Weight

WEIGHT of the Sanctuary, or Weight of the Temple. Moses often speaks of the Weight of the Sanctuary,¹ when there was occasion to express a just, publick, and sure Weight. Several learned Men have pretended,² that the Weight of the Sanctuary was heavier than the common Weight. But others,³ on the contrary, think the common Weights were heavier than those of the Sanctuary. They are farther divided among themselves about the Value and Weight of the two Shekels, and about the Distinction there was between the Shekel of the Sanctuary, and the publick Shekel; or the Shekel of the King,⁴ and the common Shekel. Some think the Weights of the Sanctuary, and the King’s Weight, are put by way of opposition to the Weight of strange Nations, as the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Syrians. Others will have it, that the King’s Weight, means the Babylonian Weight, and the Weight of the Sanctuary the Jewish Weight: That till the Captivity of Babylon, there was no Variety among the Weights of the Jews; that the only Passage in which mention has been made of the King’s weight, was either written or corrected since the Return from this Captivity.

Finally, the best Criticks maintain, that Walton, Bonfrere, alii.the Distinction of the Weight of the Sanctuary, and the publick Weight, is only imaginary, and that the whole Difference between these two Weights consists in this, that the Standards are preserved in the Temple, or the Town-house, and those of the Merchants and Citizens are derived from thence; and this is what to us seems to have the greater Certainty. We see by the Chronicles, that there was 1 Chron. xxiii. 29.a Priest in the Temple, who had the Weights and Measures under his care: Super omne pondus atque mensuram. Moses appoints, that all things valued by their Price in Silver, should be rated upon the footing of the Weight of the Sanctuary: Omnis aestimatio siclo sanctuarii ponderabitur: Siclus viginti obolos habet. Levit. xxvii. 25.He never mentions any Difference between this Shekel of twenty oboli, of twenty Gerahs, and the common Shekel. Ezekiel, speaking of the ordinary Weights and Measures used in Traffick among the Jews, says Ezek. xlv. 12.that the Shekel weighed twenty Oboli, or twenty Gerahs. It was therefore equal to the Weight of the Sanctuary. Neither Josephus, nor Philo, nor St. Jerome, nor any ancient Author, speak of this pretended Distinction between the Weights of the Temple, and those in common use among the People.

Besides, the Custom of preserving the Standards of Weights and Measures in Clem. Alex. Strom.Temples, is not peculiar to the Hebrews. The Egyptians, as Clemens Alexandrinus informs us, had an Officer in the College of their Priests, whose Business it was to examine all sorts of Measures, and to take care of the Originals. The Romans had the same Custom.⁵ The Emperor Justinian decreed by a Law made on purpose,⁶ that the Standards of Weights and Measures should be kept in the Christian Churches.

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