Unit of measure
Introduction
We measure everything. Knowing and understanding measurements is essential for everyday life. If you are cooking, you need to measure the amount of ingredients to put in the food, you need to know the size of shoe you wear, what size clothing, how many miles it is to drive to work. The doctor's measure your height and weight when you go in for a check up. Time is a form of measurement. Money is a form of measurement. Everything we use requires measurements. The question is how did we develop our set measurement systems? How did they measure things before? In the bible, when God told Noah to build an ark, he had very specific instructions:
“14So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. 16Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.” (Genesis 6:14-16 NIV) [1]
What is a cubit? How did the measure for building this ark? How big would that be in modern day measurements? Let's take a look back and see how things were measured.
History
Human's thousands of years ago had to figure measurements to survive. They had to build homes, make clothes, etc. How did they do this without a standard of measurement? The simple answer is they used different body parts to measure different things. According to the NASA brief history of measurement systems, the early Babylonians and Egyptians used the forearm, hand or finger to determine length. [2] As civilization became more advanced, the need for measurements also needed to advance. The cubit is the oldest unit of measurement recorded, as we saw in the bible passage.
Conversions
Here is a chart of conversions[4].
Bible American/British Metric
Weight
talent 75 pounds 34 kilograms mina 1 1/4 pounds 0.6 kilogram shekel (2 bekas) 2/5 ounce 11.5 grams pim (2/3 shekel) 1/3 ounce 7.6 grams bekah (10 gerahs) 1/5 ounce 5.5 grams gerah 1/50 ounce 0.6 gram
Dry Capacity
cor (homer) (10 ephahs) 6 bushels 220 liters lethek (5 ephahs) 3 bushels 110 liters ephah (10 omers) 3/5 bushel 22 liters seah (1/3 ephah) 7 quarts 7.3 liters omer (1/10 ephah) 2 quarts 2 liters cab (1/18 ephah) 1 quart 1 liter
Liquid Capacity
bath (1 ephah) 6 gallons 22 liters hin (1/6 bath) 4 quarts 4 liters log (1/72 bath) 1/3 quart 0.3 liter
Length
cubit 18 inches 0.5 meter span 9 inches 23 centimeters handbreadth 3 inches 8 centimeters measure varies varies mile (Roman) 1,618 yards 1,479.4992 meters
References
- ↑ Genesis 6:14-16 NIV Biblegateway.com. Web. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica Inc.
- ↑ National Institute Of Standards And Technology. A Brief History of Measurement Systems NASA.org. Web. Accessed December 3, 2015.
- ↑ Authorlastname, Firstname. ArticleTitle Publisher site name. Web. Month Day, Year. (specify whether its the date of publication or last-modified or accessed - i.e. Published November 3, 2015.)
- ↑ Biblical weights and measures Biblical Weights and Measures • WebBible Encyclopedia • ChristianAnswers.Net. Web.
- ↑ Authorlastname, Firstname. ArticleTitle Publisher site name. Web. Month Day, Year. (specify whether its the date of publication or last-modified or accessed - i.e. Published November 3, 2015.)
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