War with Midian

When the Jewish people returned from the war with Midian they took a large amount of gold as spoils of war.  There were a total of 12,000 soldiers who were each given an equal share of the gold.  (Bamidbar 31:5) There were two groups of soldiers who volunteered to give all their gold to the Mishkan, the Sarei alafim and the Sarei meios. There was one sarei ha’alafim for every thousand soldiers and one sarei hameios for every hundred soldiers.  The total amount of gold given by these two groups of soldiers was 16,750 shekelim of gold.  

Question: How many Sarei ha’alafim and the Sarei hameios were there?

Answer: 

12,000 / 1,000 = 12 Sarei ha’alafim 

12,000 / 100 = 120 Sarei hameios

12 + 120 = 132 total 

Question: How much did each of the Sarei ha’alafim and the Sarei hameios give? (Round the answer to the nearest 1/1,000th of a shekel).

Answer: 16,750 shekel of gold / 132 officers = 126.894 shekelim per officer. 

Question: How much gold was gold given to the whole army? 

Answer: 126.894 shekelim per soldier x 12,000 = 1,522,728 shekel