Translations
So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley:
So I acquired her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley.
So I bought her back for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer and a half of barley.
So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley.
Footnotes
15 silver pieces, about 6 ounces or 171 grams in weight. Homer, about 220 liters and a lethech (half-homer), about 110 liters. The verb (wa'ekkarehah), from the root (karah), is an unusual term for purchase—it suggests a negotiated or contracted acquisition rather than a standard transaction. The total price (fifteen silver pieces plus a homer-and-a-half of barley) has been calculated by ancient equivalencies to approximate thirty shekels of silver: the statutory slave-redemption price (Exod. 21:32) and the very figure that appears in Zechariah 11:12–13, later applied by Matthew to the betrayal price of Jesus. F.O.G. preserves the precise Hebrew measure lethech; F.O.G.M. renders "a half" for immediate intelligibility.
