What Does Leviticus 27:4 Mean?

And if it is a female, then your arranged worth is thirty shekels.

Leviticus 27:4 · SDV

Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.

Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels.

THE KEY

The verse names a female’s valuation as thirty shekels, and its Hebrew word for valuation carries the sense of setting something into an ordered measure.

THE MEANING

The verse states a female’s formal valuation as thirty shekels. Its blunt, counted amount puts the act of assigning value directly before you.

THE ROOT

עֶרְכְּךָ

ʿerkekha

GROWS FROM

ע־ר־ךְ

ʿ-r-k

Arrange, set in order; by extension, establish a valuation.

“arranged worth” in this verse is ʿerkekha. English “estimation” can sound like a private opinion. The root carries the sense of arranging and setting something in order, so the verse presents a fixed, structured valuation: thirty shekels.

ALSO GROWS

ʿārakh: Arrange; set in order.

עָרַךְ

This verb shows the ordering sense beneath the valuation: the amount is formally set, not left vague.

maʿărākhāh: An array; an ordered formation.

מַעֲרָכָה

The same root describes something laid out in an arrangement, echoing the verse’s fixed, countable measure.

שֶׁקֶל

sheqel

GROWS FROM

ש־ק־ל

sh-q-l

Weigh.

“shekels” in this verse is sheqel. A shekel is a unit of weight, from ⁨שָׁקַל⁩ (shaqal), “to weigh.” The verse’s amount therefore carries the physical sense of measured weight as well as monetary value.

ALSO GROWS

shaqal: Weigh.

שָׁקַל

Job uses this verb when he asks to be weighed, revealing the action within the word for shekel.

mishqal: Weight; a measure of weight.

מִשְׁקָל

This related noun names weight itself, reinforcing that the verse gives its valuation in a tangible measure.

THE PATTERN

Scripture makes assigned valuation visible by naming a concrete price or weight.

And your arranged worth for the male, from twenty years old to sixty years old, is fifty shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the set-apart place.

Leviticus 27:3 · SDVThe preceding verse gives another fixed valuation, making the assigned amounts explicit.

Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins, and not one of them slips from God's sight?

Luke 12:6 · SDVThe verse names a market price, then says that price does not mean a sparrow is forgotten.

For you were bought in the marketplace for a price; so give weight to God in your body, and in your breath, which are God's.

1 Corinthians 6:20 · SDVThe verse makes a price the stated measure through which a claim of belonging is expressed.

THE THREAD

Let him weigh me on the scales of alignment, and let God know my wholeness.

Job 31:6 · SDV

⁨שֶׁקֶל⁩ (sheqel, “a shekel, a weight”) belongs to ⁨שָׁקַל⁩ (shaqal, “to weigh”), the root behind Job’s ⁨יִשְׁקְלֵנִי⁩ (yishqelēnî, “let him weigh me”). That shared root makes the thirty shekels a tangible measure of weight as well as a monetary valuation.

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