| Word | American Tract Society - Definition |
| WEIGHTS | The Hebrews weighed all the gold and silver they used in trade. The shekel, the half shekel, the manch, the talent, are not only denominations of money, of certain values in gold and silver, but also of certain weights. The weight "of sanctuary," or weight of the temple, Ex 30:13,24; Le 5:5; Nu 3:50; 7:19; 18:16, was perhaps the standard weight, preserved in some apartment of the temple, and not a different weight from the common shekel; for though Moses appointed that all things valued by their price in silver should be rated by the weight of the sanctuary, Le 27:25, he made no difference between this shekel of twenty gerahs and the common shekel. Eze 45:12, speaking of the ordinary weights and measures used in traffic among the Jews, says that the shekel weighed twenty gerahs: it was therefore equal to the weight of the sanctuary. |