Topic
Assessor
11 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- 1 Samuel 8:15–17ISBE
And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take…
- 1 Samuel 17:25ISBE
And the men of Israel said, Have ye seen this man that is come up? surely to defy Israel is he come up: and it shall be, that the man who killeth him, the king will enrich him with great riches, and will give him his daughter, and make his father’s house…
- 2 Kings 23:35ISBE
And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh; but he taxed the land to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh: he exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of every one according to his taxation, to give it unto…
- Isaiah 5:8ISBE
¶ Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!
- Isaiah 22:15ISBE
¶ Thus saith the Lord GOD of hosts, Go, get thee unto this treasurer, even unto Shebna, which is over the house, and say,
- Isaiah 36:3ISBE
Then came forth unto him Eliakim, Hilkiah’s son, which was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, Asaph’s son, the recorder.
- Isaiah 36:22ISBE
¶ Then came Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, that was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.
- Jeremiah 5:28ISBE
They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge.
- Amos 2:6ISBE
¶ Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes;
- Amos 2:7ISBE
That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name:
- Micah 3:11ISBE
The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 11 references
a-ses'-er: Lit. one who sits by another, an assistant; among the ancients especially an assistant to the king (compare "The assessor of his throne," Dryden, Milton's P.L., Book vi), or to the judge (see Dryden, Virgil's Aeneid, vi.583). Later it came to mean one who assesses people or property for purposes of taxation.
(1) Royal officials in Israel have the general title sarim, "princes," and this general title included the officer who was "over the tribute," who seems to have had charge of the assessment, as well as the collection of taxes. In the days of the later monarchy "the governor of the royal household," "the royal steward and high chamberlain," seems to have held some such important position (Isa 22:15; 36:3,22).
(2) The early kings do not seem to have subjected the people to heavy taxes, but we find much in the prophets about the injustice and extortion practiced by these officials on the poor of the land (compare Am 2:6,7; Isa 5:8; Jer 5:28; Mic 3:11). Special taxes seem to have been imposed to meet emergencies (compare 2Ki 23:35), but it is not clear that anything of the nature of a regular land tax, or property tax, existed in early times; though something of the kind may be referred to in the reward promised by Saul to the slayer of Goliath (1Sa 17:25) and the tenth mentioned in 1Sa 8:15-17. The kings of Judah, it would seem, made free use of the temple treasures.
(3) Later the Roman government "farmed out" the taxes of the provinces. The publicans, or tax-gatherers of the Gospels, seem to have been agents of the imperial procurator of Judea, instead of direct agents of the great Roman financial companies, who ordinarily let out the business of the collection of the taxes to officers of their own.
During the Empire there was ample imperial machinery provided for the regular collection of the taxes, and the emperor appointed a procurator in each province whose business it was to supervise the collection of revenue. Some Jews found the business profitable, but these were objects of detestation to their countrymen. See PUBLICAN.
George B. Eager
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.