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-34-
FOR BETTER OR WORSE:
CHAPTER FIVE -- GENERAL PRINCIPLES
Text: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." --(Matthew 22:39)
The Command of God
The Hebrews of old did not have the use of coined money of a certain weight; therefore they weighed all the silver and gold they used in trade (Cruden, 738). God had commanded,
"Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure, Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin shall ye have: I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt." --(Leviticus 19:35,36}
Again,
"Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small. Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small. But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God." --(Deuteronomy 25:13-16)
And again,
"Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights?" --(Micah 6:11)
Therefore, as Alexander Cruden related, the term "shekel of the sanctuary" expressed a just and exact weight according to the standards that were kept in the Tabernacle, and later in the Temple (Cruden, 738).
Gold
Even the casual reader of
the Bible knows gold was used in the Old Testament to represent Jehovah.
The Ark of the Covenant, the pot of manna, the Altar of Incense, the
Candlestick, the Table of Shewbread, the Golden Censer, the dishes, the
spoons, their covers, and the bowls, even the boards of the Tabernacle
were of gold. (Hebrews9:4; Exodus 30:1; 25:31,36, 29; 26:29}
When men became ungrateful for the knowledge God had
given them of Himself, they turned aside to worship the works of their
hands and their understanding was darkened. Still, however, they
continued to represent deity with gold. In his poems, Homer depicted
Zeus, the "giver of life to all: to men as well as to nations", as
clothing himself with gold. His palace was floored with gold, and his
horses had manes of gold. Even the whip he held was of gold.
Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, was
said to be golden. Everything that was beautiful and precious was
depicted as golden because gold not only possesses beauty, but is
inherently valuable. God made it this way.
Since gold is durable and portable, from antiquity, it
has been chosen, along with silver, as the medium of exchange; however,
under Roman tyranny, a creditor was obliged to take in payment whatever
the government was coining. In the Lex Cornelia, a penalty was
exacted against anyone refusing to accept it. Serious debasements of the
coinage occurred, particularly during the time of Hannibal's invasion.
The law was not seriously questioned, however, until the time of Sulla,
and it was not until the time of Diocletian that a change was made and
gold was made to pass by weight (White, 38).