The mem becomes a root letter
Chazal used the word so much, as in היה עובר על בית המכס (Kilayim 9:3), one who was passing by the tax house, that they fixed the mem as a root letter and called the collectors מוכסים: אין פורטין מתיבת המוכסים (Bava Kamma 113a), one does not change money out of the collectors' chest. So too they fixed the tav of תְּחִלָּה, a beginning, and said מַתְחִיל, he begins, and the tav of תְּרוּמָה, terumah, and said תּוֹרֵם, he separates terumah.
תָּכֹסּוּ עַל־הַשֶּֽׂה (שמות יב, ד). והשם בְּמִכְסַת נְפָשֹׁת (שם), אֵת מִכְסַת הָֽעֶרְכְּךָ (ויקרא כז, כג). ומשקל אחר וַיְהִי הַמֶּכֶס לַֽי"י (במדבר לא, לז), כלם ענין מנין. ונקרא המכס על שם מנין, לפי שדרך לוקחי המכס לקחת במנין מן העובר עליהם חמישית או ששית או עשירית לפי החוק והמנהג. ורבותינו ז"ל נשתמשו הרבה בלשון מכס באמרם היה עובר על בית המכס וזולת זה הרבה (כלאים פרק ט, משנה ג) עד שמרוב שימושם בו קבעו המ"ם שרשית וקראו ללוקחי המכס מוכסים באמרם (בבא קמא קיג, ע"א) אין פורטין מתיבת המוכסים, כמו שקבעו תי"ו תְּחִלָּה ואמרו מַתְחִיל, מַתְחִילִין, ותי"ו תְּרוּמָה ואמרו תּוֹרֵם, תּוֹרְמִין.
Radak, Sefer HaShorashim, Berlin 1847. Public domain, digitised by Sefaria from the National Library of Israel.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Heavy Taxes and Empty Pockets," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 27 July 2019.
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Heavy Taxes and Empty Pockets," What's in a Word? Synonyms in the Hebrew Language (book manuscript).
Cited in the essay: Shemos 1:11, 12:4; Bamidbar 21:13, 31:28-41; Melachim I 5:27; Ezra 7:24; Pesachim 6a; Megillah 7b; Nedarim 62b; Gittin 58b; Bava Metzia 73b, 108a; Bava Basra 8a; Rashi to Pesachim 6a, Megillah 7b, Gittin 58b, Bava Metzia 73b and 108a, and Bava Basra 8a; Tosafos to Avodah Zarah 14b; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, Yerios Shlomo and Cheshek Shlomo; Dr. Chaim Tawil; Menachem Ibn Saruk; Rabbi Yehuda Ibn Chayyuj; Rabbi Yonah Ibn Janach; Radak; Rabbi Baruch Avraham Toledano; Rabbi Nosson of Rome, Sefer HeAruch; Rabbeinu Nissim to Nedarim 62b; Maharam Chalavah and Meiri to Pesachim 6a; the Oxford English Dictionary; Shadal to Shemos 1:11.