Weights and measures (Hastings' Dictionary)

L Introductory. Tlie Sources, monumental and literary. Tub Hebrew Weioiit-System. ii. ((7) The Babylonian or 2.')2-f^rain unit, lii. {by Tile new Syrian or 3'20-;rrain unit. iv. (c) Tlie PhiBiiician or i;24-grain unit. T. (d) The syncretic weiglit-system of tile Mishna. Measures op Lenoth and Surface vi. The approximate value of the Hebrew cubit, vii. Ita subttivisions and multiples, viii. Surface measure. Ukasckes of Capacity. ix. Scale of wet and dry measures. The value of the rphah-bath. X.

The measures of Scripture. Literature. i. Introdiiitorij. The Sources, monumental and literary. — The system of weights and measures adopted by a particular nation of antiquity is not merely a subject of interest to the nietro- logist, but is of importance to every student of the history and development of the human race.

In its metrology we have a clue, frequently older than anything to be found in its literature, to the forces at work in shaping the social and economic development of this particular nation, and to the inlhience, it may be, which it was able to exercise in its turn. The early economic history of a nation or country, in particular, is a subject of wliicli in many cases the student of metrology holds the key.

'Ihis is to some extent true even of the economic historj' of the Hebrews, notwithstanding the comparative antiquity of their literature, and the almost entire absence of monu- mental evidence in the shape of actual weights and mea.sures. An outline of our still imperfect knowledge of Hebrew weights and measures may be expected to include the following topics: — (1) A presentation of thevarious.

systems— weight, measures of length, and measures of capacity — and of the mutual rela- tion of the various denominations within e.'ich .sys- tem ; (2) an attempt to determine the absolute value or values of each individual weight and measure in terms of the BritL-ih imperial system ; and (3) the relation of the Hebrew system in its various divisions to the older metrolo^ical systems of anti(iuity.

Reference will be made only inci- dentally to the question of the origin of weights and measures in general, and to tlie inter-relation of the various sy.stenis, — of the weight stamUvrds to those of length, and of both to the standards of volume, — siibjectsof equal interesi iiiul complexity, which belong rather to a scientilic treati.se on metrology. It must sutlice at this stage to record the fact that mo.

st Continental metrologists are now agreed as regards the most elaborate of the ancient systems, and, it would a|ipcar, the source of all or almost all existing systems, namely the Babylonian, that it was constructed with rigid scientilic accuracy upon the basis, astronomical ly ascertained, of tlio unit of length. A cubic vessel, a fract ion of this unit in the side, furnished the unit of volume ; the weight of water contained in this unit was the unit of weight (."co below, ;;§ vi. ix.)

The sources from which are derived the materials 902 WEIGHTS AND MEASURES WEIGHTS AND MEASURES for such an outline as has just been sketched are of two kinds — monumental and literary. The former, unfortunately of the most meagre amount, consist of actual measures and weights, including coins, that have come down to us from the various periods of the national life of the Hebrews.

The literary sources are, first of all, the books of the liible, to which the works of Josephus, despite numerous inaccuracies, form an invaluable addition, owing to the frequent valuation of Jewish measures in terms of the contemporary Grajco-Roman system. The treatises of the Mishna also contain valuable material for the first two centuries of our era.

Finally, we have the late Greek writers on metro- logy, one or two fragments, in particular, showing accurate knowledge of the later Jewish system (see Hultseh's Mctrologicorum Scriptorum Rcliquia;, 1864). Under both heads, monumental and literary, may be classed the metrological data furnished by the two great centres of early civilization, Baby- lonia and Egypt, on the one hand, and on the otlier by the better-known systems of Greece and Rome.

At every period of tlieir history the Hebrews were alive to the necessity of an accurate system of weights and measures, and of an honest handling of the same. The earliest literary prophets are already found inveighing against the too pliant conscience of their contemporaries who made the ephah smaU and the shekel great (Am 8°) ; in other words, gave short measure in selling the necessaries of life, while weighing the price to be paid against a weight that was unduly heavy.

Amos' successors, Hosea (12') and Micah (6""-), were also led to de- nounce the 'balance of deceit' witli its 'bag of deceit- ful weights,' and the 'scant ephah which is abomin- able.' Centuries later there is a sad monotony in the complaints of the religious teachers regarding the prevalent tampering with the 'just' weights and measures (Pr IP 16" 20'").

The first legislative action in the interests of economic righteousness in our extant records is found in the Deuteronomic legislation (Dt 25''""). Here the practice of em- ploying a double set of weights and measures- one above the normal for buying with, and an- other below it for selling with — is condemned, and ' whole and just,' i.e. accurately adjusted, weights and measures expressly enforced under promise of the Divine blessing.

A similar demand for 'a just balance, just weights, a just ephah, and a just bin,' is emphasized in the Law of Holiness (I,v 19*"-) and in an important passage of Ezekicl's ideal constitution, to which attention will after- wards be called (Ezk 45'-'2). The latest legislation even went so far as to order the periodical clean- ing of the weights, scales, and measures, lest their true value and capacity should be impaired by the adiiesion of foreign substances (Baba bathin, V. 10 f.)

The Hebrew Weight, System. —ii. (a) The Babijloniitn or 252-grain unit. — Just as the natural proportions of the human body furnished the earliest measures of length (see "below, § vi.), so man in all probability ' made his earliest es.says in weighing by means of the seeds of plants, which nature had placed ready to his hand as counters and weights' (Ridgeway, Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards, 387). By the beginning of the third millennium n.

c, however, both the Babylonians and the Egyi>tians had left this primitive system far behind them. The former, in particular, as early as li.c. 3000, and prolialily long before, had elaborated a metro- logical system which, in its scientific basis and inter-relation of standards, bears a striking resem- blance to the metric system of the Continent (see art. Bauylonia, vol. i. p. 218 f.)

The importance of the Babylonian system for our present study la due to the fact, "first clearly revealed in the Tel el -Amarna correspondence, that the early civilization of Canaan was, in all essentials, of Batiylonian origin.

The grounds on which the older metrologists, such as Boeckh and Brandis, had long before inferred that the Babylonian weight-system had penetrated to Syria and Pales- tine, and the conclusive proof of the accuracy of this inference attbrded by the Amarna tablets, have been given in the opening section of the article MONEY (vol. iii. p. 418), and need not be re- peated here. It is essential, therefore, to under- stand the principle upon which this system waa constructed. This was the now f.

amiliar sexa- gesimal principle, characteristic of the Babylonian scheme of numeration, the number 60 holding in this scheme the place of 10 in our decimal system. Thus 111 is not, as with us, 10- -t- 10-1- 1, but 60- -f 60 H- 1, or 3661. Our division of the hour into 60 minutes, each of 60 seconds, it need hardly be said, is a direct legacy from the banks of the Euphrates. The unit of weight in the developed system was the mina (\\Titten ideograph ically MA.

NA, and therefore presumably of Sumerian origin, though possibly Semitic), the Heb. njp maneh (so AV Ezk 45'-, elsewhere ' pound ') and the Gr. fivd. The next higher denomination, its sixty-fold, was the talent (Heb. "1J3, apparently the gaggaru of the Amarna letters, in Greek riXavrov), whUe below the mina was its s'jth, the shekel (shiklu, Heb. h-p^, from shakalu, ' to weigh,' hence rendered in Greek by (TTarrip from tuTrifn in the same sense, and trans- literated by (Tiy\oi).

The scale may be graphically represented thus— 1 talent =60 minas = 3600 shekels. 1 mina =60 ,, In the early temple-accounts, dating from B.C. 2000, recently recovered from Telloh in Southern Babylonia, there occurs a subdivision of the shekel into 180 shi or grains of wheat, which was after- wards discarded.

This subdivision into 60 x 3 parta is of course an adaptation to the sexagesimal system ; but it is worth noting that the prehistorical or natural Babylonian shekel, as it may be called, cannot have been far off the weight of 180 wheat- grains. If the weight of a grain of wheat be taken at the usual estimate of •70, 72 of a grain Troy (originally a grain of barley, according to Ridge- way, op. cit. 180 ff.)

, ISO such giains come to 126- 130 Troy grains, which is precisely the weight of the shekel as given by the existing stone weights (see below). As there can be little doubt that the use of the balance was first employed for the precious metals, the shekel, as its name denotes, was almost certainly the earliest unit of weight, as it continued to be, to the exclusion of the mina, in the earlier Hebrew literature (cf. MONEY, vol. iii. p. 420'' for illustrations).

\\ hen we pass to the determination of the value of the shekel and the higher denominations in the Babylonian system, we find that this branch of metrology has been almost revolutionized by the discovery in recent years of a few very ancient inscribed stone weights from the earliest centres of civilization in Southern Babylonia. The evidence of these weights may best be represented in tabular form.

For full description (with illustrations) refer- ence must be made to the numerous essays of the discoverer, Dr. C. F. Lehmann (see Literature at end of article), esp. to Das altbahylonische Mass- und Geu-ic/Ussystcm, etc., Leiden, 1893. Here we have unexpected evidence that the double standard, familiar enough in the weights of the Assyrian period, in which each denomination (mina, shekel, etc.)

of the one set weighed waa twice the weight of the same denomination of the other set, was in existence at a very early period, for the weights in question date from B.C. 3000- 2500. Weights of tlie former class are said to be WKlGliXS ASD MEASURES WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 903 on the heairy standard, those of the latter on the light standard. Weight B, it will be found, repre- DeacriptioD of Weight Actual weight in grammes. Weight of resultant mina in grammes. A B 0 D Oval Ptone, about 4 tn.

long, with inscription in Sum erian, ' ^ mina, true weight,' etc Similar to A in form and ma- terial. Inscription uncer- tain. Clearly i of the fore- goinp, or i^ niina . Lon(;ish barrel -shaped stone of same hard urteiistone as A and B. \ mina, true weipht; palace of Nabusu- nit-sir, pnest of Marduk ' . Cone-shaped stone, with long inscription in Babylonian. '1 mina, true weight. — copy of weight or standard of Dunt^'i ... by Nebuchad- nezi-ir .

, king of Babylon' [about 18 grains lost by fracture of the stone, oriijinally 15,105 grains 244-8 81-87 164-8 0783 489-6 491-22 492-9 979-5 Shekel Mina = 60 shekels Talent=60 minas = sents the average mina of the light standard, viz. 49r2 grammes = 7580 grains. The corresponding mina of the heavy standard is tlierefore 9S24 grammes = 15,160 grains. Tlie following table gives the values of the complete scale : — Values of the e.\rliest Babylonian Weights. Heavt. LlOIlT. 2.

523 grains 126J grains* 15,160 „ 7580 circa 2J lb. avoir. dr. l^'^ lb. avoir. = 3600 shekels, circa 130 lb. avoir. ,, 65 ,, „ These new values are considerably less in the higlier denominations than those previously aiioi)ted in metrological studies, which were based oil the evidence of numerous lion and duck weiglits of a much later period from the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, yielding minas of 15,600 (heavy) and 78(10 grains (light standard), and shekels of 26U and l.SO grains respectively.

From the fact that several of the bronze lion weifjhts bear inscriptions con- taining inter alia, the plirase ' 1 mina, | mina, etc., oftheldnq,' it has become customary to descrilie these as belonging to tlie royal standard, to dis- tingnisli them from the earlier or common standard. In addition to these two standards, Dr. Lelimann has brought forward evidence, to which we pro- pose to add presently, to show that the common standard at some early period received an increase of 5 ]jer cent.

