Matthew 26:15

26:15 and said, “What will you give me to betray him into your hands?” ¹  So they set out thirty silver coins for him.

Exodus 21:32

21:32 If the ox gores a male servant or a female servant, the owner ²  must pay thirty shekels of silver, ³  and the ox must be stoned. ⁴ 

Leviticus 27:2-7

27:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When a man makes a special votive offering ⁵  based on the conversion value of persons to the Lord, ⁶  27:3 the conversion value of the male ⁷  from twenty years old up to sixty years old ⁸  is fifty shekels by the standard of the sanctuary shekel. ⁹  27:4 If the person is a female, the conversion value is thirty shekels. 27:5 If the person is from five years old up to twenty years old, the conversion value of the male is twenty shekels, and for the female ten shekels. 27:6 If the person is one month old up to five years old, the conversion value of the male is five shekels of silver, ¹⁰  and for the female the conversion value is three shekels of silver. 27:7 If the person is from sixty years old and older, if he is a male the conversion value is fifteen shekels, and for the female ten shekels.

¹ tn Grk “What will you give to me, and I will betray him to you?”

² tn Heb “he”; the referent (the owner) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³ sn A shekel was a unit for measure by means of a scale. Both the weight and the value of a shekel of silver are hard to determine. “Though there is no certainty, the shekel is said to weigh about 11,5 grams” (C. Houtman, Exodus, 3:181). Over four hundred years earlier, Joseph was sold into Egypt for 20 shekels. The free Israelite citizen was worth about 50 shekels (Lev 27:3f.).

⁴ sn See further B. S. Jackson, “The Goring Ox Again [Ex. 21,28-36],” JJP 18 (1974): 55-94.

⁵ tn Cf. the note on Lev 22:21. Some take this as an expression for fulfilling a vow, “to fulfill a vow” (e.g., HALOT 927-28 s.v. פלא piel and NASB; cf. NRSV “in fulfillment of a vow”) or, alternatively, “to make a vow” or “for making a vow” (HALOT 928 s.v. פלא piel [II פלא]). Perhaps it refers to the making a special vow, from the verb פָלָא (pala’, “to be wonderful; to be remarkable”), cf. Milgrom, Numbers [JPSTC], 44. B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 151 and 193, suggests that this is a special term for “setting aside a votive offering” (related to פָלָה, palah, “to set aside”). In general, the point of the expression seems to be that this sacrifice is a special gift to God that arose out of special circumstances in the life of the worshiper.

⁶ tn Heb “in your valuation, persons to the Lord,” but “in your valuation” is a frozen form and, therefore, the person (“your”) does not figure into the translation (see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 73). Instead of offering a person to the Lord one could redeem that person with the appropriate amount of money delineated in the following verses (see the note on Lev 5:15 above and the explanation in Hartley, 480-81).

⁷ tn Heb “your conversion value shall be [for] the male.”

⁸ tn Heb “from a son of twenty years and until a son of sixty years.”

⁹ tn See the note on Lev 5:15.

¹⁰ tn Heb “five shekels silver.”