Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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]
Pim weights (Hebrew פִּים pîm) were polished weight-stones about 15 mm (5/8 inch) diameter, equal to about two-thirds of a Hebrew shekel.Many specimens have been found since their initial discovery early in the 20th century, weighing about 7.6 grams, compared to 11.5 grams of a shekel.
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 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.
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]
The prophet Ezekiel refers to a mina (maneh in the King James Version) also as 60 shekels, in the Book of Ezekiel 45:12. Jesus of Nazareth tells the "parable of the minas" in Luke 19:11–27, also told as the "parable of the talents" in Matthew 25:14–30. In later Jewish usage, the maneh is equal in weight to 100 denarii. [11]
The earliest Greek translation translated kesitah as "lamb". After God restored his fortunes, Job received a kesitah from each of his friends ( Job 42:11 ). Subsequently, the kesitah was probably a piece of money of a particular weight, cast in the form of a lamb (or unminted of a certain weight, the price of a lamb).
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.