Numbers 3:47

47. Shekel of the sanctuary Or, sacred shekel. Shekel signifies, in the Hebrew, weight in the abstract. But weights soon pass over into a designation of coins, as the English pound. There are in the Old Testament three shekels mentioned the ordinary shekel, the shekel of the sanctuary, and the shekel after the king’s weight. 2 Samuel 14:26. It is impossible to show the exact difference between these. According to the best authorities, the shekel was equal to three English shillings, or seventy-four cents. But if we follow the Septuagint, which translates it by διδραχμον , it equals in English currency one shilling seven pence half penny, or thirty-nine cents. In such case all our estimates of weight and value must be proportionally decreased. The latest conclusions, in Smith’s Dictionary, make the silver shekel equal to two hundred and twenty grains, or 220/417 of the Federal dollar, about fifty-three cents. In the sanctuary were kept the standard weights and measures; hence, “the balances of the sanctuary.”

The Jew’s religion touched his ordinary life at every point, as Christianity should its professors.

Twenty gerahs Gerah is Hebrew, meaning berry, or grain, possibly the seed of the carob-tree. The Mosaic gerah, which is equal to thirteen and seven tenths Paris grains, is equal to four or five beans of the carob, and, according to the Rabbies, to sixteen grains of barley.