Numbers 3:47

47 you will receive five shekels a person, in the sanctuary shekel; you will collect twenty gerahs [per] shekel.

Numbers 3:47 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 3:47

Thou shall even take five shekels apiece the poll
Or head; every firstborn, or his parent for him, was bound to pay five shekels, which were about eleven or twelve shillings of our money, and which was afterwards settled as the price of such a redemption, ( Numbers 18:16 ) ;

after the shekel of the sanctuary shall thou take [them];
being full weight according to the standard there kept:

the shekel [is] twenty gerahs; (See Gill on Leviticus 27:25).

Numbers 3:47 In-Context

45 "Receive the Levites in the place of all [the] firstborn among the {Israelites}, and the animals of the Levites in the place of their animals; the Levites will be mine. I [am] Yahweh.

46 And the ransom of the two hundred and seventy-three of the firstborn of the {Israelites} who are excessive over the Levites,

47 you will receive five shekels a person, in the sanctuary shekel; you will collect twenty gerahs [per] shekel.

48 You will give the money to Aaron, and to his sons the ransom of the ones who are excessive among them."

49 And Moses received the money of the redemption from the ones who were excessive from those redeemed of the Levites.

Footnotes

• [a] Hebrew "gerah"