Shekel

The shekel began as a unit of weight in the ancient Near East — roughly 11.3 grams of silver — before becoming a coin in its own right. In the Hebrew Bible the shekel measures everything from the bride-price (Deuteronomy 22:29) to the gold of the tabernacle (Exodus 38:24). By the first century AD the silver shekel of Tyre — about 14 grams of nearly pure silver, bearing the head of Melqart and a Tyrian eagle — was the only coin the Temple accepted for the annual half-shekel tax (Matthew 17:24–27), driving the brisk money-changer trade Jesus overturned. Thirty shekels of silver was the slave-price set in Exodus 21:32 and the sum Judas accepted to betray Jesus (Matthew 26:15; Zechariah 11:12–13). During the First Jewish Revolt (AD 66–70) the rebels struck their own silver shekels at the Temple itself, inscribed 'Shekel of Israel' and 'Holy Jerusalem' — a defiant assertion of religious sovereignty that would last only four years.