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.