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)

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. 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.

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

Video
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