A Zuz (
Hebrew: זוז; plural זוזיםzuzim) was an ancient
Jewish silver
coin struck during the
Bar Kokhba revolt as well as a Jewish name for the various types of non-Jewish small silver coinage, used before and after the period of the revolt.[1] The name was used from the Greek era of drachmas, through the Roman era of Denarius, and then as the quarter denomination of
Bar Kokhba Revolt coinage. The Jewish insurrectionists' zuzim were overstruck on
Imperialdenarii or
provincialdrachmas of the emperors
Vespasian,
Titus,
Domitian,
Trajan, and
Hadrian. Four zuzim, denarii or drachmas make a
shekel, a sela or a
tetradrachm.
Etymology
Several different etymologies have been suggested for the word "zuz":
A corruption of the Greek
Zeus, who was the deity portrayed on the reverse of many Seleucid tetradrachms during the latest stages of the
Seleucid Empire.
In Hebrew, the word "zuz" means "move", or "to move", so it was called "zuzim" to show that it was constantly moving around, usually referring to the fact that Jews must give charity,[citation needed] or referring to the nature of money that it moves from one person to another,[2] alternating who is wealthy.[citation needed]
Related to a root (not occurring in the Hebrew Bible) meaning "shining" or "glittering".[3]
According to Stephen Kaufman, zūzu is of
Akkadian origin.[4]American Heritage Dictionary also states: "from Akkadian zūze, half, division, unit of weight, from zâzu, to divide".[5]
Usage
In the
Talmud, the zuz and the dinar are used interchangeably, the
difference being that the zuz originally referred to the
Greek Drachma (which was a quarter of the Greek Tetradrachm, which weighed approximately 17 grams) while the dinar referred to the later Roman
Denarius (which was a quarter of the
Tyrian shekels and had the same weight as the
Jerusalem Shekels and the Roman provincial
Tetradrachms at approximately 14 grams).
The zuz is mentioned in the
Haggadah in the
Passover song "
Chad gadya, chad gadya" ("One little goat, one little goat"); in which the lyric of dizabin abba bitrei zuzei ("Which Father bought for two zuzim (
half shekels)) repeats at the end of every stanza. It may be significant that two zuzim equal the half-shekel tax required of every adult male Israelite in Exodus 30:13.[6]
^Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim. the Talmud, and the Midrashic Literature (1903, 2nd ed. 1926, NY) page 385, s.v. זוז (II);
Alexander Harkavy, Students' Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary to the Old Testament (1914, NY, Hebrew Publ'g Co,) page 134, s.v. זו.
^The
Targum Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of First Samuel 9:8, translates the "quarter-shekel" in the original Hebrew into "zuz", making one zuz equal to one-fourth of a Temple shekel (not a "common shekel"—of which a zuz represented one-half, according to some Talmudic mentions), and two zuzim equal to half of a Temple shekel.