tax

Distinctions

mas (מס)

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim gives three possible derivations. In Yerios Shlomo, from the single letter samech, rejection and disassociation (whence nas, fleeing, and ma'us, repulsive): paying a tax is disassociating oneself from that money and handing it 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 carries.

The usage that matters for translation: mas very often means forced labor rather than money. The Egyptian taskmasters set over Yisrael are sarei missim (Shemos 1:11), and Shlomo HaMelech's conscription of civilians is called a mas (Melachim I 5:27).

meches (מכס)

Six appearances in Tanach, all in one chapter (Bamidbar 31:28-41), of the consecrated share of the Midianite spoils given to Hashem. Menachem Ibn Saruk gives the root as כ-ס; Rabbi Yehuda ibn Chayyuj, Rabbeinu Yonah ibn Janach and Radak give כ-ס-ס. Either way the sense is number, and a rate is a matter of numbers, which is how the word came to mean a tax. These grammarians cite michsas (Shemos 12:4), the count of people joined on one korban Pesach, as proof that the root means number.

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim accepts the root כ-ס but not the meaning: its core sense is covering. Kis, a pocket, is a covered space for small items such as coins; so a meches is specifically the tax that ends up in the king's purse, as against taxes spent on public works, and in Bamidbar 31 that King is Hashem. On michsas he says the borrowing is the other way: several people pooling their money into one pocket for the korban.

the Aramaic terms in Tanach

Koresh exempted the Anshei Knesses HaGedolah from mindah, belo and halach (Ezra 7:24). Rabbi Baruch Avraham Toledano: mindah is from middah, measure, a fee assessed on the size of one's property; belo is an expression of wearing out, and refers to food, which is consumed and used up; halach is from holech, going, a tax for the upkeep of roads and bridges. Bava Basra 8a and Nedarim 62b give a different set: mindah is menas hamelech, the king's portion (which lines up with Pappenheim's meches, the tax for the king's own purse); belo is gulgalta money; halach is arnona.

the Aramaic terms in Chazal

Karga (from Persian and Arabic) is a poll tax, a fixed sum owed by each person (Rashi to Bava Metzia 73b); the Gemara treats gulgalta as the same thing, and gulgalta is simply the Hebrew gulgoles, skull, since the tax is by the head. Arnona is a crop tax: Rashi (Pesachim 6a, Bava Basra 8a) has it as a tenth of one's animals and grain each year. Rabbi Nosson of Rome (Sefer HaAruch) reads it instead as the meal each city had to supply to the king or his army when they passed through, which fits halach, going; Rabbeinu Nissim (Nedarim 62b) supports this two ways, that arnona is Greek for a meal, and that it means partnership, as the Arnon river was the boundary joining Moav and Emori territory (Bamidbar 21:13). Maharam Chalavah and Meiri (Pesachim 6a) cite both. Taska is a property tax (Rashi to Gittin 58b, Bava Metzia 73b and 108a); elsewhere the same word is a sack (Rashi to Megillah 7b) or a basket (Tosafos to Avodah Zarah 14b), so the tax sense looks borrowed.

In modern Hebrew the words have shifted: mas is the generic word for tax, meches means customs duty, and arnona has been reassigned to property tax in place of taska.

Rendering guidance

• Shemos 1:11, sarei missim: "taskmasters" or "officers over the forced labor," never "tax officers." Melachim I 5:27 likewise, "levy" in the sense of conscription.
• Bamidbar 31:28, vaharemosa meches laHashem: "you shall raise up a levy for Hashem" or "a tribute." "Tax" imports a fiscal register that does not belong to a division of spoils consecrated to Hashem.
• Trap: English "tax" will absorb mas, meches and all six Aramaic terms at once, and it will hide the fact that mas is frequently labor. Decide first whether the passage means money or men.
• Trap: "levy" is a good rendering for both mas (a levy of men) and meches (a levy off a total). If both words appear in one discussion, keep "levy" for one only and choose "tribute" or "conscription" for the other.
• The Aramaic terms of Ezra 7:24 and the sugya in Bava Basra 8a: transliterate and gloss on first use, and name the reading you are following, since the Gemara and Rabbi Toledano do not divide them the same way.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Heavy Taxes and Empty Pockets," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 24 Tammuz 5779 (2019-07-27): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8339-heavy-taxes-and-empty-pockets.md. Primary loci cited: Shemos 1:11, 12:4; Melachim I 5:27; Bamidbar 21:13, 31:28-41; Ezra 7:24; Bava Basra 8a; Nedarim 62b; Bava Metzia 73b, 108a; Pesachim 6a; Gittin 58b; Megillah 7b; Tosafos to Avodah Zarah 14b. The article also cites an academic Akkadian derivation of meches, a Latin derivation of arnona from Roman practice, and an English dictionary; all are omitted here (house rule 9), and the Hebrew derivations of the rishonim and Rabbi Pappenheim are given in their place.