3. Hebrew Weights and Measures of Capacity
The Hebrews used the measures of Egypt and Phœnicia. The common Egyptian cubit, very near ‘the cubit of a man,’ was the usual measure of length. They brought back from the Captivity some Persian measures:
1. The Great Assyrian cubit, which is ‘the cubit and an hand-breadth.’
2. A measuring Reed of six cubits long, by the cubit and an hand-breadth = the modern qasáb of Egypt.
3. The Cubit of the Talmud = 21·914 inches, the 1/3000 of the Bereh, which was 1/1000 of an hour on the equator (see page 27).
For weights they used the Alexandrian talent or Kikkar divided in the Phœnician manner into 50 minás of 60 shekels = 218-1/2 grains. This shekel was sometimes called the Shekel of the Sanctuary and was then divided, not into 8 Gerahs of 27·31 grains (our dram, 1/16 of the Egypto-Roman ounce) but into 2 Bekah or 4 Reba or 20 Gerah = 10·9 grains. The Reba, 1/4 Shekel, was the drachma of the Phœnician weights, = 54·62 grains.
When, as recorded in Exodus xxvii, 603,550 men contribute each a Bekah or half-shekel of silver, the amount of 301,775 shekels is stated to be = 100 talents and 1775 shekels, after the shekel of the Sanctuary. In this statement the talent is of 3000 shekels, according to the Phœnician reckoning.
In Ezekiel xlvi, the shekel is given as of 20 gerahs and the miná is stated to be 20 + 25 + 15 = 60 shekels, confirming the Phœnician mode of dividing the Alexandrian talent as that used by the Hebrews, viz. 50 minás of 60 shekels.
The measures of capacity had for principal unit the Olympic talent, the weight of water of the common Egyptian foot cubed, = 6·48 gallons. It was called the Bath for fluid measure, the Epha for corn and other dry measure. The Bath was divided into 6 Hin = 1·08 gallon (this being about the same capacity as the Spanish and Turkish almuda) and into 72 Log, = 2/3 pint. The Epha was likewise of 72 log, and 4 log made a Cab.
The Cor or Homer was a measure of 10 Epha or Bath, = 64·8 gallons or 8·1 bushels. It coincided approximately with 2 great Artaba, this measure being the cubed Royal cubit = 31·695 gallons; × 2 = 63·39 gallons.
The Hebrew field-units were at first seed-measures, afterwards fixed geometrically.
The unit was the Bathsea, sown with a Bath of grain; it was 8 qasáb, or 48 great cubits, square, = a rood.
The Betheoron, sown with a Cor, 10 Bath, of grain, was 10 of the lesser unit and therefore = 2-1/2 acres.
In these three chapters on foreign measures and weights I have tried to show the principles of unity underlying the variety of measures. To describe them fully would require a series of monographs which, however interesting, would lack the more important general view. I shall therefore confine myself to the full description, in Chapters [XXI] and [XXII], of the measures and weights of France which, both in the old system and in the metric system, are of special interest to us. Before proceeding to these I must treat, in a somewhat discursive chapter, of the meanings of some names of measures.