Penny

The penny of the New Testament translates the Greek denarion (Latin denarius), the standard silver coin of the Roman Empire and the common daily wage of a laborer in first-century Palestine. It bore the image of the reigning emperor on one face and was the most widely circulating coin in the Roman world. One denarius represented a full day's wage for agricultural workers, as illustrated in the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:2), where the landowner agrees to pay each worker a penny a day.

The denarius appears in several significant Gospel scenes: Jesus asks whose image is on the coin when questioned about paying tribute to Caesar, prompting his famous reply, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's (Matthew 22:19–21). In Revelation 6:6, one denarius buys only a quart of wheat or three quarts of barley — a day's wage for a day's food — depicting the famine conditions of the third seal. The Authorized Version consistently renders denarion as penny, though its purchasing power was considerably greater than a modern penny.