The question next suggests itself, Why was the shekel called by a distinctive name? It is only when there are two or more examples or individuals of the same kind that any need arises for a distinctive appellation: again, as we have already observed, in such cases the older institution continues to prevail in all matters religious or legal. It is important to note that in Exodus xxi. 32, a passage which the best critics consider of great antiquity, the penalties are expressed in shekels simply without any distinctive appellation. At that period there was probably only one shekel (the ox-unit of 130-5 grs.) as yet in use, and so there was no need to distinguish the shekel in which fines were paid. This shekel was then described in the later part of Exodus, where there was a second standard in use, as the holy shekel. As a matter of fact we have another weight mentioned in 2 Samuel (xiv. 26), where it is related of Absalom that "when he polled his head (for it was at every year's end that he polled it: because the hair was heavy on him, therefore he polled it) he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels after the king's weight[1]."
Now it will be observed that in the passage from Exodus quoted above, whilst the shekel of the Sanctuary is carefully mentioned when amounts of gold and silver are enumerated, no such addition is made in reference to the "seventy talents and two thousand and four hundred shekels of brass." If then the heavy or double shekel and its corresponding mina and talent, known to us hitherto as the royal Assyrio-Babylonian heavy standard, had already been introduced among the Hebrews (and we have just seen that according to the First Book of Kings it was in use, at least a mina of 50 double shekels (100 light) was employed for gold), nothing is more likely than that this standard would bear a title similar to that which it enjoyed in Babylonia and Syria, and be known as the king's weight or stone. As I have observed in the case of
- ↑ The mere question as to whether the 200 shekels is far more than the average crop of hair can weigh, does not concern us. If the writer wished to exaggerate the amount of Absalom's hair he would naturally make the shekel as heavy as possible, and say that the weight was in the heavy or royal shekels, employed for merchandize.
