Jeremiah 32:9

9. Seventeen shekels Two things arrest attention in this price: 1) The peculiar form, literally “seven shekels and ten of silver.” 2) Its smallness, about ten dollars. Possibly the first may be explained as a legal formula, while the second may be due to the consideration that the sale of land was, correctly speaking, only the sale of the use of it up to the year of jubilee. And then, the value of land depends largely on the state of society and the political prospects of the country. Other cases in which the price of land in Palestine is mentioned are the sale of Araunah’s threshing-floor with the oxen and implements for fifty shekels, (2 Samuel 24:24,) and the potter’s field to the chief priests for thirty shekels. Matthew 27:7.