Genesis 23:16. Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.
1. The Hebrews probably learned the use of metallic money from the Phenicians, among whom their ancestors dwelt, and who are said to have been the inventors of silver money. Other nations for a long time made oxen and sheep the standard of value. Silver was the metal at first generally used for currency, gold being kept for articles of jewelry. Gold money is first mentioned in 1 Chronicles 21:25. though, of course, it may have been used before the time there referred to. Some suppose that in early times gold jewelry was made of specified weight, so that it might be used for money. See Genesis 24:22.
2. Ancient money, being uncoined, was weighed instead of being counted. Even to this day Oriental merchants weigh the silver and gold which are the medium of traffic; not only the bullion, but the coined pieces also, lest some dishonest trader might pass upon them a coin of light weight. The ancient Egyptians, and some other nations, used rings of gold and of silver for the same purposes that coins are now used. These rings were weighed, the weights being in the form of oxen, lions, geese, sheep, and other animals. Some of these weights have been found; they are made of bronze, and with a ring projecting from the back for a handle. The weighing of money is also referred to in Jeremiah 32:9-10 and in Zechariah 11:12.
3. The word shekel (from shakal, to weigh) indicates the original mode of reckoning money by weight rather than by count; and when coined money was introduced it was natural that the name originally applied to what was weighed should be given to what was counted. Thus we find in the Bible a shekel of weight and a shekel of money. The exact weight of the shekel is not known. It is estimated to have been between nine and ten pennyweights, and is supposed to have been worth nearly sixty cents. This would make the value of the field Abraham bought of Ephron nearly two hundred and forty dollars.
4. The expression “current,” seems to indicate some understood standard of value, either as to the purity of the silver or the weight, or both. “The Phenician merchants usually tried the silver themselves, and then, after dividing a bar into smaller pieces, put the mark upon them” (Michoelis). There may also have been a mark on the bar or on the ring money to indicate its weight.