294 PROF. ARCHIBALD R. S. KENNEDY, M.A., D.D., ON 



or ris. In the equation of these disparate elements he 

 introduces us explicitly or by implication to three different 

 fathoms of 96, 100 and 112 digits respectively, implying cubits 

 of 24, 25 and 28 digits. The existence of the first two is 

 attested by the Mishna, which speaks of two cubit rods of 24 

 and 25 digits preserved in the precincts of the temple, that of 

 24 digits being described as " the cubit of Moses " (Kelim 

 xvii, 9, 10). The third is the Persian cubit, originally the 

 Egyptian " royal " cubit, of 207 inches or thereby, of which 

 3,000 went to the mil 



Two provisional conclusions may be drawn from this hurried 

 summary : (1) The introduction of the long cubit must be assigned 

 to the Persian period of Jewish history, in which were intro- 

 duced the Persian standards for gold and silver ; (2) when we 

 remember that it is in the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehe- 

 miah — they are really subdivisions of a single work — that we 

 meet with these Persian standards, is it not probable that the 

 Chronicler, in saying that Solomon's temple was built by cubits 

 of " the former measure " (see above), is referring to the natural 

 cubit of 24 digits (17'6 inches) in contradistinction to the 

 Persian official cubit of 7 handbreadths, or 28 digits ? 



Finally, in view of the wide diffusion of Babylonian influence 

 in the earliest times in the West, including Syria and Palestine, 

 the use in the latter countries of the Babylonian cubit is not at 

 all improbable. Indeed, most recent German writers on the 

 subject maintain that it is the original Hebrew cubit. They 

 point to the recent discovery that the bricks of which the walls 

 of Megiddo and Taanach are composed show parts or multiples 

 of the Babylonian cubit of 19-J inches, and claim for it that it is 

 not only Ezekiel's supposed cubit of " a cubit and a handbreadth," 

 but also " the former measure " of Solomon's temple (Benzinger, 

 Hebr.ArchaoL, ii, 190). But I trust 1 have succeeded in convincing 

 you that the true Hebrew cubit in all periods was one of 17*6 inches 

 (447 mm.), of whose Egyptian origin there can be no question. 



III. — Measures of Capacity. 



The measures of capacity are the least satisfactory depart- 

 ment of Hebrew metrology. The names and relative values of 

 the several members of the scale, it is true, are known from the 

 Old Testament {see table below), but we are still far from 

 general agreement as to their absolute values in terms of our 

 modern standards. This is due partly to the inconsistency of 

 the literary evidence, and partly to the absence, until the other 

 day, of any monumental evidence in the shape of actually 



