Good Morning to all at the Temple Institute,
According to some sources the shekel was somewhere between
218 - 220 British Grains:
The Hebrews used gold and silver as a medium of exchange, but payments
were made by weight. Hence the temptation arose to use false weights and
false balances. Before the Exile sums of money were usually reckoned in
shekels or talents. By a shekel we must always understand a shekel of silver, unless it is expressly stated to be of gold. In the Maccabaean period the weight of a shekel was 218 grains (15.126 grams); in earlier times it may
have been lighter.
The only coin, properly so called, mentioned in the Tanach is the gold dram, bearing the figure of a crowned king who is kneeling and is holding in his right hand a spear and in his left a bow.
Simon Maccabaeus coined silver shekels and half-shekels, as well as bronze money. The shekel had on one side the figure of a cup, with the inscription “Shekel of Israel,” and on the other a branch with three buds, and the words “Jerusalem the Holy.”
and:
Shekel:
Weight, the common standard both of weight and value among the Hebrews. It is
estimated at 220 English grains, or a little more than half an ounce avoirdupois.
The "shekel of the sanctuary" (Exodus 30:13; Numbers 3:47) was equal to twenty
gerahs (Ezek. 45:12). There were shekels of gold (1 Chronicles 21:25), of silver (1
Samuel 9:8), of brass (17:5), and of iron (7). When it became a coined piece of
money, the shekel of gold was equivalent to about 2 pound of our money. Six gold
shekels, according to the later Jewish system, were equal in value to fifty silver ones.
So according to the Torah, in Numbers 18, it states:
The redemption [of a first-born human male] from one month old, shall be made with [the
usual] endowment of 5 shekels by the sanctuary standard, where [the shekel] is 20 gerahs.
This would be equal to 2.4914286 ounces of silver at the least and 2.5142857 ounces of silver at the most, so I am giving 3 ounces just in case these secular 'scholars' are wrong. Therefore my brothers in Jerusalem, that are trying to get things ready for the Holy Temple to be built again, take this offering of "Redemption" for my first born son "Gideon Maccabee" according to the Holy Torah.
May HaShem, , bless you and keep you!!!
Love,
Maregaal & Barrie Yaakov
You have reached the website that teaches the ways of the rabbi that was actually born in
Nazereth, Israel and not Bethlehem [John 7]. A rabbi that practiced the faith and religion of his
ancestors, Biblical Judasim, and taught others to follow in his footsteps; he obeyed his God,
the God of Y'israel faithfully. He is Yehoshua/Jesus ben YHWH & David, the very one that
the prophets spoke of, the moshiach - the very son of the Blessed One. What he practiced
IS obviously the way to salvation! He shall come again and he shall govern !!!