, yielding miiiiis of circa 16,000 and 8000 grains respectively. Whether or not tliis in- crease was intended to be conlined to p.ij-ments made to the royal treasury cannot be ascertained, but there is monumental evidence that Darius Hystaspis added just this percentage to the weights of his time (see the inscrioed weiglit published by Budge, PSBA (1888), pp. 464-466; Lelimann, Ver- handlungen d. berliner Gesell. /. Anthropologic, etc. 188'J, p. 273).

Returning now to the original mina of 15,160 (7580) grains, and shekel of 2,')2 (126) grains, we lind from a comparative study of the weight-systems of antiquity that the advancing tide of Babylonian civilization carried them to the shores of the Mediterranean, from whence they passed, in a bewildering variety of forms, to almost every civilized country. Thus, when the first Ptolemy * This is only 3 ^nlna heavier than the EnglUh sovereign, 123874 grains.

reorganized the metric system of his new kingdom, he introduced the light mina of 7580 grains as the standard trade weight of Egypt. This mina, again, is exactly IJ times the Koman pound, 01 libra, of 5053 grains, which is one-third of the cor- responding lieav3' mina.

The available evidence, further, goes to sliow that the shekel of 252 grains was the unit for t}>e weighing of gold adopted by the Hebrews, as it was the gold as well aa the trade unit of Babylonia — as has been assumed in the article Money (see table, vol. iii. p. 419''), althimgh, in the light of recent discoveries, to be related in the .sequel, and of the preference of the priestly legislation of the Fentateucli for tlie Phoenician or silver standard of the same table, the a.

ssumption of that article requires to be some- what qualilied. Still, when we compare the state- ment of the Hebrew historian as to the amount of 9ezekiah's indemnity imposed by Sennacherib, so far as the amount of gold is concerned, viz. 30 talents (2 K IS'''), with the latter's official account (see Schrader, KIB ii. p. 95), where precisely the same amount is recorded, we are bound to infer the identity of the Hebrew and Babylonian talent of gold.

Then there is the statement of Josephus with reference to the weight (300 minas) of the beam of solid gold taken by Crassus from the temple treasury ; 17 5^ iiva Trap i)fuv (Vxi^ci Xirpas Svo ruiiuv (Ant. XIV. vii. 1 [Niese, § 106]). This gives a weight of 2i Pionian libras, or 12,630 grains, for the mina of 50 shekels, and 252| grains for the shekel, or alternatively 126J grains for the mina of 100 sliekels (for this division see below).

In either case, the result is the familiar shekel of the early Babylonian sj-stem. This yields a Hebrew gold monetary talent of 60 minas or 758,000 grains ((,-. 108 lb. avoir.) But another statement of Joseplius shows that at least an article made of gold might have its weight stated in other terms ; for he gives the weiglit of the golden candlestick, which was a talent according to Ex 25'', as 100 minas {/ttxas iKaT6v), adding : 'E/Spaiot fiiv koKovhi. KLyx^P^^ [*.6. ^7?Jt ^^'5 5^ ri]!

/ 'EX\7;i'tK7;i' /xerafiaWdfjievo^ yXuiTTav arjualvit. ra\avTov [Ant. III. vi. 7 [§ 144]). Tlie mina of this passage is clearly distinct from the mina of the passage just cited, viz. yJj of 7.38,000 grains, or 7580, which is the light Baby- lonian trade mina of 60 shekels of 126J grains, as shown in the table, § ii. above. This exjilana- tion, suggested for the first time, has the merit of preserving the consistency of Josephus as regards the weiglit of the Hebrew gold talent.

On the other hand, inasmuch as the weights of gold and silver in the Priests' Code are e.xpressly stated to have been on the standard of the so-called ' shekel of the .sanctuary' (see next §, and Money, vol. iii. p. 422), or Phoenician shekel of 224A grains, 3000 of which yield a talent of 673,500 grains, the explana- tion of the passage adopted in the previous article (I.e.)

, that tlie luO minas are Attic minas of 6735 grains, is perhaps to be preferred, even at the expense of the Jewish historian's consistency, and despite the fact that the Koman-Attic mina in his day weighed considerably less (see § v. below). These considerations, at least, show the difficulty of arriving at definite results in the absence of monumental data.

The persistence, side by side, of the two stand- ards, the heavj^ and the light, exidains how the heavj' mina might by one writer be taken as con- taining 50 heavy sliekels, by another a» containing loo light shekels. Thus it is that the weight of Solomon's smaller shields is given in 1 K 10" aa three (heavy) nuna.s,* but in the parallel passage • The mlno (njp) ig here flrat nut with In OT.

El8cwher» only Ezr2^, Neh T^if- (in all three passa^'cB rendered 'pound in EV), Ezk t&i'' where It U transliterated 'maneh,' and Da 904 WEIGHTS AND MEASURES WEIGHTS AND .MEASURES (2 Cli 9") as 300 (light) shekels, assuming, that is, that the text of both passages is intact. If the ex- planation given elsewhere (Money, vol. iii. p.

421'') of the new denomination, darkemon, found only in the historiial work, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehe- raiah, is correct, that we have here a Hebraized form of the Greek 5pax,"^, we have further con- tirniation of the prevalence in the Persian and early Greek periods of the light, in preference to the heavy, shekel. The weight of 1000 drachms (AV 'drams,' RV 'darics,' Ezr 8"), for example, is undoubtedly 1000 of the light Perso-Babyloniau shekel on the royal standard, viz.

130 grains (see above), the theoretical value of the Persian daric. The same weight is most probably intended by the unique expression employed to indicate the weight of Absalom's hair, viz. '200 shekels after the king's weight' (:ij>sri jax?* 2 S \i'\ The con- text of this verse is now regarded as a pcst-exilic addition to the original narrative (Budde, Thenius- Lbhr, H. P. Smith) ; and, since the plirase i.

s paral- lel to the legends on the lion weights of Nineveh, we may safely understand the sliekel in question to be the light Persian unit of 130 grains, giving a total weight of 26,000 grains, or 3f lb. avoirdupois. If the legend of Bel and the Dragon, as is possible, had its home in Egypt, the ' 30 minas of pitch' in this curious storj' (v.

^ LXX) are the Ptolemaic trade minas, which we have seen to be identical with the light mina of the earliest Baby- lonian weights ; and thus we return at the close of this section to the point from wliich we set out. iii. (6) The new Syrian or 320-grain unit. — Refer- ence has already been made to the interesting fact that the tribute of the vassal-states of Syria and Palestine in the reign of Thothmes III. (c. I.")(i0 B.C.)

when expressed in terms of the Egyptian weiglit-system, based on the ket with its decimal multiple, the deben or uten, runs to irregular numbers and even fractions of the ket, whereas its original weight must have been hundreds and thousands of shekels. Various attempts have been made recently (see Brugsch, Z.f. Aegypt. Sprache, 1889, 22 a'., 87 ti'., Z.f. Etknologie, 1889, 36fl'. ; Lehmann, Verkandl. d. berl. Gcs.f. Anthropologic, 1889, 272 f. ; Hultsch, Gewichte d. AUertums, 25 f., 119 f.)

to determine the value of the shekel or shekels by which this tribute was weighed. These attempts, however, can yield but doubtful results, owing, for one thing, to the considerable range in the value of the ket, as sliown by actual weights. Thus, to take a .'simple illustration, in Thothmes' 34th year ' the tribute of the provinces of the land of Retennu [Syria] ' was in ' gold 55 dchcn 8 ket ' (Petrie, Hi.'it. of Egypt, ii. 118).

Now, if we take the ket as fixed by Lepsius, Hultscli, and others at 140 grains, it will be found that 558 ket rejiresent 620 shekels of 126 grains, or 600 shekels of 1302 grains, on the ' royal ' or later daric standard, without a remainder in either case. On the otlier hand, we have only to take 14335 grains as a mean value of actual ket weights to get 558 /;<;< = 80,000 grains, or 10 light minas of the common norm, raised 5 per cent, as explained above.

We have been led to this result by fresh evidence, unknown to the writers just cited, to which we now turn. In the on either side of which were engraved a number ol early Heb. characters. The correct decipherment and interpretation of these gave rise to a somewliat heated controversy in various periodicals, in which Professors Robertson Smith, Sayce, Driver, and others took part (see PEFSt, 1890, 267 ; 1891, 69 i 1893, -22 ; 1894, 220, 284 ti'. ; 1895, 187 ff.)

With the help of other inscribed weights still more recently discovered by Dr. Bliss in Southern Palestine, one 32> Jt^ 7^1 I A.1 . half- ^ imlf? jl WHIQHT 0, WEIGHTS D AND ■. A>'CIENT HEBRBW WKaHTB FROM 801'TIIERN PALESTINK. of the two doubtful words on the Chaplin weight is now made out with tolerable certainty to be ii}, a Heb. word from the same root as the Arabic nusf, meaning 'half,' first suggested by Professor Euting in 1890 (in Konig's Einleit. in d. A '/', 425).

The second doubtful word (Sr), on which the controversy mainly turned, is apparently an ablireviation of the familiar Sb?" (Conder, PEFSt, 1891, 69 ; Clermont-Ganneau, ib. 1899, 208, and, more decidedly, Reeueil d'archiol. orientate, iv. (1900) 24 ff., where a full discussion of these early weights wUl be found), the limited space available perhaps causing the omission of the p.

The evi- dence of the Chaplin and otlier weights, five in all, may best be presented in tabular form thus — Early inscribed Hebrew 'Weights. UICI2ST HEBREW WEiaHT (a) EBOM SAMAR11. spring of 1890 Dr. Chaplin purchased at Nablus a small shuttle-.shaped stone weight, here reproduced, * Literally, 'after (the standard of) the kind's stnnf-.'

That the Hebrew, like the early Babylonian, weights were of stone, is shown by the fact that |5(< is elsewhere frequently used in OT in the sense of ' a weight ' ; cf. Lv 19», Dt 2S'», Pr 16" etc. Weight of Actual resultant Description of Weight. weight heavy in grains. shekel in grains. A Small shuttle-shaped weight 89-2 / 313-6 ■I 166-8 of hiematite from Samaria, with inscriptions ^'^i j;3T '?[?]» y3T [J nezfph~\ shekel). lUustr. PEFSt, 1880, 267 ; 1894, 2S".

B A perforated 'bead' of red- dish-vellow stone from Ana- 168 312 thoth inscribed 'ISJ. Actual weight 134 grains : before perforation approximately 15« grains (ib. 1893, 321., 257 ; illust. Clermont-Gan- neau, op. cit. 26). 0 Small dome-shaped weight of reddish stone from Tell Zakariya, inscribed 1^: (Bliss, PEFSt, 1899, 107 1.; illust. ib. plate 7). 157-5 316 /^^^■o similar weight* ; one of ' white limestone, the other D E of 'light reddish' stone, 146-T 29S .

with the same legend as Ii, 13» 278 and 0. Same provenance as C (Bliss, ib. 183, with I, illust.) . The last two, of soft limestone, are evidently much worn, and may be neglected in favour of the better preserved sjiecimens in our determination ol the unit here disclosed.

