Ge'rah. See Weights and Measures.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
gē?ra (גּרה, gērāh, ?grain? or ?kernel?): A weight, the 20th part of a shekel (Exo_30:13; Lev_27:25; Num_3:47; Num_18:16; Eze_45:12). See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Ge?rah, the smallest piece of money among the Hebrews. Twenty made a shekel; one of them would therefore be worth three halfpence, according to the present value of silver (Exo_30:13).
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Gerah
(גֵּרָה, gerah', a berry or granule [compare English "barley-corn" and "grain" as measure and weight]; Sept. ὄβολος, Vulgate obolus), the smallest weight, and likewise the smallest piece of money among the Hebrews, equivalent to the twentieth part of a shekel (Exo_30:13; Lev_27:25; Num_3:47; Num_18:16; Eze_45:12). It would therefore weigh 13.5 Paris grains, and be worth about 3 cents. The same Hebrew word also signifies cud, as being a round mass. It has been supposed by many that the gerah was so called from the fact that some kernel, as of pepper or barley, or perhaps the seeds of the carobtree (κεράτιον) may have been originally used for this weight, but it would be equal in weight to 4 or 5 beans of the carob, and, according to the Rabbins, it weighed as much as 16 grains of barley. SEE METROLOGY.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.