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Bible Dictionaries
Money
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
or Scripture often speaks of gold, silver, brass, of certain sums of money, of purchases made with money, of current money, of money of a certain weight; but we do not observe coined or stamped money till a late period; which makes it probable that the ancient Hebrews took gold and silver only by weight; that they only considered the purity of the metal, and not the stamp. The most ancient commerce was conducted by barter, or exchanging one sort of merchandise for another. One man gave what he could spare to another, who gave him in return part of his superabundance. Afterward, the more precious metals were used in traffic, as a value more generally known and fixed. Lastly, they gave this metal, by public authority, a certain mark, a certain weight, and a certain degree of alloy, to fix its value, and to save buyers and sellers the trouble of weighing and examining the coins. At the siege of Troy in Homer, no reference is made to gold or silver coined; but the value of things is estimated by the number of oxen they were worth. For instance: they bought wine, by exchanging oxen, slaves, skins, iron, &c: for it. When the Greeks first used money, it was only little pieces of iron or copper, called oboli or spits, of which a handful was a drachma, says Plutarch. Herodotus thinks that the Lydians were the first that stamped money of gold or silver, and introduced it into commerce. Others say it was Ishon, king of Thessaly, a son of Deucalion. Others ascribe this honour to Erichthonius, who had been educated by the daughters of Cecrops, king of Athens: others, again, to Phidon, king of Argos. Among the Persians it is said Darius, son of Hystaspes, first coined golden money. Lycurgus banished gold and silver from his commonwealth of Lacedaemon, and only allowed a rude sort of money, made of iron. Janus, or rather the kings of Rome, made a kind of gross money of copper, having on one side the double face of Janus, on the other the prow of a ship. We find nothing concerning the money of the Egyptians, Phenicians, Arabians, or Syrians, before Alexander the Great. In China, to this day, they stamp no money of gold or silver, but only of copper. Gold and silver pass as merchandise. If gold or silver be offered, they take it and pay it by weight, as other goods: so that they are obliged to cut it into pieces with shears for that purpose, and they carry a steel yard at their girdles to weigh it.
But to return to the Hebrews. Abraham weighed out four hundred shekels of silver, to purchase Sarah's tomb, Genesis 23:15-16; and Scripture observes that he paid this in "current money with the merchant." Joseph was sold by his brethren to the Midianites for twenty pieces (in Hebrew twenty shekels) of silver, Genesis 37:28 . The brethren of Joseph bring back with them into Egypt the money they found in their sacks, in the same weight as before, Genesis 43:21 . The bracelets that Eliezer gave Rebekah weighed ten shekels, and the ear rings two shekels, Genesis 24:22 . Moses ordered that the weight of five hundred shekels of myrrh, and two hundred and fifty shekels of cinnamon, of the weight of the sanctuary, should be taken, to make the perfume which was to be burnt to the Lord on the golden altar, Exodus 30:24 . He acquaints us that the Israelites offered for the works of the tabernacle seventy-two thousand talents of brass, Exodus 38:29 . We read, in the books of Samuel, that the weight of Absalom's hair was two hundred shekels of the ordinary weight, or of the king's weight, 2 Samuel 14:26 . Isaiah 46:6 , describes the wicked as weighing silver in a balance, to make an idol of it; and Jeremiah 32:10 , weighs seventeen pieces of silver in a pair of scales, to pay for a field he had bought. Isaiah says, "Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye weigh money for that which is not bread?" Amos 8:5 , represents the merchants as encouraging one another to make the ephah small, wherewith to sell, and the shekel great, wherewith to buy, and to falsify the balances by deceit.
In all these passages three things only are mentioned:
