1 Chronicles 22:14

In my trouble: this he allegeth as a reason why he could do no more, because of the many troubles and wars, both foreign and civil, whereby much of his treasures was exhausted. An hundred thousand talents of gold. A talent of gold in the first constitution was three thousand shekels, as may be gathered from Exodus 38:24; and so this amounts to a very vast sum, yet not impossible for David to get, considering how many and great conquests he made, and what vast spoils and presents he got; and that he endeavoured by all just and honourable ways to get as much as he could, not out of covetousness, or for his own ends, but merely out of zeal for God's house. And whereas some object that this quantity of gold and silver was sufficient, though the whole fabric of the temple had consisted of massy gold and silver; it is to be considered that all this treasure was not spent upon the materials of the temple, but a very great part of it upon the workmen, which were nigh two hundred thousand, whereof a great number were officers, which being employed for so long time together, would exhaust a considerable part of it; and what was not employed in the building of the temple, was laid up in the sacred treasures for future occasions, there being mention of the great treasures left by David, even in other authors. But some learned men make these talents far less than those in Moses's time; and they conceive, that as there were two sorts of shekels, both of gold and silver, the common and the sacred shekel, whereof the latter is commonly thought to be double to the former, so also there were talents of divers kinds and values. For the Hebrew word kikkar, which is rendered a talent, properly signifies only a mass, or a piece, as it is used Exodus 29:23 1 Samuel 2:36 Malachi 5:7. So it may indifferently denote either a greater or a lesser piece. And this is certain, and observed by two ancient and most learned writers, Varro and Pollux, and by others, that a talent among the Greeks and Romans sometimes notes but a small quantity; and that a talent of gold contains only six drams. And Homer in his Iliads, among other things of no great value, which are propounded as rewards to the conqueror at a solemn and public exercise, a bond-woman, a horse, and a pot, mentions two talents of gold; which plainly shows that in his time (which was after the building of this temple) talents of gold were very far inferior in quantity and price to what they had been in former ages. And Josephus a Jew, and therefore the more competent judge of these things, speaking of this very thing, for a hundred thousand talents of gold here mentioned, he puts ten thousand; and for a thousand thousand talents of silver, he puts one hundred thousand; either because the talents in Moses's time were of ten times more bulk and price than in David's and Solomon's time, and therefore these talents reduced to them amounted to no greater sum; or because he read so in his copy of the Hebrew Bible. And certainly it is infinitely more tolerable and reasonable to suppose that there is a mistake here in the generality of the present copies of the Hebrew Bible, through the error of the scribe, (which being only in a numeral and historical passage, might happen without impeachment to the care of God's providence, which hath so miraculously preserved all the most important and substantial parts of Scripture, as hath been formerly said,) than upon such pretences to deny the truth and Divine original and authority of the Holy Scriptures. Add to this, that all the gold then used was not of equal worth and purity; as appears both by the special commendation given to some sorts of gold in divers parts of Scripture, and particularly by the difference observed in this very history between the gold and gold which David gave for this use; whereof one little part being distinctively called pure gold and refined gold, 1 Chronicles 28:17,18, it is sufficiently implied that all the rest of the gold was not refined nor pure, which might greatly diminish the worth of it; for in what degree it was impure or allayed with other things in those times and places we cannot know at this distance; and therefore we cannot make a true estimate what those talents of gold did amount to in our value. A thousand thousand talents of silver; just as much in silver as in gold; for this is known and agreed, that the proportion of gold to silver is ten to one.