Lands, plants, and measures

Scripture Measures, Weights and Coins

Blackwood’s Comprehensive Aids to the Study of the Bible · Vol. I, p. 54

Note.—Corrected by the latest scientific discoveries down to the present time; from McCulloch, Gregory, Brande, Lavoisne, Smith and other authorities.

§I. Measures of Length and Distance

§Measures of Length

The Bible cubit was shorter than that of other countries. In the times of the Hebrew monarchy, three different cubits were recognized by the Jews. 1. The common cubit, in length of our inches and decimals of an inch, 15.8763, or slightly more than a foot and a quarter. 2. The ancient Mosaic cubit, a hand-breadth longer than the first, and of the same length with the smaller Egyptian cubit, that is, 19.0515 inches[≈ 48 cm], or about a foot and seven inches; and 3. The new cubit, equal to the royal Egyptian cubit, equal to about 20.6 inches[≈ 52 cm], or 1 foot 8½ inches[≈ 52 cm].

§Measures of Distance

A "Sabbath Day's Journey" was 2000 cubits, or six-tenths of a mile. It is said the term originated thus: The rabbins took the text in Exodus xvi. 29: "Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day," and on the strength of it forbade all travelling. Then they made an exception, allowing the walk from the houses next the Tabernacle, across the empty space always kept around it, to the edifice, for the purpose of worship. Now, this empty space was always just 2000 cubits wide. And, finally, they allowed every man to travel on the Sabbath, not more than this distance of 2000 cubits from the wall of his own city in any direction.

The furlong of the New Testament is the Greek Stadium, the length of the celebrated Greek national race-course at Olympia. It consisted of 600 Greek feet, equal in English measure to 606 feet 9 inches[≈ 180 m]. The mile mentioned in the New Testament was possibly a Roman mile.

§Measures of Surface

The Jews had no such system as our "square measure," which enabled them to name an area by its size, as "square foot," "acre," etc. They had to designate the space they wanted to describe by naming its length or breadth. The Bishop of Peterborough has added, under this head, a number of interesting and learned calculations, which are here given, with such modifications as the present state of biblical science requires, and using the Mosaic or legal cubit. This cubit is nearly the largest or Egyptian one.

The Altar of Incense.—Only two sides of it, viz., its length and breadth, are expressed by Moses; each of them is affirmed to be one cubit. Yet he declares it was four square; whence we collect that its sides and its top were each just a square cubit. (See Exodus xxx. 2.) Now the Jewish square cubit amounts to almost exactly two and a half English square feet, so that the Altar of Incense was a cube of 2½ feet[≈ 76 cm] every way.

The Table of Shew-Bread, Ex. xxv. 23.—This is affirmed to be two cubits in length and one in breadth. None doubt but it was rectangular, containing two Jewish square cubits. These amount to five English square feet, nearly, that is, 722 square inches[≈ 4,700 cm²].

The Boards of the Tabernacle.—These were each ten cubits in length and one and a half in breadth (Ex. xxvi. 16). Being rectangular, they contained 15 Jewish square cubits, or just about 37½ English square feet[≈ 3.5 m²]. They were, in short, boards 15 ft. 10 in.[≈ 4.8 m] long, and 2 ft. 4½ in.[≈ 72 cm] wide. This seems an extraordinary width to be required in a country so destitute of large trees as the wilderness of Sinai.

The Mercy Seat.—This was God's Throne of Grace among the Jews. Moses (Ex. xxv. 17) affirms that its length was two cubits and a half, its breadth one cubit and a half. This makes the area of the Mercy Seat to be 3 ft. 11½ in.[≈ 1.2 m] long, by 2 ft. 4½ in.[≈ 72 cm] wide, or about 8 4-5 square feet[≈ 0.82 m²].

The Square Cubit in Square Feet.—A square cubit reduced to inches is 19 × 19 = 361 sq. inches[≈ 2,300 cm²]. Divide this by 144, the number of square inches in one square foot, and we have 2 73-144 square feet[≈ 0.23 m²]. Reduce this vulgar fraction to decimals, and we have 2.5 square feet[≈ 0.23 m²], nearly; the exact figures running into a repeating decimal, thus: 2.5076308888 +.

