II. Measwes of Dimension or Extent. — These are chief- ly taken from some natural standard, such as the va- rious portions of forearm and hand, or the distance of travel, etc. ; so, among other nations, the foot, fathom, etc. In the descriptive portion of this and the follow- ing section we freely borrow from the article in Smith's Diet, of the Bible.
1. Measures of Length.— (I.) The principal of these were as follows: («) The "SliS, etsbd, or finger-breadth, mentioned only in Jer. Iii, 21.' (b) The r>^'J>, tephach, or hand-breadth (Exod. xxv, 25; 1 Kings vii, 26; 2 Chron. iv, 5), applied metaphoricallv to a short period YL— N
of time in Psa. xxxix, 5. (c) The T'l'l, sereth, or span, the distance between the extremities of the thumb and the little finger in the extended hand (Exod. xxviii, 16; 1 Sam. xvii, 4 ; P^zek. xliii, 13), applied generally to de- scribe any small measure in Isa. xl, 12. ((/) The rtHX, amnuih, or cubit, the distance from the elbow to the ex- tremity of the middle finger. This occurs verj^ fre- quenth' in the Bible in relation to buildings, such as the Ark (Gen. vi, 15), the Tabernacle (Exod. xxvi, xxvii), and the Temple (1 Kings vi, 2; Ezek, xl, xli), as well as in relation to man's stature (1 Sam. xvii, 4; Matt, vi, 27), and other objects (Esth. v, 14; Zecli. v, 2). (e) The 1^5, gomed, lit. a rod, applied to Eglon's dirk (Judg. iii, 16). Its length is uncertain, but it probably fell be- low the cubit, with which it is identified in the A. V. {f) The nsp, kaneh, or reed (comp. our word "cane"), for measuring buildings on a large scale (Ezek. xl, 5-8 ; xli, 8; xlii, 16-19).
(2.) Little information is furnished by the Bible itself as to the relative or absolute lengths described under the above terms. With the exception of the notice that the reed equals six cubits (Ezek. xl, 5), we have no intimation that the measures we^e combined in any- thing like a scale. We should, indeed, infer the reverse from the circumstance that Jeremiah speaks of " four fingers," where, according to the scale, he would have said '• a hand-breadth ;" that in the description of Goli- ath's height (1 Sam. xvii, 4), the expression " six cubits and a span" is used instead of " six cubits and a half;" and that Ezekiel mentions " span" and " half a cubit" in close juxtaposition (xliii, 13, 17), as though they bore no relation to each other either in the ordinary or the long cubit. That the denominations held a certain ratio to each other, arising out of the proportions of the mem- bers in the body, could hardly escape notice ; but it does not follow that they were ever worked up into an arti- ficial scale. But bj' comparing together Exod. xxv, 10 with Josephus (.4?;^ iii, 6, 5), we find the span equal to half a cubit; for the length which Moses terms two cu- bits and a half, Josephus designates five spans. The re- lation of tephach (hand-breadth) and etsba (finger). to ammah (cubit) appears from their several names and their import in other systems. The hand-breadth is four fingers; the span contains three times the breadth of the hand, or twelve fingers. This is the view which the rabbins uniformly take. We find a similar system among the Greeks, who reckoned in the cubit t^^'enty- four fingers, six hand-breadths, and two spans. The same was the case with the Egyptians.
The most important conclusion usually drawn from the Biblical notices is to the effect that the cubit, which may be regarded as the standard measure, was of vary- ing length, and that, in order to secure accuracy, it was neccssarj' to define the kind of cubit intended, the result being that the other denominations, if combined in a scale, would vary in like ratio. Thus in Deut. iii, 11, the cubit is specified to be " after the cubit of a man ;" in 2 Chron. iii, 3, " after the first," or, rather, " after the older (niVdX'l) measure;" and in Ezek. xli, 8, "a great cubit," or, literally, " a cubit to the joint," which is fur- ther defined in xl, 5 to be " a cubit and a hand-breadth." These expressions involve one of the most knotty points of Hebrew archasology, viz. the number and the respec- tive lengths of the scriptural cubits. A cubit "after the .cubit of a man" implies the existence of another cubit, which was either longer or shorter than it, and from analogy it may be taken for granted that this sec- ond cubit woidd be the longer of the two. But what is meant by the " ammuh of a man ?" Is it the cubitus in the anatomical sense of the term— in other words, the bone of the forearm between the elbow and the wrist? or is it the full cubit in the ordinary sense of the term, from the elbow to the extremity of the middle finger? What, again, are we to understand by Ezekiel's expres- sion, "cubit to the joint?" The term ^"^SN, atstsil, is
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METROLOGY