WEIGHTS AND MEASURES II. Measxjres of Capacity.

The terms 'handful' (Lv 2*) and the like do not represent any part ol a system of measures in Hebrew, any more than in English. The Hebrew 'measure' par excellence was the seah, Gr. saion. From the Greek version of Is S'" and other sources we know that the ephah contained 3 such measures. Epiphanius de-scribes the seah or Hebrew modius as a modius of extra size, and as equal to li Roman modius =20 sextarii. Josephus, however, equates it with li Roman modius =24 sextarii. An anonymous Greek fragment agrees with this, and so also does Jerome in his commentary on Mt 13". Epiphanius elsewhere, and other writers, equate it with 22 sextarii (the Bab. ephah is computed at 66 sextarii). The seah was used for both liquid and dry measure.

The ephah (the word is suspected of Egyp. origin) of 3 scSfts was used for dry measure only; the equivalent liquid measure was the bath (Gr. bados, batos, keramion, choinix). They are equated in Ezk 45", each con-taining A of a homer. The ephah corresponds to the Gr. artabe (although in Is S'" six artabai go to a homer) or metretes. Josephus equates it to 72 sextarii. The bath was divided into tenths (Ezk 45"), the name of which is unknown; the ephah likewise into tenths, which were called 'omer or 'issaron (distinguish from homer =10 ephahs). Again the ephah and bath were both divided into sixths (Ezk IS's); the i bath was the hin, but the name of the i ephah is unknown.

The homer (Ezk 45", Hos 3^) or cor (Ezk 45", Lk 16'; Gr. koros) contained 10 ephahs or baths, or 30 seahs. (The term 'cOr' is used more especially for liquids.) It corresponded to 10 Attic metretai (so Jos. Ant. xv. ix. 2, though he says medimni by a slip). The word cSr may be connected with the Bab. gw or ffurru.

The reading lethek which occurs in Hos 3^, and by Vulgate and EV is rendered by 'half a homer,' is doubt-ful. Epiphanius says the Idmk is a large 'Bmer igomer) of 15 modii.

The hin (Gr. hein) was a liquid measure =i seah. In Lv 19» the LXX renders it choua. But Josephus and Jerome and the Talmud equate it to 2 Attic choes = 12 sextarii. The hin was divided into halves, thirds ( =cab), quarters, sixths, and twelfths (=log). In later times there were a 'sacred hin' =J of the ordinary hin, and a large hin =2 sacred hins=i ordinary hin. The

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

Egyp. hen, of much smaller capacity (0'455 1.) is to be distinguished.

The 'omer (Gr gomor) is confined to dry measure. It is A ephah and is therefore called assaron or ' issaron (AV tenth deal'). Epiphanius equates it accordingly to 7i sextarii, Eusebius less accurately to 7 sextarii. Eusebius also calls it the 'little gomor'; but there was another 'little gomor' of 12 modii, so called in dis-tinction from the 'large gomor' of 15 modii (the lethek of Epiphanius). Josephus wrongly equates the gomor to 7 Attic kotylai.

The cab (2 K 6^=, Gr. kabos) was both a liquid and a dry measure. From Josephus and the Talmud it appears that it was equal to 4 sextarii, or J hin. In other places it is equated to 6 sextarii, 5 sextarii (' great cab' = li cab), and i modius (Epiphanius, who, accord-ing to the meaning he attaches to modius here, may mean 4, 5, 5i, or 6 sextarii I).

The log (Lv 1410- ") is a measure of oil; the Talmud equates it to A hin or A seah, i.e. i cab. Josephus renders the i cab of 2 K e^s by the Greek xestes or Roman seictarius, and there is other evidence to the same effect.

A measure of doubtful capacity is the nebel of wine (Gr. version of Hos 3^, instead of lethek of barley). It was 150 sextarii, by which may be meant ordinary sextarii or the larger Syrian sextarii which would make it =3 baths. The word means 'wine-skin.'

We thus obtain the following table (showing a mixed decimal and sexagesimal system) of dry and liquid measures. Where the name of the liquid differs from that of the dry measure, the former is added in italics. Where there is no corresponding liquid measure, the dry measure is asterisked.

The older portion of this system seems to have been the sexagesimal, the 'Om^ and A bath and the lethek (if it ever occurred) being intrusions.

When we come to investigate the actual contents of the various measures, we are, in the first instance, thrown back on the (apparently only approximate) equations with the Roman sextarius (Gr. xestes) and its multiples already mentioned. The log would then be the equivalent of the sextarius, the bath of the metroes, the cab (of 6 logs) of the Ptolemaic chous. It log and sextarius were exact equivalents, the ephah of 72 logs would=39-39 litres, = nearly 88 gallons. This is on the usual assumption that the sextarius was 0-545 1. or 0-96 imperial pints. But the exact capacity of the

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