Money – The Law of God and Public Policy: The Economy (8)

Money

The Law of God and Public Policy: The Economy (8)

A just economy requires a stable currency.

“…you shall take five shekels per head; you shall take them according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel of twenty gerahs)…. Numbers 3:47

From ancient times people understood the value of currency in carrying on transactions with one another. Some form of money, whether of precious metal, stone, sea shell, or other commodity, has existed in virtually every society and among even the most primitive of people in all times.

The basic unit of Hebrew currency appears to have been the silver shekel, which weighed, according to the marginal note of the ESV, 2/5 oz. or 11 grams. The phrase, “shekel of the sanctuary,” which recurs at various places in the Law of God, suggests a standard unit of measure. Much as the Bureau of Standards in Washington conserves “standards” for length, weight, and so forth, against which all rulers, measuring cups, and the like are manufactured, so in ancient Israel the priests and Levites were entrusted with a “shekel of the sanctuary” which was used to determine the reliability of all shekels that were offered for exchange in ancient Israel.

Shekels were comprised of silver and had to weigh 11 grams or as much as the shekel of the sanctuary. They were not to be “cut” with other metals or regarded as shekels unless they contained the proper amount of silver. Shekels were probably just lumps of silver that could be shaved or melted as needed. For ease of transaction, we can assume that certain “lumps” or bags of shekels were approximately the same size and could be traded without having to be weighed every time. Suspect shekels, we assume, could be brought to the “bureau of standards” for comparison, and those who circulated them, presumably, would fall under the requirements of justice set forth in the eighth and ninth commandments. Only later in Israel’s history did gold begin to be used as a currency and coins to be struck as matters of convenience.

The Law of God thus guards the economy it outlines against inflation and deflation of the currency by requiring that all trade should be in proper currency of precious metal according to weight. Currency was not the only—and perhaps not even the most common—medium of transaction. There was undoubtedly more bartering than actual exchanging of currency in the economy of ancient Israel, but even that, as we shall see, was regulated according to fixed standards.

A just economy requires a stable currency—money, the value of which can be relied on in every transaction, generation after generation. It is therefore unjust, according to God’s Law, to enact policies that manipulate the value of currency on nothing more than the fiat declaration of the powers-that-be. The Law of God requires, for a just economy, the conservation of wealth, and the proper stewardship of all property, that policies should be enacted which preserve the value of the currency, according to fixed and reliable standards of weight and measure. Any policies which threaten the stability of currency should be opposed.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.