Numbers 3:47

Summary

The verse specifies the redemption payment owed for each surplus firstborn Israelite (following the Levite census exchange described earlier in Numbers 3): five shekels per head, weighed according to the sanctuary standard, where one shekel equals twenty gerahs.

Key words

• chaMeshet chaMeshet ("five", H2568, repeated) — the doubling of the same numeral in construct form produces a distributive sense, "five apiece/each," rather than a simple total of five.
• gulGolet ("head", H1538) — feminine singular noun used idiomatically to mean "each person," the basis for a per-capita payment.
• beSheqel haQodesh ("by the shekel of the holy place", H8255 + H6944) — a construct phrase naming a specific weight-standard, distinguishing it from any ordinary shekel.
• tiKkach ("you will take", H3947) — imperfect form of the same verb used earlier as laKachta (sequential perfect); the shift in aspect marks continuation of an ongoing procedural instruction rather than a single completed act.
• gueRah ("gerah", H1626) — a small unit of weight/currency, here defined in relation to the shekel (twenty gerahs = one shekel).

What the text says

The sentence is built as a chain of two verbal forms of laqach ("to take/collect", H3947): first the sequential perfect laKachta, continuing the narrative instruction begun earlier in the chapter, then the imperfect tiKkach, which restates the same action with a durative or procedural nuance — "you shall take... you are to take (each time)." Between these two verbs sits the payment formula: the doubled numeral chaMeshet chaMeshet ("five, five") functions distributively, indicating that five shekels are due "for each head" (lagulGolet, from gulGolet, H1538, literally "skull," used as a term for a counted individual).

The phrase besheqel haqodesh specifies that this is not an arbitrary five shekels but five shekels measured according to the "shekel of the holy place" (qodesh, H6944) — a defined standard rather than a variable local weight. The final clause, esrim gerah hasheqel ("twenty gerahs [is] the shekel"), functions as a definitional gloss, converting the larger unit (shekel) into a smaller one (gerah, H1626) for precision, without any verb — a nominal sentence stating a fixed equivalence.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint renders sheqel with δίδραχμον ("didrachm," a Greek silver coin) rather than transliterating the Hebrew term, and renders gerah as ὀβολούς ("obols"), substituting familiar Greek monetary units for the Hebrew weight-names. The Vulgate keeps the Hebrew-derived siclos and obolos, closer in form to the Hebrew terms though still Latinized. The Hebrew's doubled chaMeshet chaMeshet (distributive "five each") is rendered in the LXX and Vulgate simply as "five" (πέντε / quinque) per head, without reproducing the repetition that marks distribution in the Hebrew syntax.