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