Discovery BoxExodus 30:2 
Context30:2 Its length is to be a foot and a half 1 and its width a foot and a half; it will be square. Its height is to be three feet, 2 with its horns of one piece with it. 3
Exodus 30:13
Context30:13 Everyone who crosses over to those who are numbered 4 is to pay this: a half shekel 5 according to the shekel of the sanctuary 6 (a shekel weighs twenty gerahs). The half shekel is to be an offering 7 to the Lord.
Exodus 30:23
Context30:23 “Take 8 choice spices: 9 twelve and a half pounds 10 of free-flowing myrrh, 11 half that – about six and a quarter pounds – of sweet-smelling cinnamon, six and a quarter pounds of sweet-smelling cane,
Exodus 37:25
Context37:25 He made the incense altar of acacia wood. Its length was a foot and a half and its width a foot and a half – a square – and its height was three feet. Its horns were of one piece with it. 12
1 tn Heb “a cubit.”
2 tn Heb “two cubits.”
3 tn Heb “its horns from it.”
4 sn Each man was to pass in front of the counting officer and join those already counted on the other side.
5 sn The half shekel weight of silver would be about one-fifth of an ounce (6 grams).
6 sn It appears that some standard is in view for the amount of a shekel weight. The sanctuary shekel is sometimes considered to be twice the value of the ordinary shekel. The “gerah,” also of uncertain meaning, was mentioned as a reference point for the ancient reader to understand the value of the required payment. It may also be that the expression meant “a sacred shekel” and looked at the purpose more – a shekel for sanctuary dues. This would mean that the standard of the shekel weight was set because it was the traditional amount of sacred dues (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 333). “Though there is no certainty, the shekel is said to weigh about 11,5 grams…Whether an official standard is meant [by ‘sanctuary shekel’] or whether the sanctuary shekel had a different weight than the ‘ordinary’ shekel is not known” (C. Houtman, Exodus, 3:181).
7 tn Or “contribution” (תְּרוּמָה, tÿrumah).
8 tn The construction uses the imperative “take,” but before it is the independent pronoun to add emphasis to it. After the imperative is the ethical dative (lit. “to you”) to stress the task to Moses as a personal responsibility: “and you, take to yourself.”
9 tn Heb “spices head.” This must mean the chief spices, or perhaps the top spice, meaning fine spices or choice spices. See Song 4:14; Ezek 27:22.
10 tn Or “500 shekels.” Verse 24 specifies that the sanctuary shekel was the unit for weighing the spices. The total of 1500 shekels for the four spices is estimated at between 77 and 100 pounds, or 17 to 22 kilograms, depending on how much a shekel weighed (C. Houtman, Exodus, 3:576).
11 sn Myrrh is an aromatic substance that flows from the bark of certain trees in Arabia and Africa and then hardens. “The hardened globules of the gum appear also to have been ground into a powder that would have been easy to store and would have been poured from a container” (J. Durham, Exodus [WBC], 3:406).
12 tn Heb “from it were its horns,” meaning that they were made from the same piece.
