xl, 15). The "little grain"
(poTr//) of the balance in
\Visd. xi, 22 is the small
weight which causes the
scale to turn. In this pas- sage, as in 2 jNIacc. ix, 8, the
Greek word Tr\d<TTiy'£„ ren- dered " balance," was origi- nally applied to the scale-pan
alone. See Balance. The
balance in this form was
known at a very early period.
It is found on the Egyptian
monuments as early as the
time of Joseph, and we find
allusions to its use in tlie sto- ry of the purchase of the cave
of ^Nlachpelah ((ren. xxiii, 16) by Abraham. Before coin- age was introduced, it was of necessity employed in all transactions in which the valuable metals were the me- diums of exchange (xliii, 21; Exod. xxii, 17; 1 Kings XX, 39; Esth. iii, 9; Isa. xlvi, 6; Jer. xxxii, 10, etc.). See Money.
The shekel, the half-shekel, the talent, are not only denominations of moneys, of certain values, in gold and silver, but also of certain weights. The earliest weight to which reference is made is the il'.^'''^p,kesi/dh (Gen. xxxiii, 19; Josh, xxiv, 32; Job xlii, 11), which in the margin of our version is in two passages rendered "lambs," while in the text it is "piece of money." It may have derived its name from being in the shape of a lamb. See Sheep. A number of small statues, of a crouching lion in bronze, forming a series of various di- mensions, from one inch to twelve in length, found at Nimrud, and now in the British Museum, appear to have been Assvrian weights. On the tombs at Thebes
Ancient Kgyptiau Seniles.
Assyrian Weights. (From specimens in British Museum.)
1. Bronze — 15 manehs ; 2. Bronze — 3 shekels; 3. Bronze — 1 maneh ; 4, 5, 6. Stone weights in form of ducks with heads thrown back.
are representations of weights having the form of stags, sheep, gazelles, etc. There are also among the Egyp- . tian antiquities some Coptic weights of great antiquity, but not antecedent to the Christian agra. They are cir- cular, and have grooves or channels cut in them. See Mink.
The Weight of the Sanctuary, or Weight of the Tem- ple (Exod. XXX, 13, 24; Lev. v, 15; Numb, iii, 50; vii, 19; xviii, 16, etc.) was probably the standard weight,
WEIGHT
901
WEIKEL
preserved in some apartment of the Temple, and not a different weight from tiie common shekel (1 Chron. xxiii, 29) ; for thongh Moses appoints that all things valued by their price in silver should be rated by the weight of the sanctuary (Lev. xxvii, 25), he makes no difference between this shekel of twenty oboli, or twenty gerahs, and the common shekel. Ezekiel (xlv, 12), speaking of the ordinary weights and measures used in tratlic among the Jews, says that the shekel weighed twenty oboli, or gerahs; it was therefore equal to the weight of the sanctuary. Neither Josephus nor Philo nor Jerome, nor any ancient author, speaks of a distinc- tion between the weights of the Temple and those in common use. Besides, the custom of preserving the standards of weights and measures in temples is not peculiar to the Hebrews. Tlie Egyptians, as Clemens Alexandrinus informs us, had an officer in the college of priests whose business it was to examine all sorts of measures and to take care of the originals ; the Romans had the same custom (Fannius, De Amphora) ; and the emperor Justinian decreed that standards of weights and measures should be kept in Christian churches. The Jews do not seem to have had any officers whose especial duty it was to superintend weighing transac- tions like the kabbaneh, or public weighers of Egypt, the Greek ^vyoffTorai (Artemid. ii, 37), or Latin libri- pendes (Pliny, xxxiii, 3); but care was always taken that the money used should be of full weight (Gen. xliii, 21). For the estimation of Hebrew weights, see Metrology.
Aucieut Kijyptiau Kabbiineb, or Public Weigher and Notary.
1. The weigher; 2. The notary making an official record ; a. The bag of money to he weighed ; b. The box containing €, a pile oV coins in the form of rings; c. A stand supporting ^, a weight in the i lauib; d. One scale containing a number of coins ; /. An apparatus for steadying g, the arm of the h. An ape, the emblem of Thoth, the god of justice, presiding over the operation ; t. The other scale c the weight.
The expression in Dan. v, 27, " thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting," has been supposed to be illustrated by the custom of weighing the Great Mogul on his birthdaj' in the presence of his chief gran- dees. The ceremony is described in a passage from Sir Thomas Roe's Voyage in Iiulia, quoted in Taylor's Cal- met, Fraff. 186 : " The scales in which he was thus weighed were plated with gold, and so the beam on which they hung by great chains, made likewise of that most precious metal. The king, sitting in one of them, was weighed first against silver coin, which immediate- ly after was distributed among the poor; then was he weighed against gold ; after that against jewels (as they say) ; but I observed (being there present with my lord ambassador) that he was weighed against three several things, laid in silken bags, on the contrary scale. . . . By his weight (of which his physicians yearly keep an ex- act account) they presume to guess of the present state