The middle weight between the shekel and the talent — and the one scripture and tradition do not agree about.
Mass (common)
550–575 g (1.21–1.27 lb).
Defined as 50 shekels.
Reckoned from a talent of three thousand shekels reckoned at sixty minas.
Fifty shekels is the reckoning the talent implies; Ezekiel gives sixty.
Mass (Ezekiel)
660–690 g (1.46–1.52 lb).
Defined as 60 shekels.
Reckoned from Ezekiel's twenty plus twenty-five plus fifteen shekels.
The Babylonian standard, and what Ezekiel states outright.
The mina sits between the shekel and the talent, and it is the one weight where the sources genuinely differ. Ezekiel gives it as twenty plus twenty-five plus fifteen shekels — sixty, which is the Babylonian standard — while the reckoning behind the talent elsewhere is fifty, since a talent is three thousand shekels and sixty minas. Both are given here rather than one being chosen. The New Testament parable of the minas turns on far smaller sums than the parable of the talents, which is much of the point of telling both.
Silver was weighed, not counted, until coins reached Judah, so each weight is drawn as the cube that much silver makes. A shekel is about a centimetre across; the thirty pieces of silver would sit in a palm; a talent is a block a hand and a half wide.
Disputed. Ezekiel 45:12 reckons sixty shekels to the mina; the fifty-shekel mina is what squares with a talent of three thousand shekels at sixty minas. Both were in use, in different places and periods.
Where it appears
Ezekiel 45:12Twenty plus twenty-five plus fifteen shekels to the mina