Ezra 7:22

Unto an hundred talents of silver. According to the weight of the light Babylonian talent, this would be 3,013 kgs., or 3.32 tons. In addition, Ezra could require 100 cor of wheat (22,000 liters, or 624 bu.), and 100 baths (2,200 liters, or 581 gals.) each of wine and oil. In the Babylonian contract tablets oil and wine are usually dealt with in “jars” whose capacity is not known. Prices for wine varied from one to eight shekels a jar, according to the quality of the wine and the season of the year. Compare Vol. I, p. 169. A requisition to the treasurer for wheat, wine, oil, and salt seems strange today, but was natural enough in the Persian system, where taxation was partly in kind and every province was required to remit to the royal court the choicest portion of its produce. Wine, corn, oil, and salt were all produced abundantly in Palestine, which was “a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey” (2 Kings 18:32), and, in the region about the Dead Sea, abounded with salt.