Crystal. There are several words which appear to have this meaning in the Bible. See Ice ; Pearl.
1. H^J?, he'rach (properly tee, as it is rendered Job vi, 16; xxxviii, 29; "frost," Gen. xxxi, 40; Job xxxvii, 10; Jer. xxxvi, 80 ; Sept. cpverroXXoc), occurs in Ezek. i, 22, where the epithet " terrible" seems to be added by way of distinction from the ordinary signifi- cation of the word. ^
2. ^^'^'ly gabish' (properly ice; Sept, yo/Si'c), occurs only in Job xxviii, 18, where it is rendered "pearls" in our version.
8. n'^S^ST, sekukHh' (lit. what is pare or transpa- rent ; Sept uaXoc), occurs only in Job xviil, 17, where some regard it as denoting glctss,
4. Kpv<TTaXXoc (prop, ice) occurs in Rev. iv, 6 ; xxi, 11 ; xxii, 1, evidentiy in the sense of crystal^ and in such connections as to identify it in a good degree with the preceding terms.
** Crjrstal was ancientiy held to be only pure water, congealed by great lengtii of time into ice harder than the common (Died. Sic. ii, 52 ; Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxvii, 2), and hence the Greek word for it, in its more proper signiflcation, also signifies ice. From this it necessa- rily folk)wed that crystal could only be produced in the regions of perpetual ice, and this was accordingly the ancient belief; but we now know that it b found
CUBIT
598
in the warmest regions. Theophrastns (54) reckons crystal among the pellacid stones used for engraved seals. In common parlance we apply the term crytUd (as the ancients apparently did) to a glass-like trans- parent stone, commonly of a hexagonal form, which, from being found in rocks, b called by mineralogists rock-crystaL It is a stone of the flint family, the most refined kind of quartz" (Kitto). See Glass.
Cubit Qn Heb. HfiK, ammah% lit. fnolker, u e. of the arm, the/am>arm ; Greek TnJxvCi taieU)iB a, word derived immediately from the Latin cubUutj the lower arm. The length of the cnbit has varied in different nations and at different times. Derived as the meas- ure is from a part of the human body, and as the hu- man stature has been of very dissimilar length, the cubit must of necessity have been various. The low- er arm, moreover, may take in the entire length fh>m the elbow to the tip of the third or longest finger, or it may be considered as extending trom the elbow mere- ly to the root of the hand at the wrist, omitting the whole length of the hand itself. If the definition of Celsus (viii, 1) is taken, and the cubit is identified with the ulna, the under and longer of the two bones of which the arm consists, still a fixed and invariable measure is not gained. That the cubit among the He- brews was derived as a measure from the human body is clear from Deut. iil, 11 — "after the cubit of a man*' (^a-^Wt na«, see BCttcher, Proben alUest. Schrijl, p. 288). But it is diflScult to determine whether this cu- bit was understood as extending to the wrist or the end of the third finger. As, however, the latter seems most natural, since men, when ignorant of anatomy, and seeking in their own frames standards of measure, were likely to take both the entire foot and the entire fore-arm, the probability is that the longer was the original cubit, namely, the length from the elbow to the extremity of the longest finger. The Egyptian cubit, which it is likely the Hebrews would adopt, con- sisting of six hand-breadths, is found on the ruins of Memphis (Journal des Savons^ 1822, Nov., Dec. ; comp. Herod, ii, 149). The Rabbins also (Mishna, Chelim, xvii, 9) assign six hand-breadths to the Mosaic cubit. By comparing Josephus (Ant, iii, 6, 5) with Exod. xxv, 10, it will, moreover, be found that the weight of his authority is in the same scale. Aca»rding to him, a cubit is equal to two spans. Now a span is equal to three hand-breadths (Schmidt, Bibl. Mathemat, p. 117 ; Eisen-Schmidt, D« Ponda-Unu, p. 110); a cubit, there- fore, is equal to six hand-breadths. The hand-breadth is found as a measure in 1 Kings vii, 26 ; comp. Jer. Iii, 21. In the latter passage the finger-breadth is an- other measure. The span also occurs Exod. xxviii, 16. So that, it appears, measures of length were, for the most part, borrowed by the Hebrews from members of the human body. Still no absolute and invariable standard presents itself. If the question. What is a hand or finger-breadth ? be asked, the answer can be ^ only an approximation to fact. If, however, the palm or hand-breadth be taken at 8} inches, then the cubit will amount to 21 inches. In addition to the common cubit, the Egyptians had a longer one of six palms four inches. The Hebrews also have been thought to have had a longer cubit, for in Ezek. xl, 5, we read of a cu- bit which seems to be an ordinary " cubit and an hand- breadth ;" see also Ezek. xliii, 13, where it is express- ly said, "the cubit is a cubit and an hand-breadth." The prophet has been supposed to refer here to the then current Babylonian cubit, a measure which it is thought the Jews borrowed during the period of their captivity. The Rabbins make a distinction between the common cubit of five hand-breadths and the sa- cred cubit of six hand-breadths — a distinction which is held to be insufiiciently supported by De Wette (Ar- chdologie, p. 178). Consult Lamy, De Tabemaeulo^ c. 8 ; Carpzov, Apparat. p. 676. — Kitto, s. v. An ancient Egyptian cubit now in the Royal Museum of Paris