65. Kesitah

Narrator: Chris Genthree
 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 11
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Genesis 33:1919And he bought a parcel of a field, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem's father, for an hundred pieces of money. (Genesis 33:19). He bought a parcel of a field, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of money.
Under the impression that the word kesitah, here rendered “pieces of money,” means a lamb, many of the ancient commentators supposed that here was an evidence of early coinage; the “pieces of money” being coins having on them the impress of a lamb. Stanley (Hist. Jewish Church, Lect. III,) adopts this theory, and some other writers of our time agree with him. Coins have indeed been found with the figure of a lamb upon them, but they were not struck until later than B.C. 450, and, according to the best numismatists, probably belonged to Cyprus. Madden affirms that the earliest coined money was in the eighth century before Christ, and that “the use of coined money in Palestine cannot have existed till after the taking of Samaria by the Assyrians (in B.C. 721)” (Jewish Coinage, p. 14).
Other interpreters have supposed the kesitah to be a weight made in the form of a lamb, as ancient weights have been found in the shape of bulls, lions, and other animals. See note on Genesis 23:1616And 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. (Genesis 23:16) (#26).
Some of the recent philologists, however, deny that kegitan means a lamb. They derive it from a root signifying to weigh, and suppose it to have been a piece of silver of unknown weight or size.