PIECE OF SILVER. This phrase occurs both in the A. V. of the O. T. and N. T., and consequently must be separately considered.
I. The word 'pieces' bas been supplied in the A. V. for a word understood in the Hebrew. The rendering is always a thousand,' or the like, of silver' (Gen. xx. 16 ; xxxvii. 2S ; xlv. 22 ; Judg. ix. 4 ; xvi. 5 ; 2 Kings vi. 25 ; Song of Solomon viii. it ; Hos. iii. 2 ; Zech. xi. 12, 13). The phrase in these passages, excepting the first three.
is rendered by the LXX. rip-Opay or dp7upos (Zech. 1. c.), and all by the Vulg. argenteus. The first is rendered by the LXX. .315paw.ta, whilst the two following are given as xpuovi3r, but apparently without any reason. In similar passages, the word `shekels' occurs in the Hebrew, and they are either in the Pentateuch, or speak of important purchases, taxation, etc. The purchase of the cave of Machpelah by Abraham (Gen. xxiii. 15, 16), that of the threshing-floor and oxen of Araunah by David for fifty shekels of silver (2 Sam. xxiv. 24, elsewhere stated to have been purchased for six hundred shekels of gold, 1 Chron. xxi. 25), and that of the field of Hanameel by Jeremiah (Jer. xxxii. 9) ; taxation (Lev. xxvii. 3, 6, 16 ; 2 Kings xv, zo ; Neh, v. 15) ; fines for offences (Exod. xxi. 32); and, lastly, the robbery by Achan (Josh. vii. 21). In other passages, the A. V. supplies the word 'shekels' instead of pieces' (Dent. xxii. 19, 29; Judg. xvii. 2, 3, 4, so ; 2 Sam. xviii. 12), and no doubt correctly. Nearly all these passages relate to weight, one may allude to actual coin' (Nell. v. 15), and the term pieces' is inaccurate when applied to either. Hence it may be assumed that shekel' or shekels' is the word understood in all cases.
There are, however, two exceptional passages, where a word equivalent to piece' or pieces is found in the Hebrew. The first occurs in 1 Sam. ii. 36, where the phrase piece of silver' is taken from the IIebrew 9Dm n-naN, rendered in the LXX. by bpoXoi.; kyyuplou, and in the Vulg. by 9111911M11111 argentetem. The n-liaN, so called from 1a N, 'to collect,' may be the same as the MD. It is also translated by the LXX. 68aXos, and by the Vulg. obelus. The second is in the Psalms (lxviii. 30), and the phrase pieces of silver' is translated from the Hebrew rilDnr (Heb. ver.
32), which is rendered in the LXX. and Vulg. simply by cirybpeav and argentum. The word from yr, 'to break in pieces,' must mean a frag ment or piece broken off. In neither case can these passages imply a coin.
We must also notice the employment in the A.V. of the word piece,' or pieces of money,' or in the three following passages (Gen. xxxiii. 19 ; Josh. xxiv. 22 ' • Job xlii. 1), being the translation of the Hebrew ;a :14h,, rendered by the LXX. and Vulg. lambs.' The Kesitah was evidently a piece of silver of unknown weight [KEsurait].
2. Two words are rendered in the N. T. by the phrase piece of silver,' opixxp.i, Vulg. drachma, and 476 pLov, Vulg. argenteus, a'enarizes.
(i.) The first occurs in St. Luke xv. 8, Either what woman having ten pieces of silver (Spaxiaes Ulm), if she lose one piece, (loth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it ?' Here it is correctly rendered, as at the time of St. Luke the Attic drachm was equivalent to the Roman denarius [DaAcHm ; DENARIUS].
(ii.) The second word occurs in two passages (A), the account of the betrayal of our Lord for thirty pieces of silver' (Matt. xxvi. 15 ; xxvii. 3, 5, 6, 9). These have usually been considered to have been denarii, hut another suggestion has recently been made by Mr. Poole (Dr. Smith's Did. of the Bible, art. ' Piece of Silver'). The parallel paccage in Zechariah (xi. 12, 13), where we have supposed shekels' to be understood (see above), and which is translated by the LXX. thirty silvers' (rintitcovra may throwsome light upon the subject ; whilst it is observable that thirty shekels of silver' was the price of blood to he paid in the case of a servant accidentally killed (Exod. xxi. 32). Mr. Poole proposes to explain the passage in St. Matthew as thirty shekels of silver ;' not as cur rent shekels, but as tetradrachms of the Attic stan dard of Greek cities of Syria and Phoenicia. These, at the time of Augustus, had fallen to be equal to the Phoenician didrachm, and the shekels and half shekels of Simon Maccabteus [MoNEv] are uni formly of the same weight as this Attic tetradrachm and its half, so that Josephus (Antiri. iii. 8. 2) speaks of the shekel as equal to four Attic drachms (or denarii) [DRACIIM]. These tetradrachms were common at the time of our Lord, and of them the stater (rendered in the A. V. piece of money ' Matt. xvii. 27), was no doubt a specimen [STATER]. It is therefore most likely that the thirty pieces of silver' for which our Lord was betrayed, were rather Attic tetradrachms than denarii. In the A. V. of St. Matthew the prophecy as to the 'thirty pieces of silver' is ascribed to Jeremiah. It has been thought to have been quoted from memory and inaccurately (Alford, in lee.) ; but it is to be remarked, that the Syriac version omits the proper name, and merely says, the prophet ; hence a copyist might have inserted the wrong name. (B) The second passage where the word dirytiptov occurs is in the Acts (xix. 19), where the price of the conjuring books that were burnt is valued at fifty thousand pieces of silver.' The Vulgate has accurately rendered the phrase by denarii, as there is no doubt that these pieces are intended.
The word clrydpcov in the N. T. has been in many other cases translated in the A. V. money' (Matt. xxv. 18, 27 ; xxviii. 12, 15 ; Mark xiv. Is ; Luke ix. 3 ; xix. 23 ; xxii. 5; Acts iii. 6 ; vii. 16 ; viii. 20; Rix. 19 ; xx. 33 ; I Pet. i. 18), though for the same English word the Greek xaXxoils (Mark vi. 8 ; xii. 41) and xpitua (Acts iv. 37 ; viii. 18, 20; xxiv. 26) also occur [MoicEv].-F. W. M.