Sacred Measure (Part 3)
By Liaf
Ok, friends. We’ve discussed the mysterious measures called the "pyramid inch" and "sacred cubit". We’ve also shown that Solomon’s Sea very likely was a semi-spherical bowl holding 225 cubic sacred cubits. How does this relate to the measures that the ancient Hebrews used?
Let’s start off by considering the size of the Ark of the Covenant. Let’s turn to our King James Bibles to Exodus 25:10:
And they shall make an ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof.
Fine mess the Lord got us into. We attach spiritual significance to whole numbers in the Bible and now the Lord throws us a curve ball by giving us fractions. What in the name of all creation does 1 ½ and 2 ½ signify? Let’s do some simple math. Let’s convert these numbers to improper fractions. What do we get? 3/2 and 5/2, correct? You see, the real numbers to consider are the numbers 3 (symbolic of divine manifestation) and 5 (symbolic of grace, namely in conjunction with the mercy seat). These numbers can be found throughout the measurements of the Tabernacle. What about the number two? I like what E. W Bullinger said in his book (Number in Scripture) that two represents a division or difference. Whereas the number one signifies unity (such as one faith, one Lord, etc.), two represents another side. It represents a contrast. You will find dualistic themes all throughout the Bible. One thing represents another, or one thing compliments another. Likewise, if we have only half of the number 3 or 5, that signifies to me that there is more --- only "half" of the story so-to-speak. Indeed, the Ark represents God’s throne in heaven. This was merely the Earthly copy. It represented the Earthly counterpart of THE Throne in heaven. So the Ark was "only half of the story" to put it bluntly.
Now these were the outer measurements of the Ark. Shittim or Acacia wood is a hard wood capable of holding gold-plated interior and exterior walls. However, even at that, we must assume there was some thickness to these walls ---- that is, enough to support itself. The thickness of a 2x4, or about 1 ½ inches seems reasonable. That makes two walls (one on each end) a total combined thickness of about 3 inches. Let’s just call that about 1/8 of a cubit. That makes the interior roughly (2.5-.125)(1.5-.125)(1.5-.125) cubic cubits. I merely subtracted off the thickness of two walls in each dimension. That is to say, 2.375*1.375*1.375= 4.49 cubic cubits. Let’s round that to 4.5 cubic cubits. Now if we compare the volume of Solomon’s Sea to the Ark, we have a ratio of 225/4.5 = 50:1. As an astute reader may see, it does not matter what cubit we really use; as long as the shape of the sea is agreed upon and the cubits used for each were consistent. Again, the number 50 predominates in the Bible and I find this 50:1 ratio another interesting relationship that shows we are indeed on the right track regarding measurement. In other words, it would make sense that Solomon was inspired to create a sea in some proportion of a Biblically significant number. If the sea were cylindrical, the ratio would increase to 75:1. The number 75 is not a predominant number (Bullinger does not even address that number in his book). Perhaps some may say that the sea was "cup shaped" and may have produced a 70:1 proportion (since 70 is used occasionally), but that would require far more assumption than what I used regarding the shape of the sea. As far as I am concerned, 50:1 it is.
OK--- so we know ratios. So what? Let’s assume for a moment that these were sacred cubits of 25.0265". Already I’ve shown what I believe was strong circumstantial evidence to this effect regarding Solomon’s Sea in the second part of this series. Let’s try it for the Ark of the Covenant and see what happens there. 4.5x(25.0265")^3= 70536 cubic inches, just shy of 71,000 cubic inches. If we turn our attention back to the Great Pyramid (which is where we get the idea of the pyramid inch and sacred cubit to begin with), we find an old "coffer" in the top chamber called the King’s Chamber". The cubic volume of this coffer is about 71,500 cubic inches. This is close enough to call it the same volume as the Ark of the Covenant since we were approximating the Ark’s interior. Again, if we use the sacred cubit measure for the Ark of the Covenant, its volume "just so happens" to be the same as the pyramid’s coffer which anybody can walk right up to and measure. How was all this known? The pyramid was built at a different time than the Ark, and Solomon’s Sea at another time yet. However, when we use the number 25.0265", we find these staggering "coincidences" and nice relationships between these objects that no other number satisfies.