Starting from the mora extended inscription of the Chaplin weight, the characters of which point to an 8th cent, date, i<t WEIGHTS AND MEASURES "WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 905 note, first of all, the inlluence of the Babylonian double standard. This alone explains how tliis tiny weifjht tan be at once the fourth of a whole Bheki'l and the same fraction of a half -shekel, assiiniinj; tliat this is the true sense of nezeph (see Clermont Ganneau, op. cil. 30 f.)

Furtlicr, altliuugh of liard hu'niatite, the condition of the ins<ri|)tion shows that it has lost a tritle of its original value, which must have been not less than 40 grains. As it represents a quarter (cf. the ^R? V3T or quarter-shekel of Saul's servant, 1 S 9'), this f;ives IGO j;rains for the liyht shekel, the half or nezeph of tlie corresponding heavy shekel of 320 grains— a result entirely in harmony with the original values of weights B and C.

The great importance of these new discoveries lies in the fact tliat we have here a shekel liitherto unknown in Palestine. Indeed it appears to have been un- known to nietrologists until discovered in numer- ous examples by Flinders Fetrie in Naukratis and neiglibourhood (Fetrie, Naukratis, pt. L 78, 85 f.; Tanis, pt. ii. 84, 91 f. ; cf. his art. ' Weights and Mea-sures' in Encyc. Brit.* xxiv. 487 f.)

The standard of these weights is named the ' 80-grain standard' by Fetrie, who regards it as derived from 'the Assyrian 5 or 10 shekel weight, binarily divided and used as an independent unit,' since 128 grains x lO-i-4 gives 320 grains. While differing witli reluctance from so distinguished a metrolo- gist, the writer still adheres to the conclusion he tad come to before having an opportunity of con- sulting the Naukratis and Tanis volumes, viz.

that the new Palestinian weights are derived directly from the Babylonian miua of 16,000-8000 grains, tlie origin of which has already been fully ex- plained. Tlie shekels of tliese minas, of course, yield 266-133 grains, on the sexagesimal system ; out in the West tliis system never supjilanted what must be regarded as the earlier decimal system. Hitherto it has been usual, it is true, to a.s.sume that the Helirews in early times adopted the sexagesimal .

system in its entirety — the talent containing 60 minas of 60 shekels eat'D (so even by our most recent authority on Hebrew archaeology, Nowack, Hell. Arch. i. 208); but proof of this view is entirely wanting. For the attempt to obtain it from the corrupt MT and the EV render- ing of E/.k 45''-' ' twenty shekels, live and twenty shekels, hfteen shekels [ = 60 shekels] shall be your nianeh,' is grammatically and otherwise inadmis- sible.

The only possible remedy for this passage is, with all recent critics, to accept the reading of the codex A of the LXX, ana render : * five (sliekels) shall be five, and ten shekels ten, and fifty shekels shall be your mina'; i.e. the weights in everyday use, like tlie measures referred to in the verses preceding and following, shall be neither more nor less than the standard value. In the West, then, we liohl that from the first a comiiromise was efVected between the decimal and sexage.

-iimal systems, and that, while the le.^^s frequently used talent of 60 mina.s was retained, tl.c ' raised ' minas of 16,000 and 8000 grains were divided by 50 to yield shekels of 320 and 160grain.s. The fact to which Fetrie calls attention (.iVa«- Icr'itii, i. 85 f.), that the Egyptian weights of this itapdnrd are of large size, averaging 2000 grains, " Fet lie's weights, Nos. 483, 486, 1282, 1286, tne largest found, are all c. 8000 grains, — seems to tell in fp.

k-our of the derivation here proposed and against the derivation from a snniller unit. I'ctrie, however, is of the opinion, to which we were led independently after repeated attempts to find the shekel of the Syrian tribute lists, that the shekel in (|uestion is to he found in this new 80- grain unit, which he therefore jiroposes 'to call in future the llittite standard' (/Vijii'.v, ii. 92).

On the whole, however, a safer nomenclature would be the Syrian standard ; and certainly the unit must be raised, in deference to the unequivocal testimony of the Chaplin weight, to 160 or 320 grains. The result, then, of the recent discoveries is to show that from the 16th to the 6th cent. li.C. a light shekel was in use in .

Syria and Egypt of the value of 160 grains, which was at tlie same time the half of a corresponding heavy shekel of 320 grains, each being 5'^ of min;is of 8000 grains (Ii lb. avoir.) and 16,000 grains (2» lb. ) respectively. Further, this mina of the 320-grain or Syrian standard continued in use in Syria down to the Chri.stian era: witness the inscribed weights from Antioch and neigli- bourhood, described by Brandis (iJas Miinz-, Miia.\- unci Gewic/Ussi/stem Vurdcrasiens, 156 ft'.)

, one of which bears tlie interesting legend BAIilAEfiS AXTIOXOT GEUT EIIW'ANOT iMNA, and weighs 7'J60 grains. The sniallness of the Palestine weights points, like the tribute lists, to the use of this unit for weighing the precious metals ; while the large size of the Naukratis weights shows that in Egyjit it was rather used ' for domestic and common purpo.ses' (Fetrie).

So far, then, as our present evidence goes, we may conclude that this ancient unit was in use for all transactions along- side of the Phuiiiician unit, next to be discussed, until displaced by the latter after the Exile, largely, no doubt, owing to the inlluence of Ezekiel and the Priests' Code, both the>e authori- ties contemplating the latter as the <inly olhcial unit. It is worth noting, finally, as a notable example of the trustworthiness of tradition, that Maimonides in his a-hja niD'j.

i, a coninientary on the Mishiia treatise Slieknlim, records that the early Hcb. shekel weighed 320 grains of barley (i.e. Troy grains), and was supplanted in the time of the second temple by the §ela,' (y'pc), the Heb. equivalent of the tetradrachm or lieavj- Plnen. shekel (see Surenhusius' summary in his preface to the treatise in question, Miihna, ii. 177). iv. (c) The Plu£nii:ian or 2J4-grain unit.

— Pre- vious to the discovery of the weights described in the foregoing section, the only lleb. unit monu- mentally attested was the shekel of the coins of the revolts, generally but wrongly known as the Mac- caba'an shekel.

The usual explanation of the origin of this widely-spread unit (the theoretical value of which may be put at 224i grains, with i fl'ec- tive weight averaging 218-220 grains) as a silver unit from the Babjloiiian gold shekel of 252 grains, on the ratio of gold to silver as 13.)| : 1, has been given under Mo.NEY (iii. 419"). Hultsch, on the other hand (Gewichte d.

Alterttims, 7, et passim), linds its origin in Egyjit, the shekel of 224 grains being A of a mina of 60 shekels, each of the value i ket (140 grains x J x 60^.")0 = 224). It is possible, however, that the Fhuuiician 224-grain shekel is to be derived from the Syrian 100-giain shekel described in the previous section. We have only to a.

ssume that in the West gold stood to silver in the more convenient ratio of 14 : 1 ; the gold shekel of 160 grains would then be worth ten silver shekels of 224 grains each, since 160 x 14 = 224x10. This is at least preferable to Kidge- way's theory based on an assumed ratio between the metals of 17 : 1 {Origin of Currency, 287). In any case we liave to deal with an exceed- ingly ancient unit, for an Egyptian weight in- scribed with the n.ame of Ampi, a priest of the 10th dynasty (c. 2300 B.C.)

, and marked lus 10 units, weighs 218H grains (tirillith, FSHA xiv. 445), yielding a unit of 2188 grains, which can scarcely be other than the Pha'n. shekel of 218-224 grains.

Its prevalence in Palestine from the earliest histori- cal period need not be doubted, as it may be coii- lidently assiiiiied to have been the siher, if n<it, also, ttie trade shekel of the Fhicnician tiadeif in Canaan, whose name Canaanite CHi^) came latterly 306 WEIGHTS AND MEASURES WEIGHTS AND MEASURES to signify ' merchant' in general (Zee 11'- " [LXX], Pr 31-'' etc.) It must therefore have existed side by side with the 320 (IGO)-grain .shekel al)uve de- scribed.

Like the otiier units of Western Asia, the PhcBn. unit had its lieavy and light shekels of 2244 and 112i grains respectively. Fifty of the former or 100 of the latter went to the heavy mina of 11,225 grains (c. 1^ lb. avoir.), and GO niin.as, as else- where, to the talent (see table, vol. iii. p. 419'').

It is manifestly the shekel intended by Ezekiel (45''), who hrst mentions the subdivision into 20 rjerahs — a term apparently adopted from the Babylonian, giru being the name of a small silver coin (?) of Nebuchadnezzar's time, and identified by the Alexandrian translators with the tireek (i/3oXo's (see, further. Money, vol. iii. p. 422).

The Priests' Code likewise seems to contemplate its adoption for every transaction with tlie balance, certainly for silver and gold (Ex 38=^"-), spices (30-"), anil copper (cf. 38^ with Lv 27"). Ibis is conhrmed by the evidence of the Misbna to the weights of the first two centuries of our era (see next §). That the hea\'y shekel of 220-224 grains, and no other, can be the ' shekel of the sanctuary,' or ' sacred shekel,' we have endeavoured to prove else- where (I.e. ).

The ' 20 shekels of bread ' of Ezk 4'» are doubtless of this standard, probably also the talents of iron of 1 Ch 29' ; while for the brass and iron of Goliath's armour (1 S 17°'') we have the choice of the Phoen. and of the new Syrian shekel. V. (rf) The syncretic weifj/U-stjstein of the Mishna. — It has been sufficiently explained elsewhere (Money, iii. 426 ff.)

how, after the Roman con- quest of the East, the drachm of the Greek monetary sj'stem became interchangeable with the lioman denarius, reduced in weight, first to 60, and then by Nero to 52.J grains, when it ditlered but little from the quarter-.'-hekel of 54J grains, efl'ective weight. Xow, since the denarius was a fixed fractional part of the lioni.

in pound, being ^ of the libra and therefore J of the uncia, the denarius-drachm was found to be not only useful as money, but exceedingly convenient as a weight. Thus it came to form the unit of the latest Jewish weight-system as reflected in the Mishna. Its divisions and multiples are a tribute to the adaptive genius of the Jewish people, com- bining, as they do, elements from the systems of Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome, which all had their meeting-ground in the Palestine of the first century.

The denarius-drachm itself was named the zuz (m), and retained the division into six obols (n;;=). Two denarii made a (light) shekel, four a tetra- drachm (y'jc), the ancient Ueb. (heavy) shekel, of which 25, or 100 ziiz, went to the mina. For the last the old Heb. term njD was retained, e.g. a mina of flesh (Sanhcd. viii. 2), of figs (Peah viii. 5), of wool (Khullin xi. 2). In the two passages last cited, and elsewhere, we meet with the jicrds (o";5) or halfniina.

This term most scholars now agree in finding — as first suggested by M. Clermont- Ganneau — in the Perks and U-'Phar.sin of Dn 5J8. »^ jijg mysterious writing on the wall signify- ing, not as in RVm 'numbered, numbered, weighed, and divisions,' but 'a mina, a mina, a shekel, and half-minas.' The system above sketched may be presented thus, omitting thelowestdenomination — Thb LiTKST Jewjsu Wkiout-Svsteu. m Denarius-drachm 1 62) gn.

