Exodus 30:13

“This they shall give, everyone that passeth among them that are numbered, etc.] And their number, according to Jarchi, was known by what was paid; for he says the sum was taken not by heads, but everyone gave the half shekel, and by counting them the number was known, as follows: half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary; that is, after the standard of a shekel kept in the sanctuary as a rule for all; and so Jarchi paraphrases it, “according to the weight of a shekel, which I have fixed for thee to weigh, the shekel of the sanctuary.” It was about fourteen pence: a shekel is twenty gerahs; a gerah being the twentieth part of a shekel, it was not quite three halfpence of our money: an…”

“The Ransom of Souls. - Exodus 38:25-28. On comparing these words with those of Numbers 1:1-3, we may perhaps infer that the first passage relates to a mere counting of the adult Israelites at the time when the money was taken from each, and that what the latter passage enjoins was a formal enrolment of them according to their genealogies and their order of military service. A ransom for his soul - What the sincere worshipper thus paid was at once the fruit and the sign of his faith in the goodness of Yahweh, who had redeemed him and brought him into the covenant. Hence, the payment is rightly called a ransom inasmuch as it involved a personal appropriation of the fact of his redemption. On…”

“a shekel is: Lev 27:25; Num 3:47; Eze 45:12 an half shekel: Exo 38:26; Mat 27:24 \*Gr. Exodus 30:14”