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Precious stones and metals
Silver
Hebrew kesef (also “money”) · Greek argyrion · weighed out as money before coins
Silver was known in the Middle East from about 4000–3000 BC. It was mined from ore — Job speaks of “a mine for silver” (Job 28:1) — and refined in a crucible, sometimes several times over, to remove the dross. Before coins came into use, silver was the usual money: pieces of silver were weighed on a balance against a standard weight, and the Hebrew word for silver, kesef, also means money. Abraham weighed out 400 shekels of silver for the cave of Machpelah (Genesis 23:16), and Joseph’s brothers sold him for twenty shekels (Genesis 37:28).
Silver was a measure of wealth, a common prize of war and a material for cups, ornaments and crowns; Joseph had a silver cup (Genesis 44:2). In Solomon’s reign, the Bible says, silver “was accounted as nothing” (1 Kings 10:21), apparently because there was so much. The Bible often names silver before gold, by one view from a time when gold was valued less. Silversmiths hammered out trumpets (Numbers 10:2) and fittings for the tabernacle, and at Ephesus the silversmith Demetrius made silver shrines of Artemis (Acts 19:24). Judas was paid thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:15).
Key verses
A crucible for silver and a furnace for gold, but the LORD is the tester of hearts.Abraham agreed to Ephron’s terms and weighed out for him the price he had named in the hearing of the Hittites: four hundred shekels of silver, according to the standard of the merchants.All King Solomon’s drinking cups were gold, and all the utensils of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. There was no silver, because it was accounted as nothing in the days of Solomon.“Make two trumpets of hammered silver to be used for calling the congregation and for having the camps set out.It began with a silversmith named Demetrius who made silver shrines of Artemis, bringing much business to the craftsmen.Sources
Adapted and shortened from the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0
Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers · CC BY-SA 4.0 — Minerals* and Metals; Minerals* and Metals: Metallurgy and Metal Extraction; Minerals* and Metals: Specific Metals; Silversmith
Adapted from Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary: articles chosen, shortened and retold in our own words (history, nature and daily life only) and, in languages other than English, machine-translated. The original work by Tyndale House Publishers is available for free at tyndaleopenresources.com.