'>p^;y Shekel 2 1 106 „ Slho Tctradrachm 41 210 „ njc Mina 100 60 25 1 62501 „ nrj Talent 6000 3000 1500 60 1 816,0002 „ Notes.— 1 i.e. 12 oz. avoir. 2 i.e. 45 lb. • The old term ' shekel * was henceforth confined to the true half-shekel, formerly 112 grains ; cf. the name of the treatise The importance of this late Jewish system foi our previous investigations lies in the fact that it supplies the evidence, for which one looks in vain in the older Heb. literature, that the Phoen.

weight- system has the best claim to be regarded as that on which Jewish trade was conducted not only in the first two centuries of our era, but for several centuries before. It was natural that the mina c< this system should be identified with the libra 0/ pound of the Roman weight-system. The hitter occurs in the NT only in Jn 12^ 19™ (EV ' pound, \irpa, whence the x-i-rb of the Mishna, also occasion- ally •p''?«s'i< liP). Tlie talent (Rev 16-', cf. Josephus, BJ V. vi.

3 [§ 270] TaXavTatoi irfrpai) of 315,000 grains when doubled, i.e. when taken not as 3000 light but as 30U0 heavy shekels or tetradraclims, was tariti'ed on the Roman system as 125 libras, as is testified by a weight with the inscription PONDOCXXVTALENTVM SICLORVM III (3000 shekels, the M for 1000 being omitted), and confirmed by Epiphanius. A large stone weight found at Jeru- salem in 1891 {PEFSt, 1892, 289 f.), said to weigh 41,9U0 grammes (c.

646,000 grains), is evidently a heavy talent on this system. To sum up the result of the foregoing sections, evidence has been adduced for the existence, side by side, in the earlier period of Heb. history of three distinct units of weight — the Babylonian 252- grain unit, the new Syrian 320-grain unit, and, the best attested of all, the Phoenician 224-grain unit, each with its corresponding light unit of 126, 160, and 112 grains respectively.

The second probably did not survive the Exile ; while the last, in the end, gained the day over both its com- petitors. Hebrew Measures of Length.— vi. Approxi- mate value of the Hebrew cubit.

— The most wide- spread of all metrical denominations are those measures of length which have been derived from certain parts of the human body — the Gngerbreadtli or digit, the handbreadth or palm, the cubit (Ki'/SiTof, cubitum, the elbow), or the length of the forearm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. The equally convenient ' foot,' liowe\er, is foretgn to the Heb. system. By the Gr.

met- rologists of the empire the digit was regarded as the unit : 6 SaKruXos Trpwris 4aTLV (affirfp Kal ij ^ovd.i (ir'i Til/ apiB/j.Qv, SO writes Julian of Ascalon (np. Hultsch, Metrol. Script. RcliquicB, i. 200), who proceeds to give the usual denominations of the system in use in his time in Palestine, disclosing tlie well-nigh universal division of the cubit into 6 palms, each of 4 digits (for exceptions to this division see below).

The comparative frequency of the references to the cubit in the OT, however, warrant us in regarding it as the unit of the Heb. system. Before proceeding to the investigation of the length of the cubit, it may be noted at this stage that the Hebrews in their measurements employed botli the measuring-rod (mnn .ijij Ezk 40" etc., LXX and NT (cdXa^aos, Rev 11' 21"") and the measuring-line (.Tj?n 15 Jer 31^" ; also oin 1 K 7'°, Jer 52-' [AV wrongly 'fillet']).

The latter was I)robably used for the larger measurements, one such being mentioned in the Mishna as of 50 cubits in length (Erubin v. 4). The evidence of the OT goes to show that the Hebrews, before and after the Exile, were familiar with two cubits of ditlerent lengths. First of all, we find the bed or sarcophagus of Og, the king of Bashan, measured according to ' the cubit of a man ' {&k nwi Dt3", cf. Rev 21") ; in other words, according to the then customary, everyday cubit (cf.

the similar expressions in the original of 2 S 7", Shel^aZim^ dealing with the pavTnent of the temple tax of half a shekel. In Galilee, however, the term ypD was applied to the latter, hence in the Mishna the Galilseau fUd is always said tc be equal to \ the ^eld of Judsa. "WEIGHTS AND MEASUEES WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 907 Is 8', Rev 13" etc ).

When we consider, in the second place, that the early chapters of Deuteronomy are almost certainly later than tlie eigliteenth year of Josiab, and therefore within the period embraced by the lifetime of Ezekiel, we are led to identify the ' cubit of a man ' of the passage cited with the cubit in everj'day use among Ezekiel's contem- poraries.

This prophet, in a passage of the lirst importance for our investigation, informs us that tlic measurements of the temple of his vision are not on the st-andard of the then generally used cubit, but after a cubit longer than the latter by a handbreadth (Ezk 40", cf. 43").

* Now, since tlie proportions and arrangements of Ezekiel's temple are in all essential particulars identical with those of the temple of Solomon, the prophet's aim in the use of this longer cubit can hardly be other than to ensure that his temple shall be a replica of the older Solomonic temple. That this, rather tlian the possible alternative that Ezekiel is here intro- ducing a new cubit on the Babylonian standard (so Haupt in SBOT, 'Ezekiel,' 179 f.)

, is the correct inference from the passage before us, is confirmed by the remark of the Chronicler that the dimensions of Solomon's temple were deter- mined by cubits ' after the former measure' (2 Ch 3^). Ezekiel and the Chronicler, then, are our authorities for the conclusion that the cubit in ordinary use, both before and after the Exile, was sliorter by a handbreadth tlian tlie cubit emplojcd, for buildin" purposes at least, in the reign of Solomon.

In view, further, of the all but un- varying tradition, confirmed by the practice else- where, as shown above, that the ordinary cubit contained six palms or handbreadths, we are left to infer that the Solomonic building cubit toas a cubit of seven handOreailt/is. When we look for further light on this point to the ancient home of all scientific metrology, the result is disappointing. As early as B.C.

3000, the era of Gudca, the Babylonians bad discarded the more primitive or natural system of lineal measures for a rigidly scientific system, constructed, like the rest of their metrology, on a sexagesimal basis. On this system fresh light has recently been thrown by the recovery of two early scales of linear measurement, engraved upon statues of Gudea, from Telloh in Southern B;iliyIonia (see details by C V. Lehmann in Verkandl. d. bcrliner Gescll.f. Anthroiioloqie, 1889, 288 fl'.

; 1896, 453 tl.; Das altbabyl. Mnas- und Geunchtsstjstcm, iy2li'. A short summary with illustration is given by Haupt in Toy's 'Ezekiel' [SBOT 179f.]; cf. art. Babvlonia, vol. i. p. 218''). The more perfect of the two scales is divided by transverse lines into six- teen subdivisions, each a trilie over g in. in length, lifteen of whieli are considered to represent a ?uarter of the double cubit, which, as we know rom the tablet of Senkereh ( IVAI iv."

37), con- stituted the unit of the linear system. This double cubit, then, contained GO of the ubilnu or fin^'erbreadtlis of Gudea's scale, or about 39.^ in., whieli gives a single cubit of 30 digits, or 193 in. Five digits on this system are supposed to have gone to the handbreadth, of which 6 formed the cubit. In addition to this cubit there appears to have been a so-called royal cubit of 33 digits (Herod, i. 178), or 213 in.

In all periods of Babylonian history the size of the square bricks for buildinij purposes remained constant at 13 in., which is g of Gudea's cubit or J of the royal cubit, and is termed by Continental metrologists the Babylonian foot.t The primitive Hebrew • This longer ctibit, however, is not, as our EV would lead one Co suppose, called by the prophet a '(frt-at cubit' (see41sUVm), But the original is here confcsscdiy unintelligible.

t The whole aystem of Babylonian weights und measures is ba^HMi. acconiing to Lehmann, who has luo^ie this subject ipeci&ily his own, on the double cubit (30^ in.) of Qudea's scale. measures aiipcar to have remained uninflueiced by this more artificial system. On the otlier hand, when we turn to the other centre of early civilization in the East, we find in Egypt a system presenting an exact correspond- ence with what we have so far learned of the chief Hebrew measure of length (see esp. F. L.

Griffith, ' Notes on Egyptian Weights and Mea- sures' in PSBA xiv. [1892] p. 403 tl'.) Here two cubits were in use from the earliest times — the ' short ' cubit of 6 and the ' royal ' cubit of 7 handbreadths. Happily, the survival of actual cubit-rods and the measurements of the pyramids and other ancient monuments have made it pos- sible to determine the length of the royal cubit with sufficient accuracy for ordinary purposes as 20-63 in. (Petrie, Enojc. Brit.' xxiv. 483'; cf.

Watson, PEFSt, 1897, 203; Griffith, I.e.) The short cubit, as f of the other, contained 17 '68 in., 6 palms of 295 in., or 24 digits or finger- breadths of '74 in. We have here, then, the same ratio between the cubits, and the same subdivisions as we found in the case of the Hebrew cubits — facts which render it impossible to avoid bringing the two systems, Egyptian and Hebrew, into more intimate connexion.

It would be rash at this stage, however, to propose their original identity until we have bad some evidence as to the probable length of the early Hebrew cubit. Innumerable attempts have been made in the course of the last two centuries, to determine the absolute length or lengths of the OT cubit.

One of the most eminent of living metrologists is re- duced to finding ' the sole reliable determination of the Hebrew measures of length ' in a metro- logical table which in its present form is scarcely older than the 14th cent, of our era ! From this document, with doubtful cogency, he argues foi the identity of the ordinary Heb. cubit with the royal Egyp. cubit (Ilultsih, MetroL- 43711'.)

lu our own country a few of the more noteworthy values proposed in recent years are as follows : — 16 inches. Conder {Handbook of the BibleA and elsewhere) . .)' Beswick(P£i''6"i;, 1879, 182 ff.) . 17-72 „ Watson ( „ 1897, '203 tr.) . 17-70,, Warren ( „ 1899, 2-29 U.) . 17-75 „ Petrie ( „ 189-2,31) . 226 „ Petrie {Encyc. Brit." xxiv. 484) . 25-2 „ To these may be added the estimates adopted in Smitli'a D}i, from Thenius, of 19'5 in.

From these widely-varying results it will be clear to every reader that reliable data for the exact evalua- tion if the Hebrew cubit do not exist. The following is merely a fresh attempt to reach an approximate value. (a) The evidence of the Siloam inscription. — In lines 4 and 5 of this famous inscription may be read : ' and the waters flowed from the outlet [of the spring] to the Pool [of Siloam] one tliousand and two hundred cubits.'

Now the total distance from the spring to the pool, according to Conder's careful measurements {PEFSt, 1882, 122), is 1758 ft., which yields n cul>it of 17-58 in. Unfor- tunately, the number 1200, like the other speci- fication of 100 cubits as the height of the rock above the tunnel, is evidently a round number, so that the value of the cubit as c. 17-6 in.

here which he holds to be identical with the length of the socondj itendulum in the latitude of the astronomer prients of Baby- Ionia I The unit of volume was a cubic vessel, tno side of which was a handbreoiltb, or ^ of the double cubit (c. a-fl in.); the weight of water it contained constituted the unit of weight, \ iz. the heavy niina of 16.100 grains (see % ii. above). For a thoroughgoing criticism of Lehmann's views, and of the earlier researches of Oppert in tliis field, see .

lohns, Asi'^irian Dtidt and DocumenU (lUOl), ch. UL 'Metrology,' pp. 184-273. 908 WEIGHTS AND MEASUEES WEIGHTS AND MEASURES disclosed is only approximate. The nieasuied length, 1758 ft., yields 1193 short Egyp. cubits of 17'68 in. and 1206 of the Gr. cubit of 17J in. Both the cubits proposed by Flinders Petrie are evidently out of the question (see, further, below). (i) The evidence of Josep/uis. — All attempts to solve our problem from a comparison of the measure- ments of -.

he temple area as i.'iven by Josephus and in the Mishna treatise M'uhloth ('measure- ments') with those of the IJaram of to-day, are unsatisfactory, for the double reason that the data of tlie two authorities named are frequently in condict, — and, at the best, have no claim to be more than roughly estimated, and, in the case of the Mishna, traditional llgures, — and that the Jlaram area has undergone many changes since the Ist cent, of our era.

