Ezekiel 45:12

45:1-25 In the period here foretold, the worship and the ministers of God will be provided for; the princes will rule with justice, as holding their power under Christ; the people will live in peace, ease, and godliness. These things seem to be represented in language taken from the customs of the times in which the prophet wrote. Christ is our Passover that is sacrificed for us: we celebrate the memorial of that sacrifice, and feast upon it, triumphing in our deliverance out of the Egyptian slavery of sin, and our preservation from the destroying sword of Divine justice, in the Lord's supper, which is our passover feast; as the whole Christian life is, and must be, the feast of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

And the shekel shall be twenty gerahs,.... This is a rule for money or coin; the shekel was a silver coin, and is generally reckoned about the value of two shillings and six pence of our money, so a gerah about three half pennies: Bishop Cumberland reckons the shekel more exactly at two shillings and four pence farthing, and a little more, and the gerah at eleven grains of silver; see Leviticus 27:25 , twenty shekels, five and twenty shekels, fifteen shekels, shall be your maneh; these were several pieces of money; one was a twenty shekel piece, which according to the common account was fifty shillings of our money; another was a five and twenty shekel piece, which was three pounds, two shillings, and sixpence; and a third was a fifteen shekel piece, which was one pound thirteen and sixpence; and together made a maneh or pound, which consisted of sixty shekels, or seven pounds, ten shillings; by which the other pieces should be tried, whether they were of just weight: the sense of the whole is, that no adulteration of coin should be made, which is very prejudicial in civil affairs.

(12) The shekel .—The first part of this verse is merely a re-statement of the old law ( Exodus 30:13 ; Leviticus 27:25 ; Numbers 3:47 ) that the shekel should be of the value of twenty gerahs, or of the estimated weight of 220 grains; but the latter part of the verse is extremely obscure. The maneh is mentioned elsewhere only in 1Kings 10:17 ; Ezra 2:69 ; Neh. vii 71, and is translated in our version pound. Its actual value is unknown. If the text as it stands is correct, it is possible that in Ezekiel’s time three different manehs were in use, of the values respectively assigned to them; but of this there is no other evidence.

Verse 12. - The shekel shall be twenty garahs . This ordained that the standard for money weights should remain as it had been fixed by the Law ( Exodus 30:13 ; Leviticus 27:25 ; Numbers 3:47 ). The "shekel" (or "weight," from שָׁקַל , "to weigh;" compare the Italian lira , the French livre out of the Latin libra , and the English Found sterling) was a piece of silver whose value, originally determined by weight, became gradually fixed at the definite sum of twenty "gerahs," beans, or grains (from גָּרַר , "to roll"). The "gerah," value two pence, was the smallest silver coin; the "shekel," therefore, was forty pence, or 3s. 4d. Commentators are divided as to how the second half of this verse should be understood: twenty shekel, five and twenty shekels, fifteen shekels shall be your maneh. The "maneh" (or "portion," from מָנָה , "to be divided"), which occurs only here and in 1 Kings 10:17 ; Ezra 2:69 ; and Nehemiah 7:71, 72 - "that is to say, only in books written during the Captivity or subsequent to it" (Keil) - was probably the same coin as the Greek rains ( μνᾶ ), though its weight may have somewhat differed.

A comparison of 1 Kings 10:17 with 2 Chronicles 9:16 shows that a maneh was equal to a hundred shekels, which cannot be made to harmonize with the statement in this verse without supposing either that an error has crept in through transcription, or that the chronicler has employed the late Greek style of reckoning, in which one mina is equivalent to a hundred drachmas. Again, the Hebrew and Attic talents, when ex-stained, fail to solve the problem as to how the text should be rendered. The Hebrew talent, כִּכָּר , contained 3000 sacred or Mosaic shekels according to Exodus 38:25, 26 ; and the Attic talon 60 minas, each of 100 drachmas, i.e. 6000 drachmas, or 3000 drachmas, each of which again was equal to a Hebrew shekel. Hence the Attic mina must have been one-sixtieth part of 3000, i.e. 50 shekels, which once more fails to correspond with Ezekiel's notation. What this notation is depends on how the clauses should be connected.

12 . Cf. Exodus 30:13 ; Leviticus 27:25 ; Numbers 3:47 ; Numbers 18:16 . The verse at present is without meaning. Read after LXX. (cod. Alex.): and the shekel shall be twenty gerahs; five (shekels) shall be five, and ten shekels ten, and fifty shekels shall be your maneh (mina). The text is grammatically suspicious, and the way in which “fifteen” is supposed to be expressed, viz. “ten and five” is without parallel. The statement that “five shekels shall be five,” &c., does not imply that there were five and ten shekel pieces, but means that just weighing of money shall prevail, and five go for five, no more and no less. The passage has been fully discussed by Bertheau ( Zur Gesch. der Israeliten , pp. 8–14), whose table of money weights may be given (p. 14): Talent 1 Maneh 60 1 Shekel 3,000 50 1 Beka 6,000 100 2 1 Gera 60,000 1,000 20 10 1. Cf. Exodus 38:25 ; Leviticus 27:3 ; Leviticus 27:6 ; Joshua 7:21 ; 1 Kings 10:17 ; Ezra 2:69 ; Nehemiah 7:71 .

Having laid down the standard for weight and measure in less valuable things, and that are sold for money, now the standard is set down for the current coin which passed among them, and the valuation of which was part of the prince’s prerogative. The first mentioned in the text is the shekel, which, saith the text, contained twenty gerahs; now every gerah was one penny halfpenny English value: the shekel then was two shillings and sixpence. The twenty shekels was two pounds ten shillings, the fifteen shekels was one pound seventeen shillings and sixpence, and twenty-five was three pounds two shillings and six pence. Maneh: some say it is one pound, and that the pound was either least, middle, or greatest, according as there were more or fewer shekels in it; the least or common pound was but seventeen shillings and sixpence; the next, which was the royal, was fifty shillings; and the greatest, or pound of the sanctuary, was sixty-two shillings and six pence.

12. The standard weights were lost when the Chaldeans destroyed the temple. The threefold enumeration of shekels (twenty, twenty-five, fifteen) probably refers to coins of different value, representing respectively so many shekels, the three collectively making up a maneh. By weighing these together against the maneh, a test was afforded whether they severally had their proper weight: sixty shekels in all, containing one coin a fourth of the whole (fifteen shekels), another a third (twenty shekels), another a third and a twelfth (twenty-five shekels) [Menochius]. The Septuagint reads, "fifty shekels shall be your maneh."