HEBREW WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



295 



existing measures, by which to control the literary data. To do 

 anything like justice, therefore, to this section would require 

 much longer time than is now available. I must content 

 myself with a few indications of the present state of our 

 knowledge. 



The unit of the Hebrew system was the log, the multiples of 

 which were as follows : — 



Ephah-bath. 



Seah. 



Hin. 



Kab. 



Log. 



1 



3 



6 



18 



= 72 





1 



2 



6 



24 







1 



3 

 1 



12 

 4 



Of these the ephah, seah and kab are mentioned in the Old 

 Testament as dry measures ; the bath (of the same capacity as 

 the ephah), hin and log as liquid measures. Traces are also 

 found of a probably older decimal system, which may be repre- 

 sented thus : — 



1 homer or kor = 10 ephahs = 100 omers. 



1 ephah = 10 omers. 



Our search for the absolute values of the above measures 

 must begin with the evidence of Josephus, who repeatedly 

 explains to his readers the value, in his day, of the Jewish 

 measures in terms of the current Greek and Roman measures. 

 Tbis he does all but uniformly on the footing that the Hebrew 

 unit, the log, is equivalent to the Attic xestes, itself the counter- 

 part and namesake of the Eoman sextarius; the ephah-bath of 

 72 logs is thus equated with the Greek metretes of 72 xestai, 

 and similarly with the intermediate members. 



Here, however, we are confronted with two difficulties : (1) 

 these equations are at the best only popular approximations, for 

 it is extremely improbable that the log was the exact measure 

 of the sextarius-xestes ; (2) there is considerable divergence of 

 opinion among metrologists as to the exact value of the 

 sextarius and xestes themselves. Our latest English authority 

 (Flinders Petrie, art. Weights and Measures, Ency. Brit., 11th 

 ed.) estimates the capacity of the sextarius at 344 cubic inches, 

 just under an imperial pint (34"66 cubic inches) ; the xestes he 

 would make a trifle higher, 35 cubic inches, or 1*009 of a pint. For 

 all practical purposes we may safely take the sextarius-xestes as 

 equal to our pint, which thus becomes provisionally our value 

 for the log. From this as a basis the values of the higher 

 members of the scale are easily calculated ; the seah of 24 logs 



