This conversion page features historical units (ancient, medieval, etc.) that are mostly no longer in use. If you are looking for units of weight that are used today, including many national units of various countries, please switch to our main weight and mass conversion page. In my last post, I asked whether or not Abraham was cheated out of his land deal by Ephron the Hittite. 400 shekels of silver mean nothing to us, but the early readers of the bible toiled in their labors for a few shekels and would have known immediately what one was worth.To answer this question, we need some basis for comparison, a pricing guide in shekels. In modern Israel, the shekel is both a coin and a paper currency in banknotes of 20, 50, 100, and 200 new sheqalim. The new shekel replaced the old shekel on January 1, 1986 (at that time 1,000 old shekels were equal to 1 new shekel). One Israeli new shekel is presently worth about 25 cents US.