But there is an argu- ment from Josephus which has not hitherto been pressed, viz. the arqumcntum e sitentio. It is generally admitted (see W. K. Smith, Encyc. Brit.^ xxiii. 166) that Josephus makes use of the Roman- Attic cubit (vi)xv%) throughout his historical WTit- ings. Thus the side of the square, within which stood the temple of Heiod, is given now as a stadium, or 600 Gr. ft. {Ant. XV. xi. 3 [§ 400, cf. 415]), now as 400 cubits (ih. XX. ix.

7 [§ 221]), which assumes the ratio (3 : 2) between the cubit and the foot adopted by the nations of classical antiquity. Now Josephus, as we shall see in a subsequent section, frequently gives equations of the Jewish measures of capacity with those of his Gra;co- Roman readers, and less frequently compares the respective weights and coins; but nowhere, ap- parently, does he give a single indication of the Heb. cubit differing materially from the Human- Attic cubit of the 1st cent.

Hence, ifl giving the dimensions of objects described in the OT, — such as Solomon's temple, the tabernacle, etc., — Josephus renders the numbers of the Heb. cubit by the same numbers of the Gr. cubit. In one case at least he even gives the dimensions of 2.^ by 1 J cubits of the original (Ex 25'") as 5 by 3 spans (criri9aA"i), the spithami being the half of the Gr. cubit.

•Vgain, the distance of the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem is given by the author of the Acts (1'') as ' a Sabbath-day's journey,' which was a very familiar measure of 2(i00 Heb. cubits (see next §). But Josephus gives the same distance as five stadia {Ant. XX. viii. 6 [16!l]), wliich are 3000 Gr. feet or 2000 Gr. cubits. Tliese data, then, all go to show that, in Josephus' day at least, the Jewish and Gr. cubits were for practical purposes identical in value.

Taking the Roman-Attic foot, as linally determined by Dorpfeld s elaborate researches, as 2!)6 millimetres = 11-65 in. (art. 'Mensura'in Siiiitli's Did. of Antig,^; Nissen, Metrologic-), we obtain 17-47, say 17^ in., as a second approxima- tion to the length of the Jewish cubit m the 1st cent, of our era. (e) The evidence of the 3fiihna.

— Nothing is to be gained from the oft-quoted but purely academic discussion regarding the two cubit-rods, said to have been preserved in chambers over the Shushan gate of the temple {Kilim xvii. 9, 10), beyond confirmation of the uniform tradition that the 'cubit of Mose3,' i.e. of the Priests' Code, con- tained 6 palms or 24 digits {ib. 10). The true explanation of the cubit-rods of 24J and 25 digits respectively may be that we have here a confused recollection that the Heb.

cubit was originally longer bv a fraction of an inch than the Roman- Attic cubit. Rabbi Judah's cubit of 5 palms ' for vessels' (I.e.) may be the gomed or short cubit of Ehud's dagger (see next §). A more definite datiuu for the approximate value of the Mishna cubit is found in Baba bathra, vi. 8, where the law pre- scribes the following as the dimensions of the hukim ic-;;.i) or locuh in the case of a Jew taking a contract for the construction of a rock-cut tomb, viz.

height 7 palms, width 6 palms, length 4 cubits. The last of these dimensions lecalls the ipyvid (from ipiyw, 'to stretch'), or the 4-cubit fatliom of the Greeks, it having been early ob- served that the 'stretch' of a well-proportioned man, from tip to tip of his outstretched arms, was equal to his height. Since the Jews were buried without coffins, if we knew their average height, we should have a fair approach to the leuLth of their cubit.

They were certainly not a tall people, and in modern times, in the most favourable cir- cumstances, are said to average 5 ft. 6 in. to 5 ft. 8 in. (Jacobs quoted by Warren, PEFSt, 1809, 228 f. )* Allowing a margin for the bier, we cannot be far wrong in taking 5 ft. 10 in. as the jirobable length of the loculi contemplated by the later Jewish law, which yields a cubit of 17J in. as our third approximation. In any case, this pas- sage disposes finally of Conder's cubit of 16 in.

, which would reduce the average height of the Jews to less than 5 ft. 4 in. The latest valuation of the cubit by the distin- guished metrologist Flinders Petrie (PEFSt, 1892, 28 t}'., the tomb-cutters' cubit at Jerusalem) cannot be so easily dbj)0.<ed of.

The dimensions contem- plated in the Mishna are evidently the use-and- wont dimensions that would satisfy a contract in which no more precise specifications were entered, hence they do not preclude the possibility of larger dimensions being used on occasion. Now Petrie, on the strength of many hundred measurements of the dimensions of actual tombs, contends that the great majority disclose a cubit of 22'6 in., which he maintains (loc. cit.) 'should be taken as the standard in future.'

This is not the place either to expound or to criticise the methods employed by Petrie here and elsewhere in his metrological works, beyond saying that a considerable element of uncertainty must always attach to them where the results cannot be controlled by literary evidence (cf. Ridge- way's criticism of tliis method of determining the value of ancient standards of length by measure ment alone, in Smith, Diet, of Antig.^ ii. 166), a statement of which an illustration may now be given.

In the case of the tombs in question, Petrie finds recurring lengths of about 88-1, 113 U, 1320, 150-7, 171-9, and 226 in., all pretty certainly even numbers of the same cubit. And it is therefore seen that the multiples 4, 5, 6, 7, 7i, and 10 cubits are the numbers in question, as we thus reach 22-0, 22-6, 220, 228, 22-9, 226 in. for the cubit, yielding an average of 22-61+ 03 in. (loc. cit. 29).

But suppose, taking the first row of figures, w-e were to say tliat the nmltiples 5, 6i, 7i, 9, lu, and 13 cubits are the numbers in question, we should obtain 17-6, 17-4, 17-6, 17-7, 172, 174 in. for the cubit actually a smaller range of variation than is sliown by Petrie's own results, — or an aver- age of 17.| in., which is in remarkable agreement with the approximations already obtained. There is therefore a clear alternative before us.

Either we must bring down the Siloam inscription to the Roman age, as has indeed been recently projiosed, and say that the Jews of that period had finally discarded their native cubit, of which, in that case, wc remain in absolute ignorance, in favour of the Gra;co-Roman cubit, or — which is the preferable alternative — we must hold to the Egyptian origin of both the historically attested cubits of 7 and 6 liandbreadths, the latter, originally 17i in.

in length, having been gradually reduced, until in • Warren here (fives some interesting statistics as to tiie heipht of the modem Jew ; and, although not aware of the above pojviage of the Mishna, conducts the same ari^ment and decides for a cubit of 17-75 in. WEIGHTS AND ilEASURES WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 909 NT timi's it was etjuated with the Greek cubit of I'ih in.

This Kj,'y|)tiiiii, as oiJposed to an alternative Babylonian, derivation is further conlirmed by tlio following considerations: (1) the existence, just referred to, at one period among the Hebrews of two cubits of 7 and 6 handbreadths respectively ; (2) the subdivisions (see table) are parallel in both systems, and bear no trace of sexagesimal or Baby- lonian influence ; (3) the smallest unit, the digit, bears a cognate designation in both, 'ezba in Hebrew, t'ia in Egyptian, while the corresponding Hebrew unit was named ubiinu in Babylonian, probably the Heb.

[nS ; (4) the Heb. zereth or span linds its nearest congener in the Egyptian drt (Ges.-Bulil, Lex. s.v. ; cf. similar affinities below, under measures of eajjacity). The following table shows the values of the Heb. culiits and subdivisions on the basis of the Siloani cubit of 17 "58 in., which proves to be the mean between the original Egyp. short cubit of 17 '68 and the Gr. cubit of 17 '47 in.

, and is probably the nearest value attainable until further monumental evidence is forthcoming : — Table OF THE Hebrew Measures op Length. Value in Convenient Digit. Palm. Span. Cubit. approxi- mation. Mm. In. Digit . Palm . 1 18-8 ■73 }la. 4 1 ... "4 2-93 3 .. Span . 12 8 i ■Z23 8-79 9 .; Cubit . 24 « 2 i 441) 17-68 IJ ft. Cubit of 28 7 ... 621 20-61 l| .. Ezeldel Reed . 144 8A 12 e ... 105-48 9 .. Reed of 188 42 .

•> • •• I2;i-«i 10 „ Ezeldel No reference has yet been made to the determination of the value of the cubit from the statement of the mediuuval Rabbis tliat the smallest unit, the flntrerltreadth, waa equal to (i mcdiuin-sized grains of barley laid side by side, partly liecause the tradition is of late ori{^in, and partly on account of the widely diverifinfj results that this method has produced.* Maimonides, writintj in Egyjit, seems %o have been the first to j^vc curn-nt^y to this mode.

He assij^ed 7 barleycorns to the digit, or Kis to the cubit, apparently ldentifyin^J it with the royal Eicyptian cubit (see Zuclteniiann, 1>. jitd. Maaxsystem, '20; Boeciih, Metrolmj. Vntt^rinichutujen, 268 ff., which see also for further detaib of this method). It is, however, a striking coincidence, to say tile least, that the latest and most scit-ntilic attempt to determine the Jewish cubit on the basis of the usual liab- binic valuation of 144 barlevoorns yields a cubit of 17-7 in. (Col.

Watson, PlJFSt, 18i)r, "201 O.), which ig practically the short cubit of Ei^ypu vii. Subdivisions and multiples of the cubit in OT and NT. — It now remains to glance briefly at the subdivisions and multiples of the cubit to be found in the canonical literature. At the bottom of the scale stands the /loyds or iiirpov aiuKpltTaTov of the Gr. metrologists, the digit or fingcrbreadth (v;sn only Jei 52-'; cf. Joseph. Ant. VIII. iii. 4, od>,-Ti'/\os, and Mislina, piis.im).

Four digits naturally went to the palm or handbreadth (ns:: 1 K 7- = 2 Cli 4= ; rz'j in Ezk 40'- -^ 43'^ and V), the iraXaiffTi) of the LX.\ and Gr. writers generully. The cubit and the palm were the most frequently used denominations in later times. Bricks for building p\irposes, for example, are said to have been '3 palms square' (c. 9 in.), not a square span (Eruhin i. 3).t The span (n-ii, ffTiOa/x-n, Ex 2^' 'W, 1 S 17 etc.) was always half the cubit. Thus a compari.son of Ezk 43" with v."

shows that the span mi"ht be taken a.8 half the royal cubit of 3J palms. Jo.sephus, we have seen, renders the dimen- sion of the ark of the covenant, in the original 2.J by 14 by li cubits (Ex 2.")"'), by twice the number of spans {Ant. ill. vi. 5 [135]). •Thenius' cubit of 1906 In., adopted In Smith's DB (art ' WeightJ) and Meostlres '), was obtained by this methtxl. t The Babylonians regularly built with a brick 13 in. square.

