165 Gold Daric

Museum Description: Gold Daric

Room: 13/Case: 4/Number: 20

Scripture: 1 Chronicles 29:7

The daric is from Persia, and is made from approximately 8.4 grams of gold, so was a relatively valuable coin in its day.  For more than two centuries it had the image you can see clearly on this coin, a king half-kneeling with a bow.  In the Bible, darics are mentioned as part of the contribution that David made towards the construction of what would become Solomon's Temple, but this would have been before the daric came into use.  The Bible writer Ezra evidently converted the amount donated into the currency his readers would have been most familiar with.  We do the same today, as we try to understand the values of coins and other financial transactions in the Bible so we can better understand the point being made.  The example here is from the reign of the famous Biblical king Darius I.