Sacred Measure (Part 2)
By Liaf
Up to this time, we’ve been laying some groundwork for the pyramid inch and sacred cubit using the Great Pyramid as the standard. Let us turn our attention to I Kings 7:23-26 regarding Solomon's cast sea. First of all, I want to blow away the idea of an 18-inch cubit. Perhaps this was used as common measure, but not as sacred measure in the temple. From there, I will relate the pyramid inch and sacred cubit to other things as I promised.
If you ask any good religious authority what the length of the cubit was, they would point to the forearm and say that it was about 18 inches. As with the English system, they actually believe that body parts had something to do with determining measure. In addition, some stern-faced scientist my attest to the so-called fact that such measure is not scientific. After all, they wonder, whose forearm should we use? In effect, they believe such ancient measure was left to the whims of ancient man. It was understandable, they believe, that ancient man would resort to this arbitrary way of measuring. Are they in for a little surprise! Again, if we ask the same authorities what the size of the Hebrew liquid measure called the "bath" was, they would say it was about 5.8 gallons minimum. If anything, some believe it was larger. When we turn to the I Kings passage, we find that Solomon’s cast sea was very precisely defined and the capacity was clearly stated. Let’s turn to this passage and understand:
And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
And under the brim of it round about there were knops compassing it, ten in a cubit, compassing the sea round about: the knops were cast in two rows, when it was cast.
It stood upon twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east: and the sea was set above upon them, and all their hinder parts were inward.
And it was an hand breadth thick, and the brim thereof was wrought like the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies: it contained two thousand baths.
This passage describes a semispherical bowl 10 cubits in diameter. It was placed on twelve oxen as a support to keep it from rolling back and forth. It would stand to reason that the radius was 5 cubits (hence the height of it). If it had a diameter of 10 cubits, shouldn’t the circumference be roughly 31 ½ cubits instead of 30? Yes! However, notice one other little detail. It was a hand breadth thick. This thickness accounts for the discrepancy. You see, the inner circumference was given whereas the 10 and 5 cubit lengths are the outer measurements. Why would the writer give the inner circumference? The reason is simple--- this would be a more precise measure to relate to its capacity of 2000 baths (the Chronicles book actually states 3000 baths). If we take 30 and divide that by 2 PI, we obtain the radius of this circle. This would calculate out to 4.775 cubits. Since we know the shape of the bowl, we can safely say this container held about 225 cubic cubits of water. The actual formula is 2/3 PI R^3 minus the volume of water below the brim assuming it was not filled to the very brim. I made a reasonable assumption of an inch (1/25 of a cubit) below the brim. Thus we subtract PI R^2 * (1/25) cubic cubits off of the "full" volume. This results in the formula: 2/3 PI R^3-PI R^2 (A) where "A" is the distance of the water below the brim in cubits. Click here if you are the mathematical type who wants a proof.
OK. So we know this thing held 225 cubic cubits. Big deal. Let’s test this to the accepted value of the cubit and bath. If we take 225 and multiply this by 18 cubed, we get the total amount of cubic inches, that is assuming a cubit is 18 inches. Everybody with me so far?
225*18*18*18= 1312200 cubic inches. So what? Let’s continue. There are 231 cubic inches to a gallon. You see where I’m going here? I’m trying to figure out how many gallons this thing held. 1312200/231= 5680 gallons. Let’s convert that to baths since a bath supposedly held a minimum of 5.8 gallons. 5680/5.8= 979 baths. You know what? People think I’m always going off on an irrelevant tangent that has no spiritual significance. Yet these same authorities are the shepherds for your souls by teaching you the Word of the Lord. Now if they can’t get something this straightforward correct, how can they deal with the spiritual abstracts? Yet they will vehemently state the values of these measures as 18 inches and 5.8 gallons minimum. Sorry. You cannot argue with the precise nature of mathematics. They are wrong, pure and simple. I’m not here to bash anybody personally (even though I may come across that way at times). However, I can show these proofs until the cows come home and yet they will not admit their error. What does that say? The issue is not about measurement. The issue is about being too proud to admit mistakes. They want to teach the doctrines of men. OK. What if Solomon’s sea was cylindrical in shape? First of all, I don’t think this was possible. The text says "round all about" implying all three dimensions, not just two. In addition, one can see the reason for the oxen as a stand for this bowl. You would not need that for a "big cup". However, let’s play the devil’s advocate for a moment and say that the thing was cylindrical. Mathematically, this would hold one and one half times what a semi-sphere would hold. That would calculate out to 1.5*979 baths = 1469 baths. Still no go. The text says 2000 baths and the Chronicles text actually states 3000! Therefore the cubit had to be larger or the bath much smaller than accepted. I vote for the former.
Some may claim this was the royal cubit of 20.6 inches. This would work only if the Cast Sea was cylindrical as well. Even then, it would marginally make the 5.8 gallon criteria for the measure of the bath if it held 2000 baths and not 3000 baths. If anything, some people state the bath was even more than 5.8 gallons. For those who do not want to believe in the idea of a "sacred cubit" this marginal possibility is enough of an escape hatch for them. I say, "Have at it." Limit your possibilities if you want to. At least I’ve proven that the 18 inch cubit was not used in Solomon’s temple. That much will shut up about 75% of the false prophets and as such made my day.
There is one other possibility. That possibility is that Sir Isaac Newton was correct. There is a "sacred cubit" of 25.0265 inches based on the Earth’s measure. By the way, Sir Isaac Newton did not arbitrarily dream up this measure. He researched other measures as well for comparisons to come to this conclusion. And if we use this measure, for sure Solomon’s Sea could have held 2000 baths (and almost 3000). If we use the 2000 bath criteria, that would make the bath equal to about 7.6 gallons--- a number very much in the accepted range of measure. If it held 3000 baths, that would make the bath about 5.1 gallons, not far below the accepted minimal value. And all this is for a semispherical bowl. For sure, a cylindrical bowl would hold even more and the 25.0265 inch cubit would satisfy the requirements nicely for either 2000 or 3000 baths.
I’m going to end this message here and will pick up next time dealing with the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle. Seemingly, all I’ve done was prove the accepted measure as wrong, but you will soon see that studying Solomon’s Sea has a greater significance that relates to the message to come.
