שְׁלֹשִׁים

From the study of Ezekiel 1:1

Range of meaning

"In the thirtieth year," with no era or reference point given. Hebrew dates normally name a king's reign or an event ("the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's exile," v.2). The missing reference point is unusual.

Against the English

Most versions keep the ambiguity: "In the thirtieth year." NLT settles the question with "my thirtieth year" and turns the date into "July 31," which is reasonable but is an interpretation, not a translation.

Used elsewhere in the period

Num 4:3, 23, 30: Levites and priests served in the sanctuary from age thirty to fifty. The Aramaic Targum reads "in the thirtieth year after Hilkiah the high priest found the book of the law" (2 Kgs 22, about 622 BC, which is roughly 30 years before 593). Ezekiel 1:3 names him a priest, "Ezekiel son of Buzi, the priest."

From the study of 1 Chronicles 11:42

Range of meaning

The number thirty. In the lists of David's warriors (2 Sam 23; 1 Chr 11), 'the Thirty' (always with 'the') is also the name of an elite group of heroes. The name may have stayed even when the actual number of members was different.

Against the English

BSB adds 'the' ('the thirty with him'), which could make readers think of the elite corps. KJV, WEB and YLT have just 'thirty', matching the Hebrew.

Used elsewhere in the period

Elsewhere in the list, the elite group is called 'the Thirty' with the article (1 Chr 11:15, 25; compare 2 Sam 23:13, 23–24). Here the article is missing.

From the study of Zechariah 11:12

Range of meaning

'Thirty (shekels of) silver', about 340 grams of silver. Hebrew often leaves out the unit 'shekel' with silver amounts.

Against the English

Most English versions supply 'pieces of silver', which modern readers picture as thirty coins. KJV prints [pieces] in brackets to show it is added. YLT's 'silverlings' is a coined word for the same thing.

How it drifted

'Pieces of silver' goes back to Tyndale and the KJV tradition and was strengthened by the Judas story in Matthew, where actual coins (probably Tyrian shekels) were involved. In Zechariah's world the phrase means a weight of silver.

Used elsewhere in the period

Exodus 21:32: an owner whose ox gores a slave pays the master thirty shekels of silver. Leviticus 27:4 sets thirty shekels as the vow valuation for an adult woman, against fifty for a man. Assyriologist Erica Reiner (JAOS 88, 1968) argued that in Mesopotamian texts 'thirty shekels' can be an idiom for a trifling sum. Others question how far that applies here.