Thirty silver pennies in a fundamentally religious and Catholic work

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

One can make any asinine allegory or allusion one wishes. If we're going to lift biblical passages and throw them against a wall to make them stick -- and it's entirely reasonable to think that Tolkien knew this passage -- it would seem that this line from Exodus is far better suited to make such an allusion, and more than likely just as wrong.

Indeed. Not every little detail Tolkien added has to have some special significance. After all, J.K. Rowling came along much later.