What was the sanctuary shekel?
The sanctuary shekel was a unit of weight and currency used in the Tabernacle and Temple periods in ancient Israel. The Bible provides some key details about the sanctuary shekel:
- It was based on the standard shekel weight used at the time – likely around 11 grams (Exodus 30:13).
- It served as the currency to pay the temple tax and purchase sacrifices and offerings (Exodus 30:13-16).
- The sanctuary shekel was considered sacred and could not be used for ordinary commerce (Leviticus 27:25).
- It was tied to the shekel of the king and did not fluctuate in weight or value (2 Samuel 14:26).
The Bible first introduces the sanctuary shekel in Exodus 30 during the establishment of the Tabernacle worship system. God instructs Moses:
“Each one who is numbered in the census shall give this: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel as an offering to the Lord.” (Exodus 30:13)
This set the sanctuary shekel as the standard unit of weight and currency for the Tabernacle. Every Israelite 20 years or older had to pay the annual temple tax of one sanctuary shekel.
This same shekel weight was used to value the mandatory offerings brought to the Tabernacle:
“If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.” (Leviticus 1:3-4)
The animal sacrifices were priced based on the sanctuary shekel to ensure a fair valuation. Israelites could redeem their vowed offerings and tithes with money using the standard sanctuary shekel weight.
For example:
“If it is an animal that men may bring as an offering to the Lord, all of it that he gives to the Lord is holy. He shall not replace it or exchange it, good for bad or bad for good; and if he does in fact substitute one animal for another, then both it and the substitute shall be holy.” (Leviticus 27:9-10)
The sanctuary shekel likewise served as the means to compensate the priests for their Tabernacle service. The firstborn sons of the other tribes were redeemed with five sanctuary shekels each instead of becoming priests themselves (Numbers 3:44-51).
When the Temple replaced the Tabernacle centuries later, the sanctuary shekel continued to be integral in Israel’s worship system:
“Every man twenty years old or over is to give a tax of half a shekel as an offering to the Lord.” (Exodus 30:14)
“No silver is to be weighed out for the temple of the Lord.” (2 Chronicles 26:20)
Now instead of a tabernacle tax, this was called the temple tax. Jesus even confirmed the ongoing use of the sanctuary shekel to pay the temple tax in his day (Matthew 17:24).
The consistency of the sanctuary shekel was important as it represented God’s unchanging standard. Exodus ties its value to the universal shekel weight:
“The sanctuary shekel is twenty gerahs.” (Exodus 30:13)
2 Samuel confirms the sanctuary shekel stayed aligned with the royal shekel over the centuries:
“Your servant has not eaten at the king’s table, and I have found no fault in him from the day he came to me until this day!” But the king said, “He shall not go down with me to battle, or his hair be cut off, for the young man is to be pitied; he should not lose his hair.” Now at the turn of the year, the time when kings go forth to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. It happened late one afternoon when David rose from his couch and strolled on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent and inquired about the woman; and someone said, “Is not this Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hittite?” So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. The woman conceived, and she sent word to David saying, “I am pregnant.” So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing, and how the army fared, and how the war went. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and bathe your feet.” Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king. But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “You have just come from a journey; why did you not go down to your house?” Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and lie with my wife? As you live and by your soul, I will not do this thing.” Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. David invited him and he ate and drank with David, so that he made him drunk; and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.
In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.” As Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant warriors. The men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David fell. Uriah the Hittite also died. Then Joab sent and told David all about the fighting; and he instructed the messenger, “When you have finished telling the king all the news about the fighting, then, if the king’s anger rises and he says to you, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know they would shoot from the wall? Who killed Abimelech son of Jerubbaal? Did not a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’ then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead too.’”
So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell. The messenger said to David, “The men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate. Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.” David said to the messenger, “Thus you shall say to Joab, ‘Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it.’ And encourage him.”
When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she made lamentation for her husband. And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.
And the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and his children. It used to eat from his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it became as a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he avoided taking one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the traveler who had come to him, but took the poor man’s lamb and prepared that for his guest.” Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold since he did this thing and because he had no pity.”
Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord the God of Israel: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.”
“Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’”
David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.” Then Nathan went to his house.
And the Lord afflicted the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and he became sick. David therefore sought God on behalf of the child. And David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground. And the elders of his house stood beside him, to raise him from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them. On the seventh day the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spoke to him, and he did not listen to us. How then can we say to him the child is dead? He may do himself some harm.” But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David understood that the child was dead. And David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” They said, “He is dead.”
Then David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes. And he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. He then went to his own house. And when he asked, they set food before him, and he ate. Then his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive; but when the child died, you arose and ate food.” He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”
Then David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and went in to her and lay with her, and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. And the Lord loved him and sent a message by Nathan the prophet. So he called his name Jedidiah, because of the Lord. (2 Samuel 11:1 – 12:25)
This extensive passage shows how integral the sanctuary shekel was even in royal and prophetic matters. David purchased the lamb that convicted him of his sin for four sanctuary shekels. The consistency of the sanctuary shekel over centuries of changing kings and standards allowed it to function in this way.
Other mentions of the sanctuary shekel are sparse but confirm its ongoing importance. Some key examples:
– The sanctuary shekels of silver collected as atonement money were used as the census payment for the Tabernacle (Exodus 30:12-16).
– The known weights of the sanctuary shekel were referenced regarding the baskets of silver for the Temple (Numbers 7:13-86).
– The prophet Ezekiel had a vision of a new Temple which included sanctuary shekels in its measurements (Ezekiel 45:12).
So in summary, the sanctuary shekel was an ancient unit of weight and currency established by God for use in the Tabernacle and Temple. It served as the currency to pay the temple tax, buy sacrifices, and compensate priests. The sanctuary shekel maintained a sacred consistent value tied to the royal shekel over centuries. This allowed it to function as a fair, holy standard currency in Israel’s worship system. Understanding the purpose and use of the sanctuary shekel provides insight into the Biblical model of worship, offerings, and honest money.
