=Weighing out the silver or gold.=--In those early days there was no
coined money. Silver and gold were used as money, only they had to be
weighed every time a trade was put through; just as though we were to
sell so many pounds of flour for so many ounces of silver. The weights
used were very crude; usually they were merely rough stones from the
field with the weight mark scratched on them. The scale generally used
was as follows:

60 shekels = 1 mana.
60 manas = 1 talent.

The shekel was equal to about an ounce, in our modern avoirdupois
system. There was no accurate standard weight anywhere. Honest dealers
tried to have weights which corresponded to custom. But it was easy to
cheat by having two sets of weights, one for buying and one for
selling. So when our shepherds came to town, they had to watch the
merchant who bought from them lest he put too heavy a talent weight in
the balance with their wool, and too light a shekel-weight in the
smaller balance with the silver.


THE HARD SIDE OF SHEPHERD LIFE

The most precious and uncertain thing in the shepherd's life was
water. If in the rainy season the rains were heavy, and the wells and
brooks did not dry up too soon in the summer, they had plenty of
goat's milk for food, and could bring plenty of wool to market in the
fall. But if the rains were scant their flocks perished, and actual
famine and death stared them in the face. In the dry years many were
the tribes that were almost totally wiped out by famine and the