CUBIT, The English word is derived from the Greek χυβιτον and Latin cubitum which means “elbow,” hence is a measure approximately equal to the distance from the elbow to the finger tips. The usual word is אמה which means “forearm” and “cubit,” and this is usually rendered in the LXX by the Greek word πηχυς which has the same two meanings. Dt 3:11 mentions the “cubit of a man” which the RSV renders as the “common cubit.” As the etymology of “cubit” suggests, the length of this ordinary cubit was presumably the average length of the forearm, say about 17.5 inches or in round numbers 18 inches, i.e., one and one-half English feet. Ezk 40:5 refers to a cubit which was a cubit and a handbreadth in length. RSV calls this a “long cubit.” If the additional handbreadth be taken as nearly three inches additional this would make a long cubit of about 20.4 inches. The Siloam Tunnel (No. 176) is 1,749 feet long by Vincent’s measurement, and the Hebrew inscription found in it says that it was 1,200 cubits in length. This gives a cubit 17.49 inches in length. Other evidence makes it probable that this same value of very close to seventeen and one-half inches is that of Josephus and of Middoth as they give measurements of the Jerusalem temple. (Jack Finegan, The Archaeology of the New Testament: The Life of Jesus at the Beginning of the Early Church [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992], xxx)
