Maneh

The maneh is a Hebrew unit of weight, equivalent to the Greek mina. UPDV preserves the term "maneh" itself in Ezekiel's standardization passage, while the same unit surfaces in narrative as "minas" of gold and silver and, in one Roman context, as a "pound" of ointment. The texts together fix the maneh's place inside the larger system of biblical weights: shekel-based, used to measure precious metals deposited in temple treasuries and royal armories, and, in a single Greek-text parable, used as the unit of capital entrusted to slaves.

The Standardized Maneh

Within the surveyed UPDV witness, Ezekiel 45 is the verse that names the maneh directly, and it does so as part of a reform regulating weights and measures: "And the shekel will be twenty gerahs; twenty shekels, five and twenty shekels, fifteen shekels, will be your⁺ maneh" (Eze 45:12). The maneh is defined here in shekels, downstream of the gerah-shekel relation; the verse's plural-you (⁺) addresses the people corporately, fixing the unit by decree rather than by custom.

Maneh as Royal Treasure

The same unit, rendered "minas," appears in the inventory of Solomon's gold ceremonial shields: "And [he made] three hundred shields of beaten gold; three minas of gold went to one shield: and the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon" (1Ki 10:17). The parallel notice in Chronicles measures the same shields by a different unit — "three hundred [shekels] of gold went to one shield" (2Ch 9:16) — placing the maneh and the shekel side by side as alternative reckonings of the same royal hoard.

Maneh in the Returnees' Treasury

After the exile, the offerings collected for rebuilding the temple are itemized in minas of silver. Ezra records that the heads of houses "gave after their ability into the treasury of the work threescore and one thousand darics of gold, and five thousand minas of silver, and one hundred priests' garments" (Ezr 2:69). Nehemiah's parallel breaks the same offering down by donor group: the heads of fathers' houses gave "twenty thousand darics of gold, and two thousand and two hundred minas of silver," and the rest of the people gave "twenty thousand darics of gold, and two thousand minas of silver, and threescore and seven priests' garments" (Neh 7:71-72). The maneh here is the standard accounting unit for silver in the post-exilic treasury alongside the gold daric.

The Roman Pound at Bethany

In Bethany, the unit shifts. Mary "took a pound of ointment of pure nard, very precious, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment" (John 12:3). UPDV's footnote identifies this as "a Roman pound which contained 12 ounces" — distinct from the Hebrew maneh of Ezekiel's reform, but rendered with the same English word "pound" in the older translation tradition catalogued under this heading.

The Mina as Capital in the Parable

Luke's parable of the nobleman uses the mina as the unit of capital entrusted to slaves before the master's departure: "And he called ten slaves of his, and gave them ten minas, and said to them, Trade⁺ until I come" (Lu 19:13). The slaves' returns are reported in the same unit — "Lord, your mina has made ten minas more" (Lu 19:16); "Your mina, Lord, has made five minas" (Lu 19:18); and the failed slave returns the unspent capital: "Lord, look, [here is] your mina, which I kept laid up in a napkin" (Lu 19:20). The settlement strips the unprofitable slave: "Take away from him the mina, and give it to him who has the ten minas" (Lu 19:24), even after the bystanders observe, "Lord, he has ten minas" (Lu 19:25). The footnote in UPDV glosses the unit: "A mina was worth about 100 days' wages."

The mina here is not weighed metal in a treasury but a sum of money apportioned per slave; the unit is the same one that underwrites the temple-and-armory accounts of the Hebrew Bible, now functioning as the accounting unit of a stewardship test.