Bible Synapse
Yehud coins
Coin · 4th–3rd centuries BC · Persian period · also called YHD coins, Yehud coinage
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- 4th–3rd centuries BC (the series, begun under Persian rule)
- Found
- Judah (many sites). Known from nine hoards and from 60 coins recovered in controlled excavations. The excavated coins all come from within the borders of the province, with clusters around Jerusalem and in the Keilah district to the south-west.
- Now
- Israel Museum and other collections, Jerusalem and elsewhere
- Passages
- Ezra 5:8, Nehemiah 5:14–15
What it is
Tiny silver coins, most weighing well under a gram, struck for the Persian province of Judah from about the middle of the 4th century BC and on into Macedonian and Ptolemaic rule; a few larger drachms came first. They carry the province’s name, YHD (Yehud), in Aramaic or paleo-Hebrew letters, with designs such as an owl copied from Athenian coins, a falcon or a lily. Some name a governor, Hezekiah.
How it connects to the Bible
Ezra and Nehemiah describe Judah after the exile as a small province (“the province of Judea”, Ezra 5:8) under governors appointed by the Persian king, Nehemiah among them (Nehemiah 5:14–15). The coins, struck in the century after Nehemiah, are that province’s own money, issued in its own name, and fit the picture of a province that ran some of its own affairs.