In Jg 3" the short two-edged sword of Ehud is said to have been a ijfimcd in length (iti, EV 'cubit'). This measure, occurring only in this passage, is explained by the Jewish commentators as a .short cubit, the length of the forearm from the elbow to the knuckles or to the second joint of the lingers (see Moore, in luc, ami more fully JBL xii. 104). It was thus the equivalent of the Gr. jri'yJii' or TTi'yiirj, and may have been the cubit of 5 palms mentioned in the Mishna (see above).

The cubit itself has been fully discus.sed in the preceding section, where its apparent Egyjitian origin and value have been set forth. At lirst, naturally, of the s.ame value as the short cubit of Egypt, 17'68 in., it appears to have gradually shrunk, until in the 1st cent, of our era it was practically identical with the Roman-Attic cubit of 1747 in. By this latter mea.sure, say 17A in., we may safely estimate the only NT references to the cubit in the literal sense (Jn 21", Rev 21").

In Mt G", Lk 12^ the cubit is best taken metaiihori- cailv, ' which of you can add a " span " to his age?' (cf. RVm). The only multiple of the cubit mentioned in the OT, and that only by Ezekiel, is the reed (iii!, kaneh, the Bab. /cami, Ezk 40'"- 42''"'- etc.) of 6 cubits, — in this case the ' royal' cubit of 7 palms. It does not appeal to have come into common use. In the Gra'co-Rom.an age we find instead the fathom {dpyma, Ac 27^) of 4 cubits, approxi- mately 6 ft., and the favourite Gr.

measure of dLstance the stadium [aradioi; 2 JIac 12"^-, Lk 24", Jn 6'« etc.) The latter contained 600 Gr. ft. or 400 cubits, about 1!)4 yds. ; it ^^■as thus consider- ably less than the furlong ('2'JO yds. ), by which it is rendered in our versions. The mile (uiXtoi', Mt 5" ; •?•?, in Hebrew, Y6ma vi. 4, 8), as its name reveals, was a Roman measure, containing 1000 double paces (miUe passus), or 5000 Roman ft., equal to 1618 yds.

The Romans reckoned their mile as roundly etiuivalent to 8 stadia. The Jews, on the other }>and, reckoned only 74 stadia or ris to the mile (Y6ma vi. 4), and so obtained a con- venient division of the parasang of 30 stadia — another example of the syncretism that pervades the later .lewish metrology. The largest me.isure of distance of native Jewish origin was the Sabbath day's journey (aajijia.Tov 65J!, Ac 1"). Its origin was on this wise.

Com- bining the injunction of Ex 16-^ with the fact recorded in Jos 3^ that the ark preceded the main body; of the host by 2000 cubits (c. 1000 yds.), the inference was drawn that the tents of the Israelites in the wilderness were this distance from the ark ; and, further, that the said distance might lawfully be traversed on the Sabbath, since the injunction of Exodus [I.e.) could not have been meant to exclude the privilege of worship on that day.

A 8(|uare of 2000 cubits in the side was also the prescribed 'suburbs' of a Levitical city (Nu 35°). The Jews of later times, as is well known, were able ingeniously to free themselves from the restriction of a single 2000-cubit limit, by deposit- ing at its furthest boundary, before the entry of the Sabbath, sufiicicnt food for two meals. 'I'liia spot, by a legal fiction, was considered to be th€ traveller's 'place' in the sen.

se of Ex le'-*" ; he was then able to proceed with immunity for aimther distance of 20U0 cubits. The technical name for this inocess was the ' mixture of limits ' (niDinn 3nv), to the regulation aiul enforcement of which the treatise Erubin (mixtures) is devoted. In certain cases the legal distance might be increased to 2Siiii cubits, which was the estimated diagonal of a square 2000 cubits in the side. A number of l)oundary-8tones, two of which bear the legend cinn ^u, have been di.

scovered in such relative posit iona near Gezer (which see) as to suggest that ihev 810 WEIGHTS AJ^D MEASURES WEIGHTS AND MEASURES probably served to mark the Sabbath 'limit' for that city (PEFSt, 1899, 118 tf.) (For details as to the mathematical precision with which the Sabbath day's journey was calculated for each town, see Baneth's edition of Erubin, also Surenhusius' edition witli plates. An English translation is given in Sola and Raphall's selections).

As vaguer measurements of length and distance, finally, may be mentioned the pace (2 S 6'") and the ' little way ' (inx rn:? Gn So^" 48', 2 K 5'"), also a day's journey (Nu'lP'', 1 K 19^ Jon 3^ Lk 2") and three days' journey (Gn 30^", Nu lu^^), distances which naturally varied according to circumstances (see Day's Journey, vol. L p. blZ^). viiL Surface measure. — In OT the idea of ' square ' is generally expressed by the passive participle yo-j (a dcnom.

verb from I'lnN ' four '), rendered 'four square' (Ex 27' 28" etc.), the dimensions, however, being given as x cubits long and x cubits broad. In later Hebrew we find the more compendious expression ' x cubits by (Si') X,' as in the Mishna passim.* The diagonal of a square was estimated oy the Talmudic autho- rities as ^ of its side (Baneth, preface to Erubin, p. 52 ; see preceding §). The ratio of the circum- ference (TSn) of a circle to its diameter (aoi) was taken as 3 to 1 (Erub. i. 5).

With regard to the measuring of land, two methods were in vogue in ancient times before and after the application of more scientilic methods. The one attested by the consensus of East and West consisted in taking as the standard of measurement the extent of ground which a yoke of oxen could plough in a given time.

In Syria at the present day tiie unit of land measure is the fedddn, the ground whicli a yoke of oxen can plough in a day (Post, PEFSt, 1891, 110), which IS variously estimated in different parts of tlie country (see Schumacher, Across the Jordan, 22, and more fully Bergheim, ' Land Tenure in Pales- tine,' PEFSt, 1894, 192 ff.) The corresponding Roman measure 'jugerum vocabatur quod uno jugo boum in Uno die exarari posset ' (Pliny, Hist. Nat. xviii. 9), and was legally fixed at cir. 3016 sq.

yards. The second metliod was by esti- mating tlie size of a field by the amount of seed required to sow it. Both methods were known and practised by the Hebrews. Passing by 1 S 14" as almost certainly corrupt, we find a reference in Isaiah to ' 10 acres of vineyard ' (5'°, lit. 10 yoke [nsi],! i.e. of oxen ; cf. jugum and jugerum), which at once suggests the modem fedddn. Since the Egyp.

unit of surface measure was a square 100 royal cubits in the side, called by the Greeks dpovpa (Gritlith, PSBA, 1892, 410 ff.), we shall not be far wrong if we estimate the Heb. zemed as a square of 100 ordinary cubits in the side, and thus the equivalent of a measure of surface presently to be considered ; in other words, at about half an acre.

J On the other hand, the priestly legislation intro- duces us to a mode of computing the size of a field 'according to the seed thereof (Lv 27"), 50 shekels being fixed as commutation-money for a field requiring ' a homer of barley seed.' But there is almost certainly an earlier reference to this method of mensuration in a hitherto misunder- stood passage of 1 Kings. The trench which Elijah is said to have dug round about his altar on Mt. Carmel is described as )p.\ c:on; n"3?, lit.

'like a house of two scabs of seed' (1 K 18'-). •The MT of Ex 27'8'> 'fifty by fifty' cannot be defended. The LXX goes still further astray. The second ' fifty ' is cor- rupted from HDKD, which the Samaritan still has (see the writer's forthcoming commentary on Excdua, in loc). t Winckler, KAT^ (VMl) J3D, finds in Ifj a weight, connect- ing it with the Assyr. ^aiiiddu, to weigh. Strictly '2300 sq. yaxds with the cubit of 17*0 In.; an acre is iMO sq. yardii. W^hat does tliis mean ?

The AV and RV render- ing is impossible, while RVm suggests that the trench had the breadth and depth of a two-seah measure. In reality tlie writer is here employing a familiar land measure, and indicating the length — not the depth and breadth — of the trench by the amount of surface which it enclosed.

It is true there is no further illustration of this mode of expression in our older extant literature, but the evidence of the Mishna, considered in the light of the immemorial practice in Babylonia and Assyria, shows that its absence is accidental (see the Mishna, passim, esp. the agricultural treatises and tlio.se dealing with contracts). Here the size of a field is uniformly denoted by the amount of seed re- quired to sow it.

The standard of measurement was indeed the very exjiression under considera- tion, ' the house,' i.e. the tield ' of two seahs," which was fi.xed as equal in extent to the court of the tabernacle, viz. 100 cubits by 50, c. 1195 sq. yards (under j acre). The half of this surface, 2500 sq. cubits (c. J acre), was the beth-seah (n'3 nNp), its double 'a four-seah field ' or square of 100 cubits in the side. A tield of this size is in one place (Ohaloth xvii.

1) identitied with the obscure nji'Q * of 1 S W", which would thus be a later equivalent of the zemed considered above. The whole series of dry measures, to be dis- cussed in the following sections, were used by the Jews of NT times in tliis way, from the frequently mentioned hcth-ruba or J kab plot (104 sq. cubits, Pcah i. 6, Baba bathra ii. 5, etc. ) up to the beth- kCir (B. bathra, vii. 1) of 75,000 sq. cubits, and its multiples.

The dimension last given is that of the field of Lv 27'°, mentioned above (for tlie identity of the kor and the homer see next §), which was therefore about 3j acres in extent. This system of Held measurement, although it may be traced in parts of the Koman empire, as, e.g., in the a~irupi.fi.os ^oStos, whicli was a tliird of the jugerum (Hultsch, MetroL' 616 f.)

, had its liome in Baby- lonia, where the field last mentioned would have been described as in Hebrew {bitu 1 imer ekli, a one-homer field ; see Johns, Assyrian Deeds, 219 If.) — a fact which seems conclusive in favour of the explanation of Elijah's trench given above. Hebrew Measures of Capacity. — ix. Tht scales of wet and dry measure. The value of the ephahbalh.

— While familiar with such rougli-and- ready measures of capacity as the kOmez or hanilful (Lv 2- 5'- 6'*) and the hophen (dual, ' two-h:uida full,' Ex 9», Lv 16'-, Ezk 10-), the Hebrews from early times had a carefully graduated system both for wet and dry measures, the names and values of wliicli have too frequently been obliterated in our Englisli versions by an indiscriminating fond- ness for tlie rendering ' measure.'

+ The relation of the various denominations to each other are happily amply attested, and may be represented in tabular form, by anticipation, thus — Scale of Measures of Voldub. Homer-) Kor. { Ephah-l Bath. ; Seab. Eab. Hill. Lo({ 10 = 30 " 00 = 180 = = 720 1 3 6 18 72 1 i 6 i 24 12 4 Of these the homer, ephah, ^eah, and kab are mentioned in OT as dry measures, the first named " It is tempting to compare this expression with the actiit, originally the headland where the plough was turned (Heb.

njj;), which ultimately became the Roman unit of land measun (120X 120 (t., c. 1600 sq. yards). t As illustrations of confusion thus caused— a baneful legaCT from the LXX— Lk 13^1 compared with 108. 7 may be consulted, where three denominations, standing to each other in tha ratios 1 : 8 ; 30, are rendered indiscriminately by ' measure ' (se« next §). WEIGHTS AND MEASUKES WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 911 being supplanted in later times by tlie kor ; the hath, hin, and log onlj- as liquid measures.

