april — sept. 1859.] Ancient and Modem times. 



71 



xx. 16) that "anciently there were no shekels of gold or brass 

 but only of silver." Some passages I have already quoted. One 

 or two more will be sufficient. In Numbers xxii. 18, Balaam 

 speaks of Balak's giving him his " house full of silver and gold" — 

 putting the less valuable metal first. A still stronger passage is 

 Joshua vii. 21, in which Achan confesses that he had appropriated 

 " two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels 

 weight?' I might adduce many other instances in which gold is 

 expressly mentioned as paid by weight, though, as we shall see 

 presently, silver also was weighed in payment. This difference of 

 language implies that the one was a valuable commodity used in 

 lumps or ingots ; the other broken up into pieces of convenient 

 size — or coins, — but yet, (in the absence of obvious evidence that 

 each piece really contained the value it professed) weighed in 

 payments as the English sovereign is still payable by weight, not 

 tale. 



There is one curious exception. In 2 Kings v. 5, we read " ten 

 talents of silver, and six thousand [pieces] of gold." The word 

 "pieces" is not represented in the original, but is supplied by the 

 author of our version in this passage, as in very many where we 

 read " pieces of silver." The Arabic version translates " shekels 

 of gold." Now this money was brought by Naaman as a present 

 for Elisha, and the gold coin was Syrian not Hebrew. 



A few words upon the source from which the Jews obtained 

 their supplies of gold may not be uninteresting. When we read 

 of the " gold of Arabia," the matter is plain enough ; and Diodo- 

 rus Siculus informs us* that in that country gold is dug up in 

 great lumps as large as a chestnut. We are also told that it was 

 so abundant there as to exchange for one-half or one-third its 

 weight of brass or iron ! But the gold of Ophir is mentioned 

 in numerous passages— in the book of Job (xxii. 24) for instance. 

 From Ophir Solomon imported his supplies ; and there has been 

 some controversy as to its position. It seems most probable that 

 there are two different places called Ophir in the Sacred Writings : 

 one in Arabia Felix, to which Job alludes, the other in India, or 

 rather Zeilan or Ceylon, anciently Taprobane. There certainly was 



* Lib. ii. p, 93, Edit. H. Steph. 



