Ezekiel 45:12

Eze 45:12 And the shekel [shall be] twenty gerahs: twenty shekels, five and twenty shekels, fifteen shekels, shall be your maneh.

Ver. 12. And the shekel shall be twenty gerahs] Exo 30:13 Lev 27:25 Num 3:47.

Fifteen shekels, shall be your maneh.] Or, μνα, mina, pound weight.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is, three-score shekels make a weight called Mina, for he joineth these three parts to a Mina.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

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."

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(12) The shekel.—The first part of this verse is merely a re-statement of the old law (Exo_30:13; Lev_27:25; Num_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 1Ki_10:17; Ezr_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.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. Cf. Exo_30:13; Lev_27:25; Num_3:47; Num_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. Exo_38:25; Lev_27:3; Lev_27:6; Jos_7:21; 1Ki_10:17; Ezr_2:69; Neh_7:71.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 Lev 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.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The shekel - See the marginal reference.

The “maneh” shall be of true weight, but it would seem that in Ezekiel’s time there were “manehs” of different value.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Sicles. It would be shorter to say, "sixty sicles make a mna."

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

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.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

12. The LXX. is to be preferred, “And the shekel shall be for you twenty gerah, five shekels a V; and ten shekels a X; and fifty shekels the maneh.” This was according to the old Hebrew usage. In later times, according to Professor Peters, there were sixty shekels in the maneh (Journal of Biblical Literature, xii), but Kautzsch considers this to be the earlier usage, and thinks Ezekiel here changes from the old sexagesimal to the new decimal system. Coined money was certainly used elsewhere in this century (see Introduction to Daniel, III, 2, 3), and perhaps this marks the time of its introduction among the Hebrews. Dr. Davidson quotes from Bertheau the following table of values: —

Talent1Maneh601Shekel3,000501Beka6,00010021Gera60,0001,00020101

Toy calculates the Hebrew silver shekel to have been worth about fifty-five cents, though its purchasing power was at least ten times as great, and quotes Dr. G.A. Reisner’s opinion, that the ratio of gold and silver among the old Babylonians was not 1:13½, or 1:16, but about 1:30. It has been proved from many examples of Babylonian weights, of Ezekiel’s day and earlier, digged up in recent years, that there were several systems in use — the light maneh, for example, only weighing about half as much as the heavy maneh — so there was great need of a corrected scale such as the above.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The shekel shall be twenty garahs. This ordained that the standard for money weights should remain as it had been fixed by the Law. (Exo_30:13; Lev_27:25; Num_3:47) The "shekel" (or "weight," from lqv "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 rrG "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 hn; m; "to be divided"), which occurs only here and in 1Ki_10:17; Ezr_2:69; and Neh_7:71, 72 is to say, only in books written during the Captivity or subsequentto it" (Keil) was probably the same coin as the Greek rains (mna), though its weight may have somewhat differed. A comparison of 1Ki_10:17 with 2Ch_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, rKKi, contained 3000 sacred or Mosaic shekels according to Exo_38:25, Exo_38:26; 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. If with "and," as Ewald, following the Targumists, thinks, Ezekiel is supposed to have ordained that in the future the maneh should be, not 50, but 60 (20 + 25 1- 15) shekels the weight of the "Babylonian mana ("Records of the Past," 4:97, second series); only, if he so intended, one sees not why he should have adopted this roundabout method of expression instead of simply stating that henceforth the maneh should be sixty shekels If with "or," as Michaelis, Gesenius, Hitzig, and Hengstenberg prefer, then the prophet is regarded as asserting that in the future three manehs of varying values should be current one of gold, another of silver, and a third of copper (Hitzig), or all of the same metal, but of different magnitudes (Michaelis); and this arrangement might well have been appointed for the future, although no historical trace can be found of any such manehs of twenty, twenty-five, and fifteen shekels respectively having been in circulation either among the Hebrews or among foreign peoples. Kliefoth pronounces both solutions unsatisfactory, but has nothing better to offer. Keil supposes a corruption of the text of old standing, for the correction of which we are as yet without materials. Bertheau and Havernick follow the LXX (Cod. Alex.), OiJ pente sikloi pente kaika sikloi deka kaikonta sikloi hJ mna ejstai uJmin, The five shekel (piece) shall be five shekels, and the ten shekel (piece) shall be tea shekels, end fifty shekels shall your maneh be;" but Hitzig"s judgment on this proposal, with which Kliefoth and Keil agree, will most likely be deemed correct, that "it carries on the face of it the probability of its resting upon nothing more than an attempt to bring the text into harmony with the ordinary value of the maneh."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Twenty gerahs - A gerah was one penny half-penny, the shekel then was two shillings and six-pence, twenty shekels was two pounds ten shillings, fifteen shekels was one pound seventeen shillings and six-pence, and twenty five was three pound two shillings and six-pence. Maneh - It seems there was the small, the middle, and the great Maneh.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

And the shekel is twenty gerah Twenty “ma’ah.”

twenty shekels, twenty-five shekels, and fifteen shekels totaling sixty shekels.

shall the maneh be to you Le zent in O. F., the 100 (zuz weight). Menahem, however, connected it to the word מִנְיָן, a number (p. 118). We have here 240 “zuz,” [four zuz to a shekel]. From here we derive that the “maneh” of the Sanctuary was double, and they added a sixth to it in Ezekiel’s time, totaling 240 [zuz] (Men. 77a). When Scripture divided it into three parts and did not write simply, “sixty shekels shall the maneh be for you,” it commanded to make from it a weight one third of it, and a weight equaling a fourth of it, and a weight of the ordinary “maneh” as it was originally. So too did Jonathan paraphrase: a third of the “maneh” shall be twenty “selaim” of silver; a “maneh” of silver twenty-five “selaim”; a fourth of a “maneh”fifteen “selaim”; altogether, sixty “selaim”; and the great “maneh” of the Sanctuary shall be for you.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.