¹ tn Heb “20 shekels, 25 shekels, 15 shekels.”

² tn Heb “shekels.”

¹ tn Heb “five shekels silver.”

⁴ tn Heb “them,” referring to the five shekels.

¹ tn Here the word “shekels” is understood; about 45 pounds.

² tn The idea is expressed simply by repetition: “take five, five, shekels according to the skull.” They were to collect five shekels for each individual.

¹ sn The total shekels would have been 212,400 shekels, which would be about 108,749 oz. This would make about 2.5 to 3 tons.

¹ tn Heb “I weighed out the money [more literally, “silver”] for him, seventeen shekels of silver.”

³ sn 300 bronze shekels would have weighed about 7.5 pounds (3.4 kg).

² tn Heb “two hundred shekels.” The modern equivalent would be about three pounds (1.4 kg).

¹ sn A quarter shekel of silver would weigh about a tenth of an ounce (about 3 grams).

² tn Heb “seed of a homer of barley in 50 shekels of silver.”

³ 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).

³ 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).

² sn A shekel was a unit for measure by means of a scale. Both the weight and the value of a shekel of silver are hard to determine. “Though there is no certainty, the shekel is said to weigh about 11,5 grams” (C. Houtman, Exodus, 3:181). Over 400 years earlier, Joseph was sold into Egypt for 20 shekels. The free Israelite citizen was worth about 50 shekels (Lev 27:3f.).

¹ tn Heb “50 shekels of silver.” This would have been about 20 ounces (568 grams) of silver by weight.

² tn Heb “10 [shekels] of silver.” This would have been about 4 ounces (114 grams) of silver by weight.

¹ sn 1,700 gold shekels would be about 42.7 pounds (19.4 kilograms) of gold.

³ sn There were 3000 shekels in a talent, and so the total weight here in shekels would be 87,730 shekels of gold. If the sanctuary shekel was 224 grs., then this was about 40,940 oz. troy. This is estimated to be a little over a ton (cf. NCV “over 2,000 pounds”; TEV “a thousand kilogrammes”; CEV “two thousand two hundred nine pounds”; NLT “about 2,200 pounds”), although other widely diverging estimates are also given.

² sn The half shekel weight of silver would be about one-fifth of an ounce (6 grams).