The proportions in the table show the inllueiice of the sexagesimal system, while the 'omer or 'iisnrun, iV of the epnah, represents a parallel decimal subdivision (see below). It will be noted, further, that the two sets are essentially identical. In the case of the homer and the kur, also of the ephnh and the hath, this identity is indeed expressly attested by Ezekiel in an imi)ortant context, where also the latter pair are stated to be a tenth part of the former pair (Ezk 45"").

Of the absolute values of the various denomina- tions in terms of other and better-known systems, we have no reliable evidence older than the 1st cent, of our era, by wliich time, as the latest Jewish weight- system so strikingly illustrated, Palestine had become the meeting-place of several sj'stems of metrology, leading to an unavoidable syncretism, and to the identitication of native ■weights and measures with the nearest approxi- mations in foreign systems.

Bearing this in mind, we shall now adduce a few of the more useful equations to be found in the Anti</uities of Josephus. (a) VIII. ii. 9 (Niese, § 57), the hath (ySdros) is equivalent to 72 sextarii (^iarai). (b) IX. iv. 5 (§ 85i, the seah (<rdTov=i ephah or bath) = li Koiiian modii, i.e. 24 sextarii. (c) m. viii. 3 (§ 3U), the hin {eXv = i hath) = 2 Attic choes, i.e. 12 sextarii. Cf. III. ix. 4 (§ 234). {d} XV. ix.

2 (§ 314), the kor (icipos = 10 ep/uih- baths) is equivalent to 10 Attic nietretai, i.e. 720 sextarii {fi.eSifii'ovs [read fierpr/Tas] Earlier possibly in date than these equations is the evidence of the anonymous fragment wtpl M<rpwi'(Hultsch, Metrol. Script, i. 258), where after the definition of the Phcen. kor as containing 30 seahs it is added : ' the seah is 1^ modius,' a dehni- tion identical with that of Jerome commenting on Mt 1.3^.

Now, the basis of all these equations is the identification, as a glance at our table will show, of the Hebrew tor/ with the Grseco-Ilonian sextarius, as is done by the anonymous translator of Lv 14'° cited apud Field, Origenis Ilexapla, in lor. (cf. Antiq. IX. iv. 4 [§ 62], where the quarter kah of 2 K 6^, i.e. the log, is also rendered by ii<TTTi)s).

Evidence to the same ellect might be pro- duced from the Mishna, where it is said of the ollerings prescribed in the Pentateuch tliat ' their measure w on the Roman standard ' {Ki'lim xvii. 11). The determination of the value of the scxtarius-xestes, the <:ommon unit of the Greek and Roman systems, in terms of our imperial system is therefore an indisjiensable preliminary to further progress. Two methods are open to us.

We may, with Hultsch, start from the ttieoretical and legal determination of the Roman quailnint.Tl as 80 Roman jjounds weight of wine, and the similar determination of our imperial gallon as 10 lb. of water, and so reach a value for the sextarius of 'ye imperial pint, the value adopted in the tables in Smith's Diet, of Antiq.' from Hultsch, Metrol.' (paxsim).

Or we may prefer the deter- mination given by the best of the extant Roman measures, the Famese congius in Dresden, which yields a sextarius equal to 99 of a pint. This latter method has the advantage of allowing the lextarivs-log of the Jewish system to be taken, for the smaller determinations, as the equivalent of our pint, and will be followed in this and the subsequent section.

This gives for the ephah-hat/i of 72 logs, which is the most convenient measure for detailed examination, the value of 71-28 pints, •r approximately 9 gallons (see table below).

\t is scarcely to be expected, however, that the measures of OT times can have been so precisely the equivalent of the Gr;eco-lli)inan denominations as this identification presupposes, and there are not wanting indications of this in Josephus' own writings and in those of later authors, especially as regards the larger denominations. Are there, then, sufficient data available for reaching a closer approximation of the original values of the Heb. measures ?

I'erhapsthe most unsatisfactory of all methods of solving this problem is that frequently attempled, down even to our own day (see Watson, FhtSt, 1898), on the basis of the dimensions of Solomon's brazen sea and the lavers of the temple (1 K7^''*' with paralls. in Chron., LXX, and Joseph.)

— a solution wliich the conllict- ing dimensions m the literary sources named, and our ignorance of the shape of the vessels in ques- tion, render only less futile than the converse attempt to deduce from the same conflicting and insufficient data the length of the Heb. cubit !

But little more satisfaction is obtained by starting from the Rabbinic theor}', that the log was equal in cubic content to six medium-sized eggs, as may be seen from the widely divergent results in the writings of previous investigators. The Alex- andrian translators (LXX), finally, to whom one naturally turns for the equivalents of the Hebrew measures in the Gijeco-Kgyp. system, are dis- appointing in the extreme.

Here transliterating, there paraphrasing, now omitting and now making a random guess, these translators betray a re- markable ignorance of the contemporary Jewish measures (see next g for ample illustration). («) Two features of the system under investiga- tion seem to warrant us in looking once more to Babylonia as its original home, namely the number of logs in the Aor (720 = .

360 x 2), as if the log were the half of a unit that has now dis- appeared, and the apparent identity of the kor with the Babylonian ideogram gur (cf. kikkar, talent, with Bab. gaggaru). Unfortunately, it must be admitted that, notwithstanding the bril- liant researches of Oppert and his fellow-workers, the measures of volume are still the least satis- factory dei)artment of Bab. metrology (see esp. the elaborate exposition and criticism in Johns' Assyrian Deeds, etc. [1901]).

Adopting, however, with due reserve the view of Lehmann and others (cf. above § vi., also Hommel's art. Bahylonia, vol. i. [). 219) that tlie unit of volume was the ka — which Hommel [I.e.) would identify with the Heb. kah — equal to an original heavy mina's weight of water (15,1(50 grains, see § ii. above), we get 1'73 imperial pints as the value of this unit,* 624 pints for a gur of 360 ka, and 62'4 pints for the assumed original of the Heb. ephah-bath.

On the other hand, if the measures of volume increased pari pas.tu-Kith the weights, the niina of 16,000 grains which has been ccjiielusively proved to have been adoi)ted in the West (§ ii.) would yield a kor of 658 pints and an cp/iahbath of 65'8 pints. (6) Again, if we follow the clue suggested by the Egyjitian affinity in the department of the linear measures, we liiid an interesting parallel to the treatment of the Heb. measures in the Gneco- Roman period.

A working equivalent of the epluik-balh, we have seen, was obtained by identi- fying it with the Attic melretes of 71 sextarii. Now, precisely this same equation was adopted in Egypt under the Ptolemies for a measure with a long jjcdigreo, known in the Ptolemaic ages as the artabe (dprd/Srjl.t That this equation of the artabe ' Tlic Impcriiil urallon contains 10 lb. (70,0U0 gniiiu) of distilled Wftlcr at a tt-mperuturf of 60' Fahr.

f Wilckcn, howovor, haa found no fewer than flvo different artabff in use in E^'pt in the Ptolemaic period (jOriteh. OMraka, I. 740 11.) 912 WEIGHTS AND MEASURES WEIGHTS AND MEASURES wit)i the mctrctes was a working and not a scientiliially exact equation, is evident from the fact that by the native authorities {Gritiith, PSBA xiv.

435) the artabe was defined as containing 80 Ejiyjitian hin, the Iiin being a volume of water 5 ciehcn in weight (7020-717U grains, according to tlie valuation of the ket, see § ii. ), which works out at a little less or more than 65 pints for the artabe. Now, the artabe was the lineal descendant of an ancient measure derived from a fraction of the cubit cubed (Gritiith, I.e.) ; and since the Egyp.

cubits passed to Palestine, there is a prima facie case for suggesting, as an alternative to the Baby- lonian origin of the ephah-bath, its derivation from the Eg^'ptian sj'stem, with a value of 65 pints. (c) But there is more reliable evidence than these somewbat hypothetical deductions as to Epiphanius in his work on weights and measure* (edited by Hultsch, op. cit., and by Lagarde in his Symmuta), which give to the ephah a value ranging from 64 to 66 sextai-ii.

For other, mainly specula- tive, methods of calculation see Watson, PEFSt, 1898, 109 if. (7-85 galls.), and Warren, ib. 1899, 252 tr. (8-42 galls.) The result of our investigation, then, is to point to an approximate value for the ephah-bath in OT times of 65 imperial pints (36 92 litres).

From the necessity of establishing a more convenient work- ing equation in later times, it was regarded in most cases as the equivalent of the Attic metretci of 72 Konian sextarii, or 9 galls, nearly, on the basis of the identification of the log witli the sex- tarius. Both these values are given in the following tables : — Table of Hebrew Dry Measures. Earlier values Later values Log. Kab. Omer. Seah. Ephah. in in Approximate values. Litres. Pints. Litres. Pints.

Kai : : : 1 •51 •90 •56 ■99 1 pint 4 1 >• ... 2 05 3-6 225 3-96 4 pints [Omer '1} 1 1 ... 3-7 6 5 4-05 7-13 7i ,, ] Seah . 24 6 3 1 12-3 21-6 13-5 23-76 li pecks 1 bushel Ephah Homer or Kor . 72 18 10 3 1 36-92 65 40-5 71-28 720 180 100 30 10 369-2 650 405 712-8 11 bushels the actual capacity of the Heb. measures, the most trustworthy in the opinion of such metro- logical authorities as Hultsch and Petrie being a statement in an unfortunately corrupt passage of Josephus.

This author, writing of the famine in the time of Claudius (cf. Ac ll^"), tells of IQkor of wheat being brought into the temple, and adds — adopting Hultsch's emendation, Metro!.' 455— nodioi S^ ^LK€\ol fiiv elaiv eh Kdpos TpidKOfTa, ^AttlkoI S^ TsauapaKovTu eh (Ant. III. xv. 3 [321]). In view of the connexion of Sicily with Phoenicia through Carthage, tlie '30 Sicilian modii' are most prob- ably 30 Heb.

seahs, — this rendering of the seah by modius is found in Epiphanius and other writers ; cf. Mt 5" /aiSios for the seah-mea«ure, — while the very precise statement that the kor contained 41 Grjeco-Roman modii seems, as Hultsch says, to rest upon actual measurement. Now, 41 moiUi or 656 sextarii yield as nearlj- as possible 650 pints for the kor, or 65 for the ephah-bath. (d) In several later Gr. writers (see Hultsch, Metrol. Script., Index under (riroy) the .

scixA is given as I^ modii instead of, as by Josephus and Jerome, H modii, that is, at 20 instead of 24 sextarii. Now, in the Mishna there are fre- quent references to local varieties in the size of the !ieah, kab, etc., the Jerus. measures, for ex- ample, standing to those of Galilee in the ratio of 5 :6,t w^hich is precisely the proportion disclosed by the variant valuations of the seah just cited. It is allowable, in the Ii.

i,'ht cf these divergent equations, to hold that diljorent authorities made dill'erent attemjjts to establish a convenient equa- tion of the two systems, Jewish and Greek, and that the true value of the ephah -bath lay between the two equations of (iO and 72 sextarii respectively, w hich is quite in liarmony with the more positive results already obtained. The s.

ame conclusion is established by a study cf the conllicting data of * The 'ojnrr is here inserted for comparison, though an in- truder, as the fractional proportions show ; see next §. t These variations in quantity may also have been due to some extent to the difference between heaped and straked measure ; ct. llaba balhra v. 11. Table of Hebrew Liquid Measures. Log Hin Bath Kor Log. Hin. Bath. I 10 Earliervalues : Later values Litres. Pints. Litres. Pints.

