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Home » Bible Encyclopedias » Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature » Letter M

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Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature

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Fig. 256—Jewish Coin

This term is used to denote whatever commodity the inhabitants of any country may have agreed or are compelled to receive as an equivalent for their labor, and in exchange for other commodities.

Different commodities have been used as money in the primitive state of society in all countries, such as skins, cattle, corn, dried fish, sugar, and salt. A long period of time must have intervened between the first introduction of the precious metals into commerce, and their becoming generally used as money. The peculiar qualities which so eminently fit them for this purpose would only be gradually discovered. They would probably be first introduced in their gross and unpurified state. A sheep, an ox, a certain quantity of corn, or any other article, would afterwards be bartered or exchanged for pieces of gold or silver in bars or ingots, in the same way as they would formerly have been exchanged for iron, copper, cloth, or anything else. The merchants would soon begin to estimate their proper value, and, in effecting exchanges, would first agree upon the quality of the metal to be given, and then the quantity which its possessor had become bound to pay would be ascertained by weight. This, according to Aristotle and Pliny, was the manner in which the precious metals were originally exchanged in Greece and Italy. The same practice is still observed in different countries. In many parts of China and Abyssinia the value of gold and silver is always ascertained by weight. Iron was the first money of the Lacedemonians, and copper of the Romans.

In the sacred writings there is frequent mention of gold, silver, and brass, sums of money, purchases made with money, current money, and money of a certain weight. Indeed, the money of Scripture is all estimated by weight. 'Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant' (). The brethren of Joseph carried back into Egypt the money 'in full weight' which they had found in their sacks (; see also;;; ). It was customary for the Jews to have scales attached to their girdles for weighing the gold and silver they received; but the Canaanites carried them in their hands.

There is no direct allusion in the sacred writings to coined money as belonging to the Jewish nation. In , Jacob is said to have bought a part of a field 'for an hundred pieces of money;' and the friends of Job are said to have given him each 'a piece of money' (). The term in the original is kesitoth, and is by some thought to denote 'sheep' or 'lamb;' by others a kind of money having the impression of a sheep or lamb; and by others again a purse of money. The most correct translation may be presumed to be that which favors the idea of a piece of money bearing some stamp or mark indicating that it was of the value of a sheep or lamb. Maurice, in his Antiquities of India (vol. 7), bears testimony to the fact that the earliest coins were stamped with the figure of an ox or sheep. In the British Museum there is a specimen of the original Roman As, the surface of which is nearly the size of a brick, with the figure of a bull impressed upon it. Other devices would suggest themselves to different nations as arising out of, or connected with, particular places or circumstances, as the Babylonish lion, Ægina's tortoise, Bœotia's shield, the lyre of Mitylene, the wheat of Metapontum. Religion would also at an early period claim to be distinguished, and accordingly the effigies of Juno, Diana, Ceres, Jove, Hercules, Apollo, Bacchus, Pluto, Neptune, and many other of the heathen deities are found impressed upon the early coins. The Jews, however, were the worshippers of the one only true God; idolatry was strictly forbidden in their law; and therefore their shekel never bore a head, but was impressed simply with the almond rod and the pot of manna.

The first Roman coinage took place, according to Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxiii. 3), in the reign of Serving Tullius, about 550 years before Christ; but it was not until Alexander of Macedon had subdued the Persian monarchy, and Julius Caesar had consolidated the Roman Empire, that the image of a living ruler was permitted to be stamped upon the coins. Previous to that period heroes and deities alone gave currency to the money of imperial Rome.

Antiochus Sidetes, king of Syria, is represented to have granted to Simon Maccabeus the privilege of coining money in Judea (). This is considered to be the first mention of Hebrew money, properly so called. It consisted of shekels and demi-shekels, the third part of a shekel, and the quarter of a shekel, of silver.

From the time of Julius Caesar, who first struck a living portrait on his coins, the Roman coins run in a continued succession of so-called Caesars, their queens and crown-princes, from about B.C. 48 down to Romulus Augustulus, emperor of the West, who was dethroned by Odoacer about A.D. 475.

After its subjugation by Rome much foreign money found its way into the land of Judea. The piece of tribute money, or coin mentioned in , as presented to our Savior, bore the image and superscription of the Roman emperor, and it is reasonable to suppose that a large quantity of Roman coins was at that time in circulation throughout Judea.

 

 

 

 

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Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Money'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/​encyclopedias/​eng/​kbe/​m/money.html.
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