Coins and Currency

In prehistoric and early historical times the economy was based on barter – commodities were exchanged for other commodities. At a later stage certain goods, such as hides, cattle, and sheep or grain, served as fixed units of value and formed the basis of primitive commercial negotiations. As this method did not prove practicable in all cases, a better one had to be devised. In Palestine the Canaanites were using a much more progressive system before the arrival of the Hebrews; it was based on rare, and therefore costly, metals. In fact even at this stage there was a double system: in the villages the old method of bartering still prevailed, while in the ports and the larger cities metal was used as a token of exchange. When Abraham bought the cave of the field of Machpelah he weighed out 400 shekels of silver as payment to Ephron the Hittite (Gen 23:16). The money was weighed since this was still long before the minting of coins began.

Only once in the Bible are gold shekels referred to as a monetary unit (I Chr 21:25). Silver was used as a unit of value as may be inferred from the calculation of fines in shekels (Ex 21:32). Wherever a shekel is mentioned in the Bible a unit of weight is meant.

During the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. the dramatic change from barter money into coinage took place and Persian, Greek and Phoenician coins were put in circulation in the Holy Land.

In the 4th century B.C. the local Jewish authorities minted small silver coins bearing the legend Yahud, the name for the province of Judea in the Persian period. Minting of coins in Palestine did not become regular practice until the beginning of the Hellenistic period. Alexander the Great founded a mint at Acco that produced gold and silver coins. The Jewish autonomy in Jerusalem minted small silver coins in the city inscribed "Yehuda" under Ptolemy II.

Jewish minting returned with the Hasmonean Dynasty under Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 B.C.). All coins bore Hebrew, or Hebrew and Greek, inscriptions, with the king's name and title and that of the High Council of the Jews. Common symbols on these coins were anchors, stars, palm branches, cornucopiae, and pomegranate flowers. All Hasmonean coins were bronze with the temporary emission of lead coins under Alexander Jannaeus.

The next series of coins was that of the Herodian Dynasty. Herod the Great (37-4 B.C.) minted coins bearing Greek legends and pagan and Jewish symbols. Herod's immediate heirs, who inherited parts of their father's territories, used the same range of symbols: palm branches, anchors, bunches of grapes, prows of galleys, and so on. Only Philip (4 B.C.-A.D. 34), who reigned in the northeastern part of the kingdom beyond the Jordan where most of the population was non-Jewish, minted coins with portraits of Roman emperors as well as his own. Herod Agrippa I (A.D. 37-44) minted coins in which his dependence on the Romans is expressed. For the purely Jewish parts of the kingdom his coins bore symbols that would not offend the Jews. He founded the mint at Caesarea, which was to last for about 200 years. When Judea was directly ruled by the Roman procurators, they also minted coins.

Minting by the procurators continued until the First Jewish Revolt (A.D. 66-70). At that time the Jewish authorities minted coins of large denominations in silver. The coins were shekels and half-shekels in silver, with smaller denominations in bronze. They bore legends in the ancient, already antiquated, Hebrew script ("Jerusalem the Holy", "Shekel of Israel", "The Freedom of Zion" or "For the Redemption of Zion"), with dates according to the era of the revolt and symbols such as chalices, vine leaves, amphorae, citrons, palm branches and palm trees. When the revolt had been crushed the emperors Vespasian, Titus and Domitian minted coins to commemorate their victory over the Jews.