Tobiæ 8:27

Clementine Latin Vulgate

et crateres aureos viginti, qui habebant solidos millenos, et vasa æris fulgentis optimi duo, pulchra, ut aurum.

Parallel Translations

Jerome's Latin Vulgate (405)
et crateres aureos viginti, qui habebant solidos millenos, et vasa �ris fulgentis optimi duo, pulchra ut aurum.

Nova Vulgata (1979)
et crateres aureos viginti, qui habebant solidos millenos, et vasa aeris fulgentis optimi duo pretiosa ut aurum.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

fine copper: Heb. yellow, or shining brass, The Syriac renders, nechosho korinthyo tovo, "good Corinthian brass;" so called from the brass found after the burning of Corinth by Lucius Mummius, which was, as is generally supposed, brass, copper, silver, and gold, melted together. Sir J. Chardin, however, in a manuscript note, cited by Harmer, mentioned a factitious metal used in the East, and highly esteemed there, which might probably be of an origin as ancient as Ezra. He says, "I have heard some Dutch gentlemen speak of a metal in the island of Sumatra, and among the Macassars, much more esteemed than gold, which royal personages alone are privileged to wear. It is a mixture, if I remember right, of gold and steel, or copper and steel." He afterwards added, "calmbac is the name of this metal, which is composed of gold and copper."

precious: Heb. desirable, Lamentations 4:2

Reciprocal: 1 Kings 20:6 - pleasant Ezra 7:19 - The vessels

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Also twenty basins of gold, of a thousand drams,.... Which were upwards of 1000 pounds of our money; for Bishop Cumberland says e, the Persian "daric", "drachma", or "drachm", weighed twenty shillings and four pence; and, according to Dr. Bernard, it exceeded one of our guineas by two grains, :-

and two vessels of fine copper, precious as gold; which perhaps is the same with the Indian or Persian brass Aristotle f speaks of, which is so bright and pure, and free from rust, that it cannot be known by its colour from gold, and that there are among the cups of Darius such as cannot be discerned whether they are brass or gold but by the smell: the Syriac version interprets it by Corinthian brass, which was a mixture of gold, silver, and copper, made when Corinth was burnt, and which is exceeding valuable; of which Pliny g makes three sorts, very precious, and of which he says, it is in value next to, and even before silver, and almost before gold; but this sort of brass was not as yet in being: Kimchi h interprets the word here of its colour, being next to the colour of gold.

e Scripture Weights and Measures, ch. 4. p. 115. f De Mirabilibus, p. 704, vol. 1. g Nat. Hist. l. 34. c. 1, 2. h Sepher Shorash. rad. צהב.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Twenty basons of gold, of a thousand drams - Not of a thousand drams (i. e., darics) each, but worth altogether a thousand darics. As the value of the daric was about 22 shillings of British money, each basin, or saucer, would have been worth (apart from the fashioning) 55 British pounds.

Of fine copper - The word translated “fine,” which occurs here only, is thought to mean either “yellow” or “glittering” (see the margin). Probably the vessels were of orichalcum, an amalgam which was either brass or something nearly approaching to brass, but which was very rarely produced in the ancient world, and, when produced, was regarded as highly valuable.