JUDAEA, Achaemenid Province (Yehud). Circa 350-333 BCE. Half Grh = Hemiobol (Silver, 7 mm, 0.27 g, 6 h). Ear (of God?). Rev. [𐤉𐤄𐤃] (YHD in retrograde Paleo-Hebrew) Falcon flying upward, head to right. Hendin 6060 (same dies). Jeselsohn 53-54 (same dies). Meshorer, AJC -. Shoshana -. Sofaer YC 13 (O1/R1). Very rare and exceptionally well preserved, with a wonderfully rendered Ear (of God?), and undoubtedly among the finest known examples. The usual light die wear and struck slighly off center, otherwise, nearly extremely fine.



The highly distinctive obverse of this celebrated Yehud issue presents a human ear as an independent coin type – an image apparently without parallel in ancient numismatics. Gerson connected it with the Shema, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one' (Deut. 6:4), the foundational biblical proclamation of Israel’s monotheistic faith. Yet even more direct resonances occur in prayers asking the Lord to 'incline Your ear and hear' (2 Kgs 19:16; Isa. 37:17; Ps. 17:6; 71:2; 86:1), while Psalm 94:9 asks, 'He who planted the ear, does He not hear?'

Read in this light, the image evokes the 'ear of God' – the unseen deity attentively receiving the prayers of His people. The isolated ear thus becomes a powerful visual surrogate for divine presence, translating biblical language into an image without portraying God in fully anthropomorphic form.

Individual human sense organs were not entirely unknown in Greek coinage, the best known comparison being the archaic eye on the fifth-century BCE coinage of Skione. This parallel is purely formal, however: the Skione type belongs to an entirely different cultural, artistic, and religious setting, and there is no comparable reason to interpret its eye as representing the divine.