DEFINING A CUBIT
There is
much confusion as to the length of the cubit, especially as we know that more
than one cubit was used in antiquity. Different lengths for these cubits have been
suggested by scholars.
That more
than one cubit was in use in biblical times is clear from 2 Chronicles 3:3,
where it is stated that Solomon was instructed to build the house of God using
cubits “after the first measure.” This implies, of course, that there was
another “measure” and that at least two different cubits must have been in use
during the First Temple period. The prophet Ezekiel (40:5, 43:13) indeed refers
to two cubits, one of which was a handbreadth longer than the other. The long
or Royal Cubit of seven handbreadths was that used in Ezekiel’s description of
the Temple, and is therefore the Temple Cubit. Although so far no rods or
inscribed lengths of cubit have been found in Israel, a beautiful specimen of
an Egyptian Cubit 20.67 inches long is on display in the Egyptian Gallery of
the British Museum (no. K136542, . . . ) together with a rod which is exactly
twice as long. In the Egyptian Museum of Torino there is a golden cubit
exhibited of the same length and two rods of a span (half a cubit) each. This
long or Royal Cubit (20.67 inches or 525 mm) and the Short Cubit of about 18
inches (450 mm) were in use in Egypt since about 3000 B.C. and were widely used
in the ancient world. The small cubit was divided into 24 fingerbreadths or 6
handbreadths and the Royal one into 28 fingerbreadths or 7 handbreadths. There
is increasing archaeological evidence to show that both these long and short
cubits were used simultaneously in Israel since the tenth century B.C. The
determination of the length of these cubits is based on the units of
measurements found in excavated tombs and other buildings, . . . From these excavations
it can be established with increasing certainty that the length of the longer
cubit is 20.67 inches (525 mm) and that of the shorter cubit 17.7 inches (450
mm.) (Leen Ritmeyer, The Quest: Revealing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem [Jerusalem:
Carta Jerusalem and the LAMB Foundation, 2006, 2015], 171)
