talents and two thousand and four hundred shekels." From this passage we learn that, whilst the gold and silver were estimated on the shekel of the Sanctuary (or Holy Shekel), the brass was probably reckoned by some other standard.
It is also of importance to note that it is the shekel which is regarded as the unit of the system, for we never hear of a talent or mina of the Sanctuary. From this passage likewise we readily discover that the talent of silver contained 3000 shekels (603,550 ÷ 2 = 301,775 shekels - 1775 = 300,000 ÷ 100 = 3000 shekels).
Now when king Solomon made three hundred shields of beaten gold, three minas (translated pounds in the Authorized Version) went to one shield (1 Kings x. 17). But in the parallel passage (1 Chron. ix. 1) we read that "three hundred shields made he of beaten gold, three hundred shekels went to one shield," from which it is evident that a maneh of gold contained 100 shekels[1]. A very important conclusion follows from these facts, for it is plain that when the Hebrews adopted the heavy or double maneh from the Phoenicians they did not adopt for gold and silver at the same time the double shekel, of which that maneh was the fifty-fold, but on the contrary they retained their own old unit of the light shekel, and made one hundred of them equivalent to the Phoenician or heavy Assyrian mina. Since this light shekel was employed in the estimation of the gold and silver dedicated by King Solomon for the adornment of the Temple, this shekel can hardly be any other than the Holy Shekel of the Sanctuary.
We are thus led to conclude that the shekel was the same both for gold and silver, and was simply the time-honoured immemorial unit of 130-5 grs.
It is natural on other grounds that this should be the unit employed by the Israelites for the precious metals, since it was the unit employed both for silver and gold in Egypt, the land of their bondage.
- ↑ The question of the date at which certain documents were written or took their final shape is of course important. But it does not at all follow that a document written at a later period cannot contain traditions of real historical value. Thus here we find Chronicles, placed quite late by the critics, gives the weight in shekels, whilst Kings, supposed to be far earlier, gives it in minas.
