A Defective Weight from the First Temple Period Found Near the Western Wall

Oct. 14 2020

The book of Deuteronomy commands that “thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have,” and, moreover, states that anyone who uses dishonest weights to cheat his customers is guilty of an “abomination.” Thanks to a recent discovery, we know more about what such weights looked like. But in this case, as Amanda Borschel-Dan explains, its flaws are likely due to incompetence rather than wickedness:

A uniquely inscribed, 2,700-year-old limestone two-shekel weight recently discovered in earth excavated near the Western Wall in Jerusalem is a “very rare” example—of poor craftsmanship. The weight’s inscription, said the excavation’s co-director Dr. Barak Monnickendam-Givon, indicates the craftsman was “not familiar with the international symbol” for such stones, and so instead incised “something close enough.”

During the First Temple period, the coin-sized, 23-gram [0.8oz] round stone was part of a precise set of internationally recognized weights and measures imported from Egypt that were used in the Land of Israel for both Temple worship and the marketplace.

The Egyptian weight system was based on units of eight, as opposed to the more known decimal system that appears often in the Bible. . . . During the Iron Age, the Egyptian weight system was used in international commerce, and its implementation in the Land of Israel is an indication that the fledgling monarchy saw itself as an international player.

While hundreds of two-shekel weighing stones have been uncovered in excavations in and near ancient Jerusalem, this example is “very rare,” Monnickendam-Givon [said]. It . . . points to a “very local manufacture,” he said: the craftsman was apparently ignorant of the proper Egyptian symbol generally used to mark these stones.

Read more at Times of Israel

More about: Ancient Israel, Archaeology, Deuteronomy

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023