7 and for the service for the house of God they gave 5,000 talents and 10,000 darics of gold, and 10,000 talents of silver, and 18,000 talents of brass, and 100,000 talents of iron.
8 Whoever possessed precious stones gave them to the treasury of the house of the LORD, in care of Jehiel the Gershonite.
NASBu 1 Chronicles 29:7-8
26 Thus I [Ezra] weighed into their hands 650 talents of silver, and silver utensils worth 100 talents, and 100 gold talents,
27 and 20 gold bowls worth 1000 darics, and two utensils of fine shiny bronze, precious as gold.
NASBu Ezra 8:27-28
Bible Contradiction …?
Coining money started around 500 BC. A famous golden coin with the image of Darius the first, was named the “Daric”. However, it is said in 1 Chronicles that David – living about 1000 BC – had already laid up 10.000 darics as a treasure for the Holy Temple.
Mmmmmmm, sounds strange, doesn’t it?
Gold coins
A generally-followed path of explanation among theologians is: No problem; in David’s time there already existed gold-coins, of course, and in latter times, copyists inserted the term 'darics' to make it more understandable. Despite the good intentions, this explanation is not solid for several reasons. Was the expression ‘gold-coins’ really difficult to understand in latter times? Certainly not, and it is not very reasonable that copyists inserted the term ‘darics’ to replace it.
Prophetical culture
Moreover these theologians don’t seem to realise that changing prophetical texts was not done. In the prophetical culture of Old-Israel, one was concerned to preserve holy texts instead of changing them. So it is more reasonable to reckon with the authenticity of ‘darics’ in David’s time.
Splendour coin
In most reference works the explanation is given that the daric was named according to the name of Darius whose image was on them, but that is a mistake. The name daric (adarkõn, daraikõn) is derived from the root: èdèr = might, splendour (Lexicon Koehler-Baumgartner, 1953), it is not derived from the name Darius which means: ‘Owner of the good’.
Guaranteed quality
The meaning of daric is ‘splendour coin’, or simply ‘gold-coin’ and not ‘Darius coin’. Long before Darius’ time, the daric or gold-coin was in use in the Middle East, of course without the image of a ruler on it; certainly in David’s time. As an international circulating medium the daric got a reputation all over the Middle East and could stand for ages. Darius only started to place his image on the darics to guarantee the quality of the coins in the Persian Empire.
Bible Contradiction? Of course not!