Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/391

 On the Hebrew Cubit. 381 and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about." This sea, we are told, contained two thousand baths : the Book of Chronicles says, three thousand, 2 Chron. iv. 5 ; but there can be little doubt that the number in the Book of Kings is correct. From the volume, thus given, Thenius* has ingeniously endea- voured to determine the exact linear dimensions of the sea and consequently, the length of the cubit, which he thus calcu- lates at 4839 metres ( = 1*5876 Eng. feet). But his calculation will not stand, for two reasons. First, the measure, which he assumes for the bath, is based on the Rabbinic assertion that a log (the 72nd part of a bath) was equal in volume to six moderate sized hens' eggs. But the size of a hen's egg is obvi- ously too loose a datum on which to base a nice calculation. Few of the values assigned to the cubit would differ from each other by more than three inches. Secondly, the form of the molten sea is unknown. Josephus understood it to be semi- circular ; and although Thenius has shewn that it is difficult to assent to this supposition, yet his own hypothesis, that the sea was cylindrical, or rather, that its irregularities compensated for each other in such a manner that its volume was the same as if it had been cylindrical, is perfectly arbitrary. All that Thenius can be said to have established, is, that his own calculation can- not be much in excess of the truth f. The Hebrew records therefore do not enable us to determine, independently, the length of the Hebrew cubit : and we are driven back to the consideration of the source whence this cubit was derived. Now it would seem to admit of little doubt that the Hebrew cubit was imported from Egypt. In the same year that the Israelites came out of Egypt, the measures of the taber- nacle, ark, altar, &c. were divinely prescribed in terms which shew that the cubit was then a fixed and definite measure J; and it could hardly have been different from the cubit to which the Israelites had been accustomed in Egypt. And the very existence of the tabernacle, ark and altar, would serve to perpetuate the same national standard of length in the land of inheritance. Hohlmasse ;' in ' Studied und Kriti- f It does however singularly accord ken.' 1846. p. 73 seqq: whence much of with the truth, as will be seen hereafter, the matter of the present article has. + Ex. xxv. seqq. 262
 * ' Die althebraischen Langen und been derived. '