1. The metal, that is, gold or silver, and never copper, that not being used in traffic as money.
2. The weight, a talent, a shekel, a gerah or obolus, the weight of the sanctuary, and the king's weight.
3. The alloy (standard) of pure or fine gold and silver, and of good quality, as received by the merchant. The impression of the coinage is not referred to; but it is said they weighed the silver, or other commodities, by the shekel and by the talent. This shekel, therefore, and this talent, were not fixed and determined pieces of money, but weights applied to things used in commerce. Hence those deceitful balances of the merchants, who would increase the shekel, that is, would augment the weight by which they weighed the gold and silver they were to receive, that they might have a greater quantity than was their due; hence the weight of the sanctuary, the standard of which was preserved in the temple to prevent fraud; hence those prohibitions in the law, "Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights," in Hebrew, stones, "a great and a small," Deuteronomy 25:13; hence those scales that the Hebrews wore at their girdles, Hosea 12:7 , and the Canaanites carried in their hands, to weigh the gold and silver which they received in payment. It is true that in the Hebrew we find Jacob bought a field for a hundred kesitahs, Genesis 33:19; and that the friends of Job, after his recovery, gave to that model of patience each a kesitah, and a golden pendant for the ears, Job 42:11 . We also find there darics, (in Hebrew, darcmonim or adarcmonim, ) and mina, staterae, oboli; but this last kind of money was foreign, and is put for other terms, which in the Hebrew only signifies the weight of the metal. The kesitah is not well known to us; some take it for a sheep or a lamb; others, for a kind of money, having the impression of a lamb or a sheep; but it was more probably a purse of money. The darcmonim or darics are money of the kings of Persia; and it is agreed that Darius, son of Hystaspes, first coined golden money. Ezekiel 45:12 , tells us that the mina makes fifty shekels: he reduces this foreign money to the weight of the Hebrews. The mina might probably be a Persian money originally, and adopted by the Greeks and by the Hebrews. But under the dominion of the Persians, the Hebrews were hardly at liberty to coin money of their own, being in subjection to those princes, and very low in their own country. They were still less able under the Chaldeans, during the Babylonish captivity; or afterward under the Grecians, to whom they were subject till the time of Simon Maccabaeus, to whom Antiochus Sidetes, king of Syria, granted the privilege of coining money in Judea, 1Ma_15:6 . And this is the first Hebrew money, properly so called, that we know of. There were shekels and demi-shekels, also the third part of a shekel, and a quarter of a shekel, of silver.
The shekel of silver, or the silverling, Isaiah 7:23 , originally weighed three hundred and twenty barleycorns; but it was afterward increased to three hundred and eighty-four barleycorns, its value being considered equal to four Roman denarii, was two shillings and seven pence, or according to Bishop Cumberland, two shillings and four pence farthing. It is said to have had Aaron's rod on the one side, and the pot of manna on the other. The bekah was equal to half a shekel, Exodus 38:26 . The denarius was one- fourth of a shekel, seven pence three farthings of our money. The gerah, or meah, Exodus 30:13 , was the sixth part of the denarius, or diner, and the twenty-fourth part of the shekel. The assar, or assarion, Matthew 10:29 , was the ninety-sixth part of a shekel: its value was rather more than a farthing. The farthing, Matthew 5:26 , was in value the thirteenth part of a penny sterling. The mite was the half of a farthing, or the twenty-sixth part of a penny sterling. The mina, or maneh, Ezekiel 45:12 , was equal to sixty shekels, which, taken at two shillings and seven pence, was seven pounds fifteen shillings. The talent was fifty minas; and its value, therefore, three hundred and eighty-seven pounds ten shillings. The gold coins were as follows; a shekel of gold was about fourteen and a half times the value of silver, that is, one pound seventeen shillings and five pence halfpenny. A talent of gold consisted of three thousand shekels. The drachma was equal to a Roman denarius, or seven pence three farthings of our money. The didrachma, or tribute money, Matthew 17:24 , was equal to fifteen pence halfpenny. It is said to have been stamped with a harp on one side, and a vine on the other. The stater, or piece of money which Peter found in the fish's mouth, Matthew 17:27 , was two half shekels. A daric, dram, 1 Chronicles 29:7; Ezra 8:27 , was a gold coin struck by Darius the Mede. According to Parkhurst its value was one pound five shillings. A gold penny is stated by Lightfoot to have been equal to twenty-five silver pence.
Hug derives a satisfactory argument for the veracity of the Gospels from the different kinds of money mentioned in them:—The admixture of foreign manners and constitutions proceeded through numberless circumstances of life. Take, for example, the circulation of coin; at one time it is Greek coin; at another, Roman; at another time ancient Jewish. But how accurately is even this stated according to history, and the arrangement of things! The ancient imposts which were introduced before the Roman dominion were valued according to the Greek coinage; for example, the taxes of the temple, the διδραχμον , Matthew 17:24 . The offerings were paid in these, Mark 12:42; Luke 21:2 . A payment which proceeded from the temple treasury was made according to the ancient national payment by weight, Matthew 26:15; but in common business, trade, wages, sale &c, the assis and denarius and Roman coin were usual, Matthew 10:29; Matthew 20:3; Luke 12:6; Mark 14:5; John 12:5; John 6:7 . The more modern state taxes are likewise paid in the coin of the nation which exercises at the time the greatest authority, Matthew 22:19; Mark 12:15; Luke 20:24 . Writers, who, in each little circumstance, which otherwise would pass by unnoticed, so accurately describe the period of time, must certainly have had a personal knowledge of it.
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Watson, Richard. Entry for 'Money'. Richard Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/wtd/m/money.html. 1831-2.
