What Does Numbers 3:47 Mean?
You shall even take five shekels apiece by the head, after the shekel of the set-apart place you shall take them, for the shekel is twenty gerahs.
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.
King James wording
King James Version
Thou shalt even take five shekels apiece by the poll, after the shekel of the sanctuary shalt thou take them: (the shekel is twenty gerahs:)THE KEY
The shekel keeps weight inside the price: five sanctuary shekels make exactly one hundred gerahs for each counted head.
THE MEANING
Each person in the counted remainder is assigned the same amount: five shekels measured by the sanctuary’s standard. Since each shekel is twenty gerahs, the amount resolves to one hundred gerahs per head.
THE ROOT
שֶׁקֶל
sheqel
GROWS FROM
ש־ק־ל
sh-q-l
to weigh
“shekel, a measured unit of weight and value” in this verse is sheqel. The English word “shekel” can sound like money alone, while its root keeps the act of weighing inside it. Here, the sanctuary standard makes the price a defined measure, and the twenty-gerah equivalence makes that measure visible.
ALSO GROWS
shaqal: to weigh
שָׁקַל
The verb names the action carried in the shekel’s root: assigning the amount begins with weighing.
mishqal: weight; a measured quantity
מִשְׁקָל
This related noun echoes the verse’s emphasis on a fixed, shared quantity rather than an unspecified price.
THE PATTERN
Redemption and belonging are expressed through an explicit price or standard of measure.
This they shall give, everyone who crosses over among those counted, half a shekel by the shekel of the set apart place, twenty gerahs to the shekel; half a shekel shall be the lifted offering for the LORD.And all your arranged worth is according to the shekel of the set-apart place; twenty gerahs make the shekel.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.THE THREAD
This they shall give, everyone who crosses over among those counted, half a shekel by the shekel of the set apart place, twenty gerahs to the shekel; half a shekel shall be the lifted offering for the LORD.Exodus uses the same shekel, שֶׁקֶל (sheqel, a weight-unit), from ש־ק־ל (sh-q-l, to weigh), and defines it as twenty gerahs. The amount differs, but the sanctuary’s measure stays fixed.
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