Ezra 8:26

Ezr 8:26 I even weighed unto their hand six hundred and fifty talents of silver, and silver vessels an hundred talents, [and] of gold an hundred talents;

Ver. 26. Six hundred and fifty talents of silver] That is, 243,750 pounds sterling.

An hundred talents] That is, 37,500 pounds sterling.

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.

Ezr 8:26-27. Six hundred and fifty talents of silver — Making, at f375 sterling to the talent, f243,750 sterling. And silver vessels a hundred talents — Making near f40,000 sterling. And of gold (probably in coin) a hundred talents — Which at f4,500 per talent, make f450,000 sterling. Also twenty basins of gold of a thousand drachms — About f1,000 sterling value. And two vessels of fine copper — As valuable as gold.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8:26-27 The Persians and supportive Jews had given an enormous amount of money. It was a huge risk to transport it without a royal escort.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Read 1 Kings 9:14.

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

Verse 26. Silver vessels a hundred talents] That is, The weight of all the silver vessels amounted to one hundred talents; not that there were one hundred vessels of silver, each a talent in weight.

Reckoning in round sums, 650 talents of silver at £450 the talent, amount to £292,500 sterling. Silver vessels, 100 talents, amount to £45,000; gold, 100 talents, at £7,000 per talent, amount to £700,000 independently of the 20 basons of gold, amounting to 1000 drachms. Now the golden drachm or daric was worth about 1£. 2s., therefore these basons were worth £1100; the whole amounting to £1,038,600 sterling. But these different weights and coins are variously computed; some making the silver talent only £353 11s. 10 ½d., and the talent of gold £5057 15s. 1 ½d., calculations which I have elsewhere introduced.

Two vessels of fine copper, precious as gold] What these were we cannot tell. The Syriac translates [Persian] nechoso corinthio toba, to be vessels of the best Corinthian brass; so called from the brass found after the burning of Corinth by Lucius Mummius, which was brass, copper, gold, and silver, all melted together, as is generally supposed. But it was probably some factitious metal made there, that took the polish and assumed the brightness of gold, and because of its hardness was more durable. There is still a certain factitious metal of this kind, made among the Asiatics. I have seen this metal often made; it is as bright and fine as gold, takes a most exquisite polish, and will scarcely tarnish. I have kept this exposed to every variation of the air, even among old iron, brass, copper, c., for twenty years together, without being scarcely at all oxidized. It requires much art in the making, but the constituent materials are of small value. Vessels of this metal, because of their lustre and durability for ornamental and domestic uses, are in many respects more valuable than gold itself. The only difficulty is to get at first the true colour, which depends on the degree of heat, and the time employed in fusion but there are, however, proper rules to ascertain them. This metal is widely different from the or molu of France and England, is less expensive, and much more valuable.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

26. unto their hand] R.V. into their hand. Cf. note on Ezr_1:8.

The enormous value of these gifts is startling. The suspicion that the figures have been exaggerated by copyists is not unnatural.

six hundred and fifty talents of silver] A talent of silver being reckoned as worth £375, this means a sum approaching to a quarter of a million sterling, £243,750.

silver vessels an hundred talents] i.e. worth a 100 talents = £37,500.

and of gold an hundred talents] R.V. omits ‘and’. A gold talent was worth about £6,750; 100 talents would then = £675,000.

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.

Also twenty basins of gold, of a thousand drams,.... Which were upwards of 1000 pounds of our money; for Bishop Cumberland says (e), the Persian "daric", "drachma", or "drachm", weighed twenty shillings and four pence; and, according to Dr. Bernard, it exceeded one of our guineas by two grains; see Gill on Ch1 29:7.

and two vessels of fine copper, precious as gold; which perhaps is the same with the Indian or Persian brass Aristotle (f) speaks of, which is so bright and pure, and free from rust, that it cannot be known by its colour from gold, and that there are among the cups of Darius such as cannot be discerned whether they are brass or gold but by the smell: the Syriac version interprets it by Corinthian brass, which was a mixture of gold, silver, and copper, made when Corinth was burnt, and which is exceeding valuable; of which Pliny (g) makes three sorts, very precious, and of which he says, it is in value next to, and even before silver, and almost before gold; but this sort of brass was not as yet in being: Kimchi (h) interprets the word here of its colour, being next to the colour of gold.

(e) Scripture Weights and Measures, ch. 4. p. 115. (f) De Mirabilibus, p. 704, vol. 1. (g) Nat. Hist. l. 34. c. 1, 2. (h) Sepher Shorash. rad.

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

A hundred. Hebrew adds, "talents," vessels of silver. (Haydock) --- Some Rabbins suppose there were only 100, each of this weight, which is not probable. All the silver vessels, of different sizes, weighed 100 talents. There was the same quantity of golden vessels. (Calmet)

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).

26. Six hundred and fifty talents — This amount of silver would be in weight about sixty-one thousand pounds avoirdupois, and in value over one million dollars.

A hundred talents — In weight nine thousand four hundred pounds; in value one hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars.

Gold a hundred talents — In weight eighteen thousand eight hundred pounds, and in value nearly five million six hundred and ninety thousand dollars.

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

Six hundred and fifty talents of silver, according to Mr. Peele"s estimate of the talent, would be nearly a quarter of a million of our money. The annual revenue of Persia was about three and a half millions (Herod., 3:95). Of gold a hundred talents. Rather more than a million of our money.

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

650 talents of silver

"six hundred and fifty talents of silver." A talent weighs about thirty-three kilograms. You may convert this to a modern measure. AT: "22,000 kilograms of silver" (See: Numbers and Biblical Weight)

one hundred talents of silver objects

"100 talents of silver objects." You may convert this to a modern measure. AT: "3,300 kilograms of silver objects" (See: Numbers and Biblical Weight)

one hundred talents of gold

"100 talents of gold." You may convert this to a modern measure. AT: "3,300 kilograms of gold" (See: Numbers and Biblical Weight)

one thousand darics

"1,000 darics." A "daric" was a small gold coin that people in the Persian Empire used. You can translate this in terms of the number of coins or their weight. AT: "one thousand Persian gold coins" or "eight and one half kilograms of gold" (See: Numbers and Biblical Money)

bronze vessels

Bronze is a mixture of copper and another metal. It is stronger than pure copper.

translationWords

silver

gold

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

and one hundred silver vessels by talents one talent for each vessel.

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.