As trade increased in Israel during the time of Solomon, so did the use of gold and silver to pay for goods. Around this time, merchants and a special group of moneychangers began to weigh and test gold and silver pieces to judge their value and purity. Even so, exchanging one kind of merchandise for another continued to be the main way of doing business.

The use of money (minted coins) began in Palestine when the Persians ruled the land (530-330 B.C.). Gold darics, silver shekels, and minas were used to buy and sell things (Neh 5.15). Coins circulated from many different places. Even the Persian province of Judea was given permission to make its own silver coins. After the Jewish people won their independence under the Maccabees (164 B.C.), they again made their own coins.

In Jesus' day, Roman coins were the only form of money that could be used to pay taxes to the Roman government (see Luke 20.20-26), though coins of other countries were used in buying and selling. Although the Bible does not give a complete picture of the way local economies functioned, it does mention workers being paid for a day's wage (Matt 20.1,2), and describes the requirement to pay annual temple taxes (Matt 17.24-27). Each of these passages probably refers to a denarius, a coin from Cappadocia. This was also probably the coin Jesus mentioned in Matthew 22.19. The thirty silver coins that Judas was paid to help the authorities arrest Jesus (Matt 26.15) probably amounted to the wage of a typical laborer for approximately four months of work.

Banking and Money in the Ancient World

Ancient economies developed from a barter system in which one kind of merchandise was exchanged for another. International trade, at first, involved only exchanges between rulers and did not affect the lives of ordinary people. Silver, gold, and precious stones were used as money. Refining techniques increased the purity of precious metals and made accurate coinages possible. Yet even as the economy in cities became ever more sophisticated and complex, many rural areas continued to function using a barter system.