The Silver Coin

A 4,000-year-old weight

When Jesus instructed Peter to find a coin in the mouth of a fish, the word he used for “coin” was actually shekel. This word may be familiar to you, as the currency of the modern State of Israel, but shekel is actually an ancient word, appearing throughout the Bible. It comes from the root SKL שקל meaning “to weigh” and was a unit of mass used all over the Ancient Near East.
 

Weighing out precious metals

Before the invention of formal money, people made purchases by weighing precious metals such as gold, silver and bronze. For example, Abraham paid for the burial plot for Sarah by weighing out “four hundred shekels of silver” (Gen. 23:16). In the building of the Tabernacle, God instructs the people to use very specific quantities of gold, each time describing the weight as “the shekel of the sanctuary” (Exod. 38:24). 
  

Learn the language of Jesus of Nazareth

By the time of Jesus, standard issue coins had replaced weighing out silver as money. These coins bore images of the Roman emperor, giving rise to Jesus’ famous teaching, “render unto Caesar those things which are Caesar’s” (Mark 12:17). But the old Hebrew name shekel endured, and this is precisely what Jesus uttered. Enroll today in our live online Biblical Hebrew course, to find the authentic words of Jesus!