In this verse Achan tells what he took: a beautiful … cloak from Babylonia (“Shinar” [Revised Standard Version] is Babylonia; see Gen 10.10); “two hundred shekels of silver”; and a bar of gold weighing “fifty shekels.” A shekel at that time was a weight, not a coin; the best estimate is that it was equal in weight to 11.424 grams (0.4 ounces avoirdupois), and so two hundred shekels would be over two kilograms in the metric system (see British Good News Translation) and five pounds in the English system. These were silver pieces, not bullion or coins. The bar of gold weighed one-fourth the amount of the silver (over 0.5 kilogram, metric; over one pound, English).

Achan ends his confession by telling where he has hidden his loot.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Newman, Barclay M. A Handbook on Joshua. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .