Hacksilver One-Half Shekel “Beqa” (Betza Kesef)

*** See introductory information about hacksilver in the first 3 paragraphs of this collection’s coin titled “Hacksilver One-Quarter Shekel (5-Gerahs)” ***

Exodus 30:13-15“This is what everyone who is numbered shall give: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel as a contribution to the Lord. Everyone who is numbered, from twenty years old and over, shall give the contribution to the Lord. The rich shall not pay more, and the poor shall not pay less than the half-shekel, when you give the contribution to the Lord to make atonement for yourselves.” – [NAS Translation]

This example of ancient Judean hacksilver (also spelled ‘hacksilber’) weighs 5.52 grams, placing it within the weight-range of ten gerahs. Because one full shekel weight consisted of 20 gerah weight units, this ten-gerah piece therefore is one-half shekel.¹ A half-shekel of silver was the required annual donation from each Jewish adult citizen as a sacrifice for individual atonement and as a means of census.² 

It is not inconceivable that this very piece of silver could have been used for the purpose of annual payment at the First Temple (Solomon’s Temple) prior to the Fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. All such payments would have been pieces of high purity silver, as coinage was not yet in use Judaea. The first coins ever produced originated over 1,000 miles away in Anatolia, and usage of coins did not commence within the area of Jerusalem until well after the First Temple’s destruction.

Dating of this piece to 9^th-7^th century BCE was assigned by well-known archaeologist and numismatic author Dr. Robert Deutsch, from whom it was acquired. The early portions of this era included Israel’s King Omri (1. Kings 16), his son King Ahab and wife Jezebel whom tangled with the prophet Elijah, and Judah’s King Jehoshaphat. The later portions included King Josiah’s gathering of Jerusalem’s inhabitants into the temple to hear the holy scroll that had been found and the ensuing revived commitment to God by His people and the Temple’s renovation (2. Kings 22-23; 2. Chronicles 34-35).

Other biblical events that took place within this time period include those written in 1. Kings 16-22, 2. Kings 1-23, Amos, Jonah, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and other books. Further specific events that occurred in this period which are sufficiently noteworthy of mention include the Assyrian destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and subsequent exile of the ten lost tribes.

Because of the shape and the cut marks on this particular example of hacksilver, the Hebrew term “Betza Kesef” is appropriate for the piece. Large silver metal tablets on which rectangular scored marks were made (such as seen on modern day commercial chocolate candy bars) were designed so that individual rectangle pieces could be cut off with a relative degree of ease and uniformity. Each cut silver piece was called a “Betza Kesef”.³  

Another Hebrew term used for a half-shekel weight is ‘Beqa’ (also ‘Beka’, or ‘Bekah’), a term used twice in Scripture. The first instance, in Genesis 24:22, pertains to the weight of a gold ring. The second instance, in Exodus 38:26, applies directly to the silver half-shekel of the sanctuary as described here. ‘Beqa’ literally translates ‘half’, but the term came to be commonly used to specify one-half of a shekel, as is parenthetically described in Exodus 38:26.

A half-shekel of silver was in essence a tax on each Jewish citizen over 20 years old, and was used for the upkeep of the Jewish Temple. This is confirmed in the Mishnah, the major rabbinic work compiling Jewish oral tradition, as based on Exodus 30:13 (text included above). It is also mentioned specifically as a tax in the New Testament, Matthew 17:24, ”When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the half-shekel tax went up to Peter and said, ‘Does not your teacher pay the tax?’” Some English versions of this verse, rather than using “half-shekel”, use a literal translation of “two-drachma” because it more closely corresponds to the Greek text’s usage of “didrachma”.  A didrachm (or double-drachm) was a well-known Greek coinage denomination very closely equivalent to a half-shekel.

It should be noted that at the time of the post-Exilic rebuilding in Jerusalem in the Persian period, the Book of Nehemiah cites one-third shekel (rather than one-half shekel) as the annual temple donation. Nehemiah 10:32,“We also placed ourselves under obligation to contribute yearly one third of a shekel for the service of the house of our God”. Scripture nowhere else mentions a one-third weight requirement. Two reasonable explanatory speculations are that it was done as economic relief due to the hard times, or more likely – it was done to coincide with the Persian era “siglos” coin, equal to one-third Persian “shekel” and was the equivalent of one-half Judean shekel.  

ENDNOTES

¹ An exact measurement of ten gerahs would be 5.7 grams. This example’s 5.52 gram weight places it merely 3% underweight. Hacksilver used as monetary currency in the Iron Age would have always been a closely approximate weight because “contemporary technology did not allow for precise weighing”. (Quotation from: Isadore Goldstein, Zuzim Inc. Newsletter, Vol. 2 No. 7, March 4, 2013.)

² The Book of Exodus uses the word “shekel” ten times, always in terms of “the shekel of the sanctuary”, and always associated with a half-shekel weight of silver as “a donation which was used to count the nation and purchase sacrifices for atonement.” https://store.cityofdavid.org.il/blogs/news/22318017-the-shekel-an-overview

³ Ibid.