Let’s try something else out for size. The court of the Tabernacle itself was 50x100 cubits. Let’s convert that to feet assuming the measure was in sacred cubits. The conversion is 25.0265/12 or 2.08554 feet. 50x2.08554=104.28 feet. The length was twice that or 208.55 feet. If any reader is astute enough, he or she knows that the length of the side of a square acre is 208.71 feet, merely about 2 inches error! I hope this does not knock your socks off, so hold on. The Tabernacle court was virtually one half of an acre if we use the sacred cubit units! And Tabernacle or not, 100 sacred cubits =208.55 feet or 100 sacred cubits squared which is for all practical purposes an acre of land. This means the square side of an acre represents 1/100,000 of the polar diameter of the Earth! This "coincidence" of the acre being related to the measure of the Earth and in turn related to the area of the Tabernacle’s court shows the relationship between Egypt (because of the sacred cubit), Britain (because of the measure related to it), and Israel (because of the relation to their sacred objects). If I may add something, the court of the Tabernacle represented things here on Earth. The Tabernacle itself represented various degrees of God’s chosen people and heaven itself. Therefore, it would make sense that the Tabernacle court would be some nice ratio of the Earth’s polar radius. And one other thing--- the half-acre court to me represents the same theme as the half numbers used in the Ark’s dimensions but that is my two cents worth. You decide if that is just coincidence or not.
OK skeptics. If this is not enough to convince you, let’s see what other coincidences I can drum up using the number 25.0265.
If we refer back to part two of this series, we saw that Solomon’s Sea held 2000 baths --- that is the general consensus as opposed to 3000 baths. I can go for that, because that would make a bath 1763 cubic inches or about 7.6 gallons. Before I go on dealing with volume, let’s talk a little about Hebrew capacity of measurement. According to Ezekiel 45:11, a bath and ephah were supposed to be the same (notice that God very definitely has some sort of sacred measure just as surely as he gave the commandments). The difference was that the ephah was the dry unit whereas the bath was the liquid equivalent. If we convert 1763 cubic inches to royal cubits addressed in the last message, we shall find an interesting relationship. The royal cubit was exactly 20.628 inches so 20.628^3=8778 cubic inches. 1763/8778=0.2008 or virtually a 5:1 ratio of the ephah to that of the cubic royal cubit. "Why did you abruptly switch to royal cubits all of a sudden? Are you trying to make numbers fit??" No. I will show this volume also relates to the sacred cubit in a moment. However, I found that interesting since we got the sacred cubit from the pyramid, converted to a royal cubit via a geometric relationship, and the volume of a semi-spherical sea relates in turn to the cubic volume of a royal cubit. Solomon’s Sea held 400 royal cubic cubits and 225 sacred cubic cubits. This in itself is not so amazing since we’ve shown before the circle-to-square relationship of the two. What I find amazing is that the ephah is defined not by the sacred cubit of the sea, but by the royal cubit. Yet, when we consider other shapes, they do relate. Besides, I really believe there was common, royal and sacred measure. An everyday capacity measurement might have been defined by the "King" (to use prophecy dualistically) and not by sacred standards, per se.
If we take 1763 cubic inches and divide that by the volume of a bushel, we come out with an interesting ratio that shows that the English measure is related. A bushel has 2150 cubic inches. 1763/2150=.82 or virtually a 5/6 ratio. We know that a bushel of grain (wheat) holds 60 pounds, so an ephah holds 50 pounds (49.2 to be exact). If Solomon’s Sea held 2000 baths (ephahs) and it had a 50:1 ratio to the Ark, that meant the Ark held 40 ephahs. Agreed? How much wheat is that? 40*50 pounds = 2000. One ton!
The English measure (hence volume) is not exactly equal to the sacred cubit and Hebrew capacity, but the deviations are slight. They are close enough to take a close, serious look. Even if we did not have any English measure at all, and if we came up with measure based on the sacred and royal cubits from another society at another time, we would have imperceptibly different units of length, land area, and capacity! Our rulers would only be slightly longer, our land areas would be slightly less, and our capacities and our weights would not be much different. In other words, I am saying that measurement derived from the polar radius of the Earth will result in lengths, weights and measures very close to the English system we now use. I sincerely believe the deviations are from years of passing these standards down to from one generation to the next.
An obtuse person would fail to see the significance of this series about measurement, and the so-called intellectual skeptic would somehow convince himself that this is all coincidence. However, when mathematics says it all, we can truly appreciate the relationship between Egypt, Israel and Britain. When we see that, we see that God preserved us and watched over us in spite of our wandering from Him. And to baffle the intellectual skeptics and scientists, God even shown us His constant care by having this society mysteriously cling to an "unscientific" standard of measure. Maybe it’s not so unscientific after all. But that shows how great God really is when he has us hold on to a true standard of measurement even when we think it’s ridiculous.