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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]
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]
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.
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.
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.
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.