paying taxes, TEV states, “’Show me the coin for paying the tax’ They brought him the coin...” This solution avoids having to give details, and for the flow of the argument, it works perfectly well. In John
6:7, instead of “200 denarii,” NIV has “eight months’ wages.”
The only remaining units to be considered are the two-drachma and the tetradrachma stater mentioned in Matthew 17:24–27. Regarding the Greek term “Collectors of the double drachma,” NET explains in the
footnote:
This is a case of metonymy, where the coin formerly used to pay the tax the double drachma coin, or δίδραχμον dídrachmon was put for the tax itself.
g
Even though this coin was no longer in circulation in NT times and other coins were used to pay the tax, the name for the coin was still
used to refer to the tax itself. cf.
g
: BDAG 241 s.v. Several English translations simply say “temple tax,” which is elegant and more meaningful than a “two-
drachma tax.” If one uses “silver coin” for the denarius, and a “large silver coin” for the stater, it would be difficult to come up with yet another qualifier for the didrachma in the middle. Thus, it appears all the
more helpful to call it simply the “temple tax.”
The stater fits exactly the needs of Jesus and Peter. English translations suggest different ways of dealing with this. NIV uses the paraphrasing term “four-drachma coin,” NLT expresses the difference to the
denarius by stating: “a large silver coin.” TEV makes explicit the value by adding “a coin worth enough for my Temple tax and yours.”
One needs to be cautious with the term “silver coin.” Fry 1978 points out that nowadays, with banknotes being used in abundance, “silver coins” can be misunderstood as “small change” rather than
being a substantial amount of money. The reverse is true too: A “silver coin” can be associated with “gold and silver”; that is, riches. However, if one wants to use it for the denarius, it is supposed to denote
a normal coin of the every-day currency. Testing, of course, is needed to find out whether or not “silver coin” conveys the right idea.
6 Time
6.1 “Hours” and “night watches”
Regarding the Old Testament, HALOT and ISBE appear to agree that in Old Testament times the night must have been divided into three watches. The clearest hint is the expression “the middle watch” in
Judges 7:19. No further evidence is quoted in dictionaries.
One of the two Hebrew words utilized for “nightwatch” is:
ה ָרוּמְשַׁא
’ašmûrâ. And it occurs four times in the Old Testament, either as a time of meditation and prayer as in Psalms 63:7, 119:148, and in
Lamentations 2:19, or in parallel to “day,” as a short period of time in Psalms 90:4. However, only in Psalms 90:4 does it occur together with the word “night.” Also worthy of note is that in the poetic texts
no exact point of time seems to be in focus. Thus, the translator should be free to express the idea as it fits the immediate context. Psalms 63:7 may serve as an example:
NASB: When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches. NET: I remember you on my bed, and think about you during the nighttime hours.
TEV: As I lie in bed, I remember you; all night long I think of you.
A closely related word is
ת ֶרֹמְשַׁא
’ašmōret. It occurs in Exodus 14:24, as well as in I Samuel 11:11, both times together with the word for “morning,” meaning “morning watch.” That is, it apparently refers to
the last of the three night-watches. Thus, the translation ought to be fairly easy to render in a receptor language.
New Testament: ISBE, under “hour,” states: Since these were inaccurate chronometers that varied from one solstice to another, “hour”
designated simply one twelfth of either day or night...
h
Accordingly, “the third hour” was approximately 9:00 A.M., “the sixth hour” about noon, “the ninth hour” about 3:00 P.M.
fn.
h
: That is, depending on the time of the year an “hour” could be shorter or longer. PS Ortiz writes in TBT 41996:
References to hours can and must be converted into the system used by the reader, even though the equivalent time may not be absolutely exact. We know that Jews in the time of Jesus counted
the hours of the day from the rising of the sun; and even though this hour changes according to the season of the year, there is no great difficulty in converting it into our system. It is much
clearer to say that when Jesus met the Samaritan woman John 4:6 “it was around noon” than to say that “it was the sixth hour.” Otherwise, a reader may think that it was six o’clock in the
morning or six o’clock in the afternoon. For the hours of the night, there are two somewhat different systems in the Bible. In ancient times
the night was divided in three “watches.” In the Roman period the Jews were following the ancient system, but the Romans divided the night into four parts. Since the references are much
more vague, translators may use terms which are equally vague “the beginning of the night,” “midnight,” “early morning”. See Luke 12:38 for the Jewish system “if he comes in the second
watch” and Mark 6:48 “about the fourth watch of the night” for the Roman system.
56
6.2 Other times of the day
