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Archaeologists make exciting find in Jerusalem

Orange Gerald
@Jose
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Speaking of King Hezekiah of Judah, scripture says:

And the LORD was with him; wherever he went out, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him. (2Ki 18:7)

A few years prior, Assyria had captured and exiled the population of Israel, the northern kingdom. Hezekiah, ruling the southern kingdom, rebelled, but then submitted to the military might of Assyria, paying a heavy tribute.

In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me I will bear.” And the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the king's house. At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD and from the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. (2Ki 18:13-16)

For context, a "talent" is probably a little more than one hundred pounds, which would be $13 million in gold and $1.5 million in silver at today's prices.

Hezekiah was not the only Judean king to pay tribute to Assyria, but perhaps he was the recipient of this written warning to "pay up," recently excavated in Jerusalem. This video is less than two minutes long, and more details are in the article here:

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Discussion (9)

  • Nohaaj@Nohaaj

    Your modern day value on the gold is pretty darn close, even though it was my understanding that a talent was closer to 75#'s.

    On another topic, Joe Rogan would probably also love to learn of this excavation, and the historical significance and textual evidence of the accuracy of the bible.

  • Arahant@Arahant
    Orange Gerald (View Post):
    For context, a “talent” is probably a little more than one hundred pounds, which would be $13 million in gold and $1.5 million in silver, at today’s prices .

    Not to take away from the valuation, in fact, to multiply it. Even though it is the amount that much gold and silver would go for now, it was much more precious then for at least two reasons:

    1. More than two thousand years of mining gold and silver has produced a much higher overall supply of these precious metals.
    2. The overall wealth of the system has increased. Inventions and other intellectual properties have increased the total wealth in our economic system. Thousands of years of production of other items has also increased the total wealth, even where wars and destruction have worked to lessen that wealth. Still, the overall wealth of the world is millions or billions of times greater than in Hezekiah's time. That has also changed the relative value of that much gold and silver. Fifteen million bucks? My elder brother is worth that much. There are probably a million people or more in the world worth more than that today. (Supposedly, there are about 24,000,000 millionaires in the US, but going from one million dollars to fifteen would weed many of them out.) Back then, that was the wealth of a kingdom plus the wealth gathered in by their religion as offerings. Think about it.
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