Eom 96} Ib. avoir., a heavy load for a man to carry (see
At this point the question naturally suggests itself as to the value in sterling money of the Hebrew shekel as gold and silver unit respectively. Since the English sovereign is only eleven parts pure gold to one part alloy, the mere comparison of the respective weights of sovereign and shekel, as in the preceding table, note 1, is not sufliciently accurate for our present purpose. We prefer, there- fore, to base our calculations on the price at which the Royal Mint buys its gold, viz. £3, 17s. 104d. (934°5 pence) per ounce of 480 grains. This gives us as nearly as possible £2, ls. sterling as the value of the Hebrew gold shekel. The gold mina, accordingly, we value at £102, 10s., and the talent at £6150.
The calculation of the intrinsic value of the silver shekel must be even more carefully set about. By many previous writers the important fact has been overlooked, that the silver currency of this country is but money of account, our only standard being gold. In other words, the coin which we call a shilling, of which the standard weight is
* See also the discussion of ‘ the shekel of the sanctuary,’ § 3.
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87°272 grains, is not worth that weight of silver at so much an ounce,* but has its value legally fixed as the twentieth part of the gold unit or sovereign. Hence, in order to arrive at even an approximate valuation in our currency of any weight of silver anciently used as money, whether coined or uncoined, we must know in each case the ratio then existing between gold and silver. In the period of Hebrew history with which we are now dealing, this ratio, as we have already learned, appears to have been fixed as 13°3:1, which resulted in the convenient adjustment that one gold shekel of 252 grains was equal in value to fifteen silver shekels of 224 grains (8 1). This gives us, without further calculation, the value of the Hebrew or Pheenician silver shekel as jth of 41 shillings, or 2s. 8$d., say 2s. θὰ. The same proportion holds with regard to the silver mina and shekel, which are y,th of the same denominations in gold, viz. £6, 16s. 8d. and £410 respectively. It will be convenient to have these values in tabular form for easy reference.
VALUES OF ANCIENT HEBREW MONEY IN STERLING MoNeEy.t
0! SILVER. Shekel . . £2 10 £0 2 9 nearly Mina . . 102 10 0 616 8 Talent . . 6150 0 0 410 0 0
It cannot be too strongly emphasized that throughout the whole period ending with the return from the Exile there can be no question of coined money. For every transaction of the least importance the balance had to be employed, and the tale of silver duly determined by weight. Thus, in the incident = Abraham’s purchase of the cave of Machpelah, though its present record may be late, we have a lifelike picture of how business was done in pre-exilic times. The price having been fixed in approved Oriental style, ‘Abraham,’ we read, ‘weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named, four hundred shekels of silver, current (money) with the merchant’ (rn5$ ray 402 Gn 23%), δ, as a late Targum has correctly paraphrased it, in ‘good silver passing at every (banker’s) table and receivable in all trans- actions.’ The weights employed were of stone, and were kept in a bag (hence Pr 16" op "ay ‘the weights [lit. stones] of the bag’). From the earliest of the prophetic writings onwards, we find repeated warnings against the use of unjust weights (Am 8°, Mic ΠΝ Pr 11! 2010. 3), and both the Deuteronomic and the Levitical codes find it necessary to issue strict injunctions against the falsification of the balance and its weights (Dt 2515-18, Ly 19%: %; of. Ezk 4513, to be Nea in the light of the Gr. text). It is somewhat remark- able, however, that we nowhere find any attempt to regulate the fineness of the silver, which clearly shows that there was as yet no thought of a proper coinage, the essential characteristic of which is the guarantee by the State of the quality as well as the quantity of the metal. It must not be thought, however, that it was necessary to have recourse to the balance for every transaction however small. On the contrary, there is ample evidence that the
recious metals circulated in the form of ingots of
cnown weight. Saul’s servant, for example, had with him an ingott of the weight of a quarter of a shekel (1 95). In the case of large sums, and especially in official and legal payments where
Pa I a ΤῈ coin, as in th internat. Crit. Comm. (1899) ad loc. aid " ᾿
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great accuracy was necessary, as well as in cases where the parties concerned were not well kno yn to each other, the money was invariably weighed. Hence the word shakal (5pz), to ‘ weigh,’ is used as synonymous with ‘ pay’ (Ex 9916} K 10%, Is 55? οἷο). In illustration of this extensive use of the balance in the most varied transactions, it will suffice to refer to such additional passages as 2 Καὶ 12-1 RV (where the money is both ‘told’ and ‘weighed out’), Jer 32% 1°, Is 46°, Ezr 8%- 28,