•61 e^l2 36-92 369-2 •90 10^8 66 650 ■66 i -99 8-76 1 11-88 40-5 i 71-28 405 712-8 Approxi' mate values. 1 pint l^galls. 9 ., 90 „ X. The measures of Scripture. — It only remains to make a short reference to the individual measures in the canonical and deutero-canonical writings. The log, the lowest denomination in both the wet and dry scales, occurs in OT only in the rit^ual for the purification of the leper (Lv H'"-^ LXX kotuXij = ^sextarius) as a measvire of oil.

Originally about -^ pint, it was in NT times identified with the sex- tarius (or pint), by which it is rendered by a Gr. translator cited by Origen (Field, Hexnpla, m loc.), and was then used as a dry measure as well, sub- divided binarily down to j^ log, the J log being specially frequent in the Mishna. The irj log was also 1<nown as the large spoonful (nnn k*:?), the ^f as the small spoonful (Herzfeld, Handelsgesch. d. Juden, 184).

Four logs went to the kab, which in OT is found only in the corrujit passage 2 K 6^, which speaks of ' the fourth part of a kab ' (so RV, A V ' cab ').* At the date when this reading arose the log was probably still confined to liquids. The LXX render by Th-aprov toO /cd/Joir, while Josephus gives the equivalent {^onjs or sextarius. Peculiar to the Priests' Code is the next highest dry measure, the 'issaron (I^^7V Ex 2Q^, Lv W> etc. ), the tenth deal of our AV, i.e.

as RV ' the tenth part of an ephah,' as already once correctly rendered by LXX t4 5^«.o- TOK ToO ol<pl (Nu 15*). The loaves of the shewbread contained each two'issarons (Lv 24»), transliterated aaaapiif by Josephus, who wrongly gives its value • Cheyne, however, would read • a quarter of a kor of carob- pods,' eta. (£zpoi., July 1899). "WEIGHTS AND MEASURES WELL 913 M ' 7 Attic cotylK,' or onlj- 3J sexlarii (3J instead of 6-7 pints).

A special name for this measure is found in the ston" of the manna (Ex If)'""), viz. the oraer (■cy, LXX y6/iop), defined in v.* as ' the tenth part of the eijhah,' the same expression as is found in Lv 5" 6™ etc. In Ex 16 ='• the term is used of the 'onwr-measure. This decimal division of the ephah is another indication of the conflict between the decimal and duodecimal or sexagesimal systems, which met us in connexion with the Heb. weiitht-system.

It was probably confined to priestly circles, as it does not fit into the rest of the system below the ephah. The sixth part of the ephnh-bath for liquids was the hin (i-.i, LXX lv or etv [B], but x°"^, Lv ig^"), a term apparently of Egyp. origin, the henu (Coptic eiiic) of Egjpt, however, being a much smaller measure (see preceding §).

With the exception of Ezk 4" (J hin of water), the hin occurs exclusively in the Priests' Code in connexion with the ott'erings of wine and oil that accompanied the mealotfering. Tlius we have ^ hin, J hin, i hin, all in Nu 28". The value of the hin was IJ-IJ galls. The double of the hin, the seah (ins, airov), was used exclu- sively as a dry measure, containing 6 kabs (see Mishna, Menahoth vii. 1 ; Para i. 1, and oft,).

It was the third of the ephnh, and is therefore to be identified with the shalish (Is 40'-, lit. 'third,' hence AVm ' tierce '). The ^cah is variously rendered by the LXX ; but where not given by the general term luTpov, whence our AV 'measure,' it is wrongly identified with the ephah (1 S 2.')") or with the metrctcs (\ K 18^-). The correct adrov is found in the later translations of Aquila and .Symmachus, but in LXX only in Hag 2'"i"i, where no measure is named in the original.

In the NT also it appears as aaTov (Mt 13^, Lk 13-' ' three measures of meal '), where it is equal in value to \k modii (Jerome) or 24 pints, the 'three measures' being, of course, an ephah or IJ bushels of flour.* We have seen in a former section that a seah of seed was calculated to sow a surface of 2500 sq. cubits, which thus became the common unit of surface measure.

The most common of the large measures was the eph'th-bnth, originally in all probability equal to 65-OG pints, but in NT times identiliccl with the metretes of nearly 72 pints. The ephah was used exclusively for measuring grain and otln r dry sub- htances, the bath exclusi velj' for liquids. The former term ajipears to be of Egyp. origin, and is given as ol<pi by the LXX (cf. Coptic oipi) when not rendered by nirpov (botli in Ezk 45").

On the other hand, they render the ephah of Is 5'° by Tpla fi&pa, evidently 3 yea/w, and so expressly in the Targuni of this passage (cf. Menahulti vii. 1). The h ephah of Ezk 45" 46'* is accordingly A seah. For the bath the LXX again use their favourite ^Urpov, or the absurd x"'"'? (only 2 pints ! Ezk 45'"), only once the correct jSdroj (Ezr 7-^). The 'hundred niea.sures of oil' (Lk 10") in the unjust steward's accounts were 100 hathi, or close on 900 gallons.

The highest denomination in the system was the homer (X-') or kor (i:, EV ' cor ' in Ezk 45'*, but generally ' measure'), both used with considerable fre(iuency in OT as a measure of barley (Lv 27" etc.), wheat (Ezk 45"), and cereals generally. The identity of the kor and the homer, as each contain- ing 10 cphah-baths, with the information that the kor was also used for liquids, is given by Ezekiel (45"''-).

The latter came in time to be the name in ordinary use for both wet ami dry measure, and pas-scd to the Greeks aa the K6po% (\ Es 8'). The 'hundred measures of wheat' of Lk 16' are 100 kor.i, at tliis period equal to more than 1 1 10 bushels. Hosea tells us that |)art of the |)rice he paid for the The same quantity in Sarah's hands (On \&) was nearer a mibel. vol- IV.— 58 recover}' of his unfaithful wife was a homer of barley and a.

tethekh (-''^), which our EV, following Jewish (tadition, render as 'half a homer' (Ilos 3-), a value which it certainly has in the Mishna. In the NT we find the names of Gra'co-Uoman measures, although in some cases the terms are not used as measures, but as the names of house- hold utensils. Thus the xcxtcs of Mk 7*", properly the scxtariiis or pint measure, is here used generally of a cup or other small domestic vessel.

The mudius (^«i5ios)of Mt5"and parallels, however, is a classical loan-word for the housewife's «<;aA-ineasure required for the daily provision of the household bread. On the other hand, the 'firkins' of Jn 2" are the Gr metretes of c. 72 pints, which we have seen to bo the working equivalent of the bath. Apart from its careless use by the LXX, now for ^eah, now for bath, it is found 1 Es 8'-" (AV ' pieces of wine,' KV 'firkins') and Bel » (AV 'vessels of oil,' HV ' firkins ').

We have seen above that the metretes was also the working equivalent in Egypt of the artabc (apri^ri, liel'AV and KV 'great measures'; also Is 5'° LXX, anotlier gross miscalculation), which was originally of the same cubic capacity as the epluih-h'dh, i.e. e. 65 pints. The author of the Fourth Gospel represents Mary of Bethany as taking a Xirpa (EV ' ]iound ') of ointment of spike- nard to anoint our Saviour's feet (Jn 12^).

This has usually been understood of the Koman jiound, as in Jn 19'" ; and probably with justice. Ilultsch, however (J/cir/.- 720 f., 602), understands by the former litra the vessel of horn, in which such un- guents were kept by the Roman physicians, with medicine glasses, and which certainly bore this name. Mention is made, last of all, in Scripture of the small Gr. measure the chosnix (xof<"s, licv 6') of two sexlarii or pints as a ' measure ' (AV) of wheat.* LiTKRATURK. — A .

General works on metrology : A. Boeckh, .Mftrotoijisc/ie U nlersudiuiujen, 1638; J. Brundis, iJiu M uiu; Maa.^;und Getcichtitgi/ntem in V(yrderat;icu, ISIJO; F. Ilultsch, (iriechische u. Riiinuche Metrotnnie^, 18b2 (tiie standard work on ancient metroloj^y. iiiit already oul> of date in many parts); also, Metrologiconun Scriptorum lieliquue, 2 vols. 1804 ; W. M. F. Pctrie, art. ' Wei'.,'hts and Measures' in Kncyc. Drxt.i 18SS; H. Nissen, 'Griech. li. rdm. MclroIot,'ie ' in Iwan .

Miiller's JJawtb. rf. kta^s. AtUrtujn^msgenscttaft, 1S92 (also separately); W. Itidffeway, The Origin of Metattie Currenctf and M'c/i/Af Stamlards, 1892. — B. Special treatises and essays : Ihitlsch, Griri^ihte det Altertiimn, 1898; U. I.epsius, LuiigfntiifiiDif der Alien, 18.S4. On Babylonian metroInj;y : J. Oppert, L'Etaton det me«ureg Afgyvi&nnes, IB76 (antiquated); C. I. Lehmann, • Daa altbabylonisfhe Mass und Gcwicht und deien Wande- rung' in Verhandl. der Serliner AnthropoL (!

rse[hr/tn/t, IbiiQ; also in several succcedinf,' years to IbJKJ ; the same author's Dot allbabtil. MaaS' mu.1 (Jcwiehtsttystein ata ('ntndtage der antC. ken GirmchUnygtenie, etc., IbiW; C. H. W. Johns, Aimjrian Deeds and Documents, 1901 (ch. ill. 'Metrology,' very full collection of material). For E{,'vpt: F. LI. GritRth, 'Notes on E|;>iitian Weights and Measures ' in P.'SBA, 1892 (pp. 40S-460): for the Ptolemaic period, U. Wilcken. Griechinc/ie 0»traka, 1899, i. T;is-7hO.

For late Jewish metrology: B. Zuckerniann, Ueber talunuiische Miinzen und G'eu-ichte, 1862, Das judische J/ooj- systein, etc., 1867. On the general subject of the above article see also corresponding article in Smith's DB, and SchradeKs articles 'Gewicht' and 'Masse' in Kichm's //IK/?^; also the relevant sections in Nowack, llett. Arch. 1894, i. 103 IT., and Benzinger, Ilcb. Arch. lS9t, 178 ft., and the recent papers on the measures of length and capacity hv Col.

Watson in thr PEFSl, 1897, 1S98, and SirC. Warren, 'The Ancient Standard* of Measure in the East,' ib. 1899; Schrader-Winckler, Dis KeiUnncliri/tm u. d. A7'\ 190?. S37-3-12 ; W. ShawCaldeootL, Biblt Archteology, 1902, part 1. MctrologicaL A. R. S. Ke.nnedv.