284 PROP. ARCHIBALD K. B. KENNEDY, M.A., D.D., ON 



The main support for the current view that the Jews 

 weighed their gold with the Babylonian shekel, mina and talent, 

 is thus swept away. We find instead that the two well-known 

 standards, the Phoenician and the Attic, were used side by side 

 for gold as well as for silver, and that the heavy Hebrew- 

 Phoenician talent was reckoned as containing on the one hand 

 60 heavy, or 120 light, Phoenician minas, and on the other 50 

 double or 100 ordinary Syrian- Attic minas. This equation of 

 the two standards doubtless prevailed throughout the Greek 

 period of Jewish history. 



The practice of the pre-exilic period I am content to leave an 

 open question at this stage : it will meet us again immediately. 

 I would only say that I am not convinced by another argument 

 for the use of the Babylonian gold standard by the Hebrews. 

 In ii Kings xviii, 14, we read that Hezekiah was ordered by 

 Sennacherib to pay an indemnity of, inter alia, 30 talents of 

 gold, which is the precise sum mentioned in the Assyrian 

 record of the invasion. The inference is a natural one, that the 

 Assyro- Babylonian and Hebrew gold talents were identical. 

 But there are difficulties in the way which it would take too 

 long to specify at present. 



(iii) The Syrian or 1Q0 -grain Standard. 



About twenty-five years ago there was first published a tiny 

 shuttle-shaped weight from Samaria of 39 \ grains, the double 

 inscription on which gave rise to an excited controversy among 

 Old Testament scholars. On one side, in old Hebrew characters, 

 were the words " quarter of a N— Z- 1 'H " (provisional pronuncia- 

 tion " nezeph "). Since then several small dome-shaped weights 

 have turned up from various parts of Palestine with this legend 

 " nezeph." Like all ancient examples of a given unit, they vary 

 considerably in weight : but when we remember that these 

 small weights were used exclusively by retailers of the precious 

 metals in the form of rings and similar ornaments, we need not 

 hesitate to estimate the full value of the nezeph standard as 

 about 160 grs., a standard which Flinders Petrie, many years 

 ago, found Largely represented in Egypt, only he estimates 

 it wrongly at 80 grains. The Chaplin weight, first mentioned, 

 yields a value of 157 grs. for its 4-fold the nezeph, which is 

 about the weight of the best specimens. 



As for the origin of this new Palestinian standard, I still 

 adhere to the explanation given in 1902 (H.D.JJ. iv, 905) that 

 we have here a shekel derived from the light Babylonian trade 



