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Moses mandated that the standard coinage would be in single shekels of silver; thus each shekel coin would constitute about 15.86 grams (0.51 troy ounces) of pure silver. In Judea, the Biblical shekel was initially worth about 3⅓ denarii, but over time the measurement had enlarged so that it would be worth exactly four denarii. [1]
Shekel came into the English language via the Hebrew Bible, where it is first used in Genesis 23. The term "shekel" has been used for a unit of weight, around 9.6 or 9.8 grams (0.31 or 0.32 ozt), used in Bronze Age Europe for balance weights and fragments of bronze that may have served as money. [2]
In later centuries, the half-shekel was adopted as the amount of the Temple tax, although in Nehemiah 10:32–34 the tax is given as a third of a shekel. [2] This is what each one who is registered shall give: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel as an offering to the Lord.
Obverse of a Judean silver Yehud coin from the Persian era (.58 gram), with falcon or eagle and Paleo Hebrew inscription "יהד" "Yehud" ().Denomination is a ma'ah. A gerah (Hebrew: גרה, romanized: gêrāh) is an ancient Hebrew unit of weight and currency, which, according to the Torah (Exodus 30:13, Leviticus 27:25, Numbers 3:47, 18:16), was equivalent to 1 ⁄ 20 of a standard "sacred ...
In the Biblical story of Belshazzar's feast, the words mene, mene, tekel, upharsin appear on the wall (Daniel 5:25), which according to one interpretation can mean "mina, mina, shekel, and half-pieces", although Daniel interprets the words differently for King Belshazzar.
The Antiochan Stater is one possibility for the identity of the coins making up the thirty pieces. A Tyrian shekel, another possibility for the type of coin involved. The word used in Matthew 26:15 (ἀργύρια, argyria) simply means "silver coins", [10] and scholars disagree on the type of coins that would have been used.
The coins were the size of a modern Israeli half-shekel and were issued by Tyre, in that form, between 126 BC and AD 56. Earlier Tyrian coins with the value of a tetradrachm, bearing various inscriptions and images, had been issued from the second half of the fifth century BC.
"He calculated the average (modal) weights of five different varieties of Yehud coins and found that some conform to the gerah and half gerah of the Persic weight standard (divisions of the shekel or Persic stater of c. 11.4 g, weighing 0.48 g and 0.255 g, respectively), while others conform to the hemiobol and quarter obol of the Attic weight ...