CHAPTER X. The Systems of Egypt, Babylon, and Palestine.

silver piece or shekel (called always a didrachmon in the Septuagint) mentioned in Genesis and Judges is the Phoenician shekel. It is used without any distinctive epithet, as if it were the weight par excellence, and is employed for gold as well as silver. But when we turn to certain other passages we find mention made of a shekel called the Shekel of the Sanctuary³⁴. This shekel is frequently mentioned, generally in connection with silver, and in reference to such things as the contribution of the half-shekel to the Tabernacle, the redemption of the firstborn, the sacrifice of animals, and the payment of the seer. Yet we find this shekel likewise employed in the estimation of gold, a fact which at once shews that it is neither the Phoenician shekel of 220 grs. nor the Persic of 172 grs., both of which were confined to silver. It must then have been either the ox-unit of 130 grs. or the heavy shekel of 260 grs. As the latter was confined in use to gold it follows that the ox-unit of 130 grs. alone fits the conditions required. If then we can discover what in the case of either silver or gold was the weight of this shekel, we shall have determined it for both metals, for it will hardly be maintained that there was one shekel of the Sanctuary for gold and one of different weight for silver.