MONEY, CURRENT

kur'-ent (`obher, "passing," Genesis 28:16 2 Kings 12:4 (Hebrew 5)): The text and translation in 2 Kings 12:4 are uncertain and difficult. See the Revised Version margin. The reference is probably not to a money standard, but to a poll tax which was levied in addition to the free-will offering. Genesis 23:16 implies the existence of a standard shekel and also probably the use of the precious metals in stamped bars or ingots of an approximately fixed weight or value, a primitive coinage. Code of Hammurabi presupposes these pieces, and records in cuneiform writing discovered in Cappadocia indicate that shekel pieces with a seal stamp were in use in Asia Minor in the time of Hammurabi (Sayce, Contemporary Review, August, 1907, XCII, 259;). The existence of these pieces did not do away with the custom of weighing money, a practice which obtained in Israel down to the time of the exile (Jeremiah 32:10).

Walter R. Betteridge

CURRENT MONEY

See MONEY, CURRENT.