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

(the seeds of the carob tree); but since each siliqua = 4 wheat grains, the thermos = 8 wheat grains, or 6 barleycorns, or 6 Troy grains. If the wheat grain in Palestine was as heavy as that of Egypt or Africa (·051 gram, instead of ·047 gram.), the 8 wheat grains, would = 6·4 grains troy. Again, the Roman metrologists estimated the lupin as the third part of the scripulum, which weighed 24 grains of wheat⁴²; thus the Roman lupin also = 8 wheat grains. We may therefore have little doubt that the gerah was simply the lupin⁴³. But what about the Rabbinical gerah of 16 barleycorns? In the first place let us recall the confusion which exists in the Arab metrologists respecting the habba, some making three habbas, some four equal to the karat. This arose, as we saw, from confounding the wheat and barley grain. If the 16 grains assigned to the gerah by the Rabbis are really wheat grains, all is at once clear. The gerah to which they refer is that of the royal or double shekel (260 grs.), or in other words it is a double gerah. We have just found the gerah of the Sanctuary shekel to be the lupin, and equal to 8 wheat grains, accordingly its double will contain 16 wheat grains. Nothing is more common than a change in the value of a natural weight unit, when in the course of time its real origin has been forgotten, and it has been adjusted to meet the requirements of newer systems. Thus the value of the Greek thermos and its Roman equivalent the lupin both suffered in later days, and were regarded as only equal to 6 wheat grains instead of the original 8 owing to a like confusion between wheat grains and barleycorns. Finally there is a further reason why the authors of the Septuagint Version would translate gerah by obolos. Writing at Alexandria under Ptolemaic rule, at a time when the Ptolemaic silver stater of 220 grains contained exactly 20 obols of the Attic or ordinary Greek standard of 11 grains, they would all the more readily adopt a rendering, which harmonized so well with the monetary system of their own day; at the same time the Greek habit of dividing all staters into 12 obols, no matter on what standard the stater was struck, naturally would incline them all the more to regard the gerah not as an actual weight, but simply as the twentieth of the shekel, be the shekel what it might.