1 Kings 10:14 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Talents. — The word properly signifies a “circle,” or “globe,” and the talent (among the Hebrews and other Orientals, as among the Greeks) denoted properly a certain weight. (a) The ordinary talent of gold contained 100 “manehs,” or “portions” (the Greek mna, or mina), and each maneh (as is seen by comparing 1 Kings 10:17 with 2 Chronicles 9:16) contained 100 shekels of gold. According to Josephus (Ant. xiv. 7, 1), each maneh contained 2½ Roman pounds, and the talent, therefore, 250 Roman pounds, or 1,262,500 grains; and this agrees fairly with his computation elsewhere (Ant. iii. 8, 10), that the gold shekel was equivalent to the daric, which is about 129 grains. (See Dictionary of the Bible: “WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.”) According to this calculation, 666 talents would give a weight of gold now worth £7,780,000. (b) On the other hand, the talent of silver is expressly given (by comparison of Exodus 30:13-15; Exodus 38:25-28) at 3,000 “shekels of the sanctuary,” and such a shekel appears, by the extant Maccabæan coins, to be about 220 grains. Of such talents, 666 would give a little more than half the former weight; hence, if the talent of gold here be supposed to be in weight the same as the talent of silver, the whole would give a weight of gold now worth about £4,000,000. Considering that this is expressly stated to be independent of certain customs and tributes, the smaller sum seems more probable; in any case, the amount is surprisingly large. But it should be remembered that at certain times and places accumulations of gold have taken place, so great as practically to reduce its value, and lead to its employment, not as a currency, but as a precious ornament. Making all allowance for exaggeration, this must have been the case among the Mexicans and Peruvians before the Spanish conquests. It is not improbable that the same may have occurred in the time of Solomon.