Nehemiah 7:71
And some of the chief of the fathers gave to the treasure of the work twenty thousand drams of gold, and two thousand and two hundred pound of silver. And some of the chief of the fathers gave to the treasure of the work twenty thousand drams of gold, and two thousand and two hundred pound of silver.
The verse preserves one portion of a freewill offering brought for the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the house of worship, in which the governor, the heads of families, and the rest of the people united in presenting gold and silver to the treasury for the work. Taken together with the sums named in the verses immediately around it, the whole gift reaches a value of about three hundred thousand dollars in present reckoning when measured by the weight of the metals. That large amount was contributed willingly by an impoverished community of scarcely fifty thousand persons. The raising of means to advance the cause of God has always belonged essentially to the gospel itself. Such liberality in straitened circumstances stands as a summons for later believers not to be surpassed by it, but to give with full heart to supply needs still greater.