Genesis 23:16

weighed The scales were ready. "Weighed" is the appropriate word for the payment of money in days when money was not coined. Coined money seems not to have been in use among the Israelites before the Exile. The price of an article was reckoned by the weight of metal silver or bronze given in exchange for it. The metal might consist of bars or rings. Possibly in Joshua 7:21, "a wedge of gold" was a bar, or ingot. For other instances in which the word for "to pay" is in the Hebrew "to weigh," cf. 1 Kings 20:39; Isaiah 55:2 ("spend"); Jeremiah 32:9-10; Zechariah 11:12. Sayce (quoted by Skinner, p. 338, n.) mentions evidence for "shekels stamped with a seal" in the period of Hammurabi (Cont. Rev.Aug. 1907).

silver, currentmoney with the merchant Lit. "silver passing over to the merchant," i.e. pieces of good metal used in commercial exchange. LXX τετρακόσια δίδραχμα ἀργυρίου δοκίμου ἐμπόροις, Lat. quadringentos siclos argenti probatae monetae publicae.