PIECE OF GOLD. This phrase occurs only once in the A. V. in a passage respecting Naaman the Syrian, who takes on his visit to the king ot Israel, ten talents of silver and six thousand pieces of gold and ten changes of raiment' (2 Kings v. 5). In several other passages of a similar kind, the A. V. supplies the word 'shekels' (Num. vii. 14, 20, 26, 32, 44, 62, 68, 74, So, 86 ; Judg. viii. 26 ; 1 Kings x. 16 ; 2 Chron. iii. 9 ; I Chron. xxi. 25 ; for this last passage see PIECE OF SILVER); and as similar expressions are also found respecting silver, the word understood in the case of Naaman would also probably be `shekels,' rather than an indefinite word like pieces.' There is not much doubt that a weight is intended in all the passages above given, where the A. V. has supplied the word shekels ;' and it is extremely likely that a weight of gold is also meant in the passage relating to Naaman, for coined money was not invented at the time, nor can it have existed in Palestine before the taking of Samaria by the Assyrians (u.c. 72r). Indeed,
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it is more probable that it was unknown till the Persian period [ADARCONIM ; MONEY]. Rings of gold may have been employed, as among the Egyptians, but there is no evidence that they bore any name, since the practice was to weigh money (cf. Is. xlvi. 6 ; Dent. xxv. 15 ; Gen. xliii. 21), though as regards the silver, it seems almost possible that large sums could have been weighed (Exod. xxxviii. 26), and individual pieces of ent denominations are more than once alluded to (Exod. xxx. 15 ; I Sam. ix. 8, 9) [MoNEY]. Taking these facts into consideration, it seems ferable to render what the A. V. gives as 'pieces of gold' by shekels of gold.'—F. W. M.