Answer: Joseph
Reference: Genesis 37:28
Insight: What his brothers meant for evil, God used to preserve many lives, including theirs.
Bible Stumpers
Pieces of Silver in the Bible
Silver weaves its way through some of the Bible's most memorable stories.
Twenty pieces bought a brother into slavery. Seventy financed a massacre. Thirty became the price of a shepherd's rejection.
From paying ordinary wages to turning up in the mouth of a fish, and even going up in flames with books of sorcery, silver repeatedly appears throughout Scripture's story. Sometimes it exposes human greed and corruption. Other times, it points toward redemption.
Pieces of silver in the Bible
So, how well do you know these silver stories?
Below are 10 questions about silver in the Bible. Some are famous. Others are details even seasoned Bible readers often overlook. How many can you answer before checking?
Stumpers: Pieces of Silver in the Bible
1. Twenty pieces of silver changed hands when these brothers sold their younger sibling to a passing caravan, never imagining the slave they sold would one day hold their lives in his hands. Who was the brother they sold?
2. Under the Law of Moses, when this animal gored a servant to death, its owner owed the servant's master exactly 30 shekels of silver, and the animal itself was stoned. What was the animal?
Answer: An ox
Reference: Exodus 21:32
Insight: The Law fixed 30 shekels as the compensation price for a servant's life, the very sum that centuries later would be weighed out for the betrayal of Christ.
3. Seventy pieces of silver from the temple of Baal-berith hired the "reckless scoundrels" who helped this man slaughter his seventy brothers, all but one, on a single stone. Who was he?
Answer: Abimelech
Reference: Judges 9:4–5
Insight: Idol money funded fratricide: seventy pieces of silver for seventy sons of Gideon, with only young Jotham escaping to pronounce judgment.
4. Each of the five Philistine rulers personally promised this woman 1,100 pieces of silver, a combined fortune of 5,500, if she could pry out the secret of one man's strength. Who was she?
Answer: Delilah
Reference: Judges 16:5
Insight: Samson survived lions, armies, and ropes, yet fell to persistence and compromise in his closest relationship.
5. When 1,100 pieces of silver vanished from his mother's house, this man heard her pronounce a curse on the thief, then confessed he had taken it himself. She responded by "dedicating" the returned silver to the LORD and having a carved image made. Who was he?
Answer: Micah
Reference: Judges 17:1–4
Insight: Theft, a curse, and an idol "dedicated to the LORD" capture the spiritual confusion of an era when everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
6. A servant's quarter shekel of silver, all he could offer as a gift for the local "man of God," turned a frustrating hunt for lost donkeys into a royal anointing. Which future king was doing the searching?
Answer: Saul
Reference: 1 Samuel 9:8
Insight: A pocket-change gift and some wandering donkeys led Saul straight to Samuel, who anointed him Israel's first king.
7. This prophet was commanded to love an adulterous woman again, and he bought her back for fifteen pieces of silver plus a homer and a half of barley. Who was he?
Answer: Hosea
Reference: Hosea 3:1–2
Insight: Many scholars note the silver and grain together likely equaled the full price of a slave, a costly redemption picturing God's relentless love for unfaithful Israel.
8. After asking for his wages, this prophet received 30 pieces of silver, which the LORD sarcastically called the "magnificent price" at which He had been valued, then ordered thrown to the potter in the house of the LORD. Who was the prophet?
Answer: Zechariah
Reference: Zechariah 11:12–13
Insight: In this prophetic sign-act, Zechariah played the role of Israel's rejected shepherd, and every detail, the thirty pieces, the contempt, the potter, and the temple, reappears in the account of Judas's betrayal money.
9. To prove He was no tax evader, Jesus sent Peter to the sea with unusual instructions: the first fish he caught would contain a silver coin in its mouth, enough to pay the temple tax for how many people?
Answer: Two (Jesus and Peter)
Reference: Matthew 17:24–27
Insight: A single stater, worth four drachmas, covered the half-shekel tax for both men exactly, a quiet miracle of precise provision.
10. In one of Jesus's parables, a woman lights a lamp and sweeps her entire house to recover a single lost silver coin. How many coins did she own in all?
Answer: Ten
Reference: Luke 15:8–10
Insight: One coin out of ten was worth turning the house upside down, a picture of heaven's joy over a single sinner who repents.
Bonus: When new believers in Ephesus publicly burned their scrolls of sorcery, someone tallied up what went into the flames. What was the combined value of the books?
Answer: 50,000 pieces of silver
Reference: Acts 19:19
Insight: Genuine repentance was willing to torch a fortune rather than keep a foothold in the old life.