The Court of the Tabernacle.—This was the ground on which the priests performed all the solemn public worship of Israel in Moses' time. The area of this court is described by Moses (Ex. xxvii. 18), by its length 100 cubits and its breadth everywhere 50 cubits. Wherefore this area must be in Jewish measure 5000 square cubits, since that is the product of 100 multiplied into 50. This was then equal to an area of 12,500 square feet[≈ 1,200 m²].

§II. Measures of Capacity

§Liquid Measures

These were: 1, the Log, a word originally meaning a basin; 2, the Hin, an Egyptian word; and 3, the Bath, a Hebrew word meaning "measured."

§Dry Measures

1. The Cab (only in 2 Kings vi. 25), a word meaning hollow or concave; 2, the Omer (only in Exodus xvi. 16-36), a word meaning a heap, or a sheaf; 3, the Seah, which means "measure," this being the most usual measure for household uses; 4, the Ephah, an Egyptian word; 5, the Half-homer or Lethec (in Hosea iii. 2 only), a word meaning something poured out; 6, the Homer (meaning "heap") or Cor, as it is elsewhere called, from the circular vessel in which it was measured.

§III. Coins and Money

§1. Money Not Coined

All the money mentioned in the Bible before the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, that is, before the period of the return from captivity, was uncoined money, and seems always to have been silver, gold being mentioned as a valuable metal, but not as money. This uncoined money was used by weight. Therefore it is very likely that the money mentioned in the Bible before the times of Ezra and Nehemiah consisted of silver rings, and that it was paid and received by weight, as is described in Genesis xxiii. 16.

§2. Coined Money

The Maccabean shekel was a silver piece about as heavy as a silver half dollar. It had on one side a figure of a vase, supposed to have represented the pot of manna preserved in the tabernacle, and on the other side a stem with three flowers, supposed to have represented Aaron's rod that budded. With the vase was an inscription signifying "Shekel of Israel," and with the branch another signifying "Jerusalem the Holy." These inscriptions were in old Hebrew letters, similar in style to our own capitals, and were like the Phœnician and Samaritan alphabets.

The Daric.—The Persian Daric, mentioned in the Old Testament, was a gold coin, so named after Darius, the name of several Persian kings, just as in modern times Louis and Napoleon have been the names of French coins.

"A Piece of Money" (Matt. xvii. 24-27) found in the fish by St. Peter, and with which he paid tribute for himself and Christ, was a stater, a Greek silver piece, of the value of a silver half dollar.

The Penny was the denarius, the principal silver coin of the Romans, up to the beginning of the third century after Christ. It was worth almost exactly 14 cents.

Farthing is the word used in the authorized version of the Bible to translate two different Greek words. One of these is Kodrantes (Matt. v. 26; Mark xii. 42), which is the Greek form of the Latin word Quadrans. The Roman Quadrans was a small copper coin, and was, as its name indicates, the quadrant or quarter of the as. This as was a copper coin, sixteen of which were equal to a denarius. The as was accordingly about equivalent to the old-fashioned "red cent," and the farthing to a quarter of a cent. The other word translated "farthing" is Assarion (Matt. x. 29; Luke xii. 6), the Greek form of the Latin Assarium, which was the small as, equal to half the as. This farthing was therefore twice as large as the other.

Mite, in Greek, Lepton, was a copper piece, the smallest coin in circulation, and worth half the first of two farthings above described, viz., the quadrans.

§Table of Bible Money

Note.—The lawful weight of the U. S. silver dollar is 412½ grains[≈ 27 g].

Figures in square brackets, and the shaded columns, are modern equivalents added for this edition. They are not in the printed text. Lengths and areas are metric equivalents of Blackwood’s inches and feet, and the capacity columns convert his US gallons to litres. The money columns give the weight of each coin in grams. They also give the worth of that weight of gold, silver or copper at spot prices on 28 October 2026. This worth is not the buying power of the sum in the ancient world.