KERSEY, a kind of coarse woollen cloth, made chiefly in Kent and Devonshire.
KĒSĪTĀH. This word is to be met with in Genesis and in Job, and is translated in the Septuagint and Vulgate "sheep or lambs." But the Rabbins and modern interpreters are generally of opinion, that kesitah signifies rather a piece of money. Bochart and Euginus are of opinion the Septuagint meant mina, and not lambs: in Greek hecatommon, hecatommon, instead of hectes apion. Now a mina was worth 60 Hebrew shekels, and consequently 61. 16s. 10½d. sterling. M. de Pelletier of Rouen is of opinion, that kesitah was a Persian coin, stamped on one side with an archer (Kesitah, or Kesith, in Hebrew signifying "a bow"), and on the other with a lamb; that this was a gold coin known in the east by the name of a daric. Several learned men, without mentioning the value of the kesitah, say it was a silver coin, the impression whereof was a sheep, for which reason the Septuagint and Vulgate translate it by this name. Calmet is of opinion, that kesitah was a purse of gold or silver. In the east they reckon at present by purses. The word kista in Chaldee signifies "a measure, a vessel." And Eustathius says, that kista is a Persian measure. Jonathan and the Targum of Jerusalem translate kesitah "a pearl." (Gen. xxxiii. 19. Job xlii. 11). Or 91. English, supposing, as Dr Prideaux does, that a shekel is worth 3s. A daric is a piece of gold, worth, as Dr Prideaux says, 25s. English.