BATH

Biblical noun

1.

Liquid capacity-measure (2 Nephi 15:10)

Hebrew bat “bath-measure” (1 Kings 7:26, 38, Ezekiel 45:10-14, Ezra 7:22) 2 Nephi 15:10 ǁ Isaiah 5:10 (bat ʾeḥāt MT / bat ʾeḥād Qumran/ batos LXX & NT Greek), which is a standard capacity-measure for liquids equivalent to the standard ephah ʾêpā dry-measure of capacity. The Classical Israelite bat was between 20.85 – 21.15 liters, based on the actual capacity of a complete two-handled storage-jar excavated at Lachish (with “bat” written in ink), and dating to the fourth year of the reign of King ZEDEKIAH of Judah.17 Cf. W. F. William Albright’s estimate of the incomplete eighth-century storage-jar (with bat l-melek “royal bath” written on it) which he found at Tell Beit Mirsim and estimated at 22 liters.18 According to Frank Cross, the ephah/bath in the Hellenistic period was 21.83 liters.19

See EPHAH.

Bibliography

• Albright, William F. The Excavation of Tell Beit Mirsim, III: The Iron Age, AASOR 21–22. New Haven: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1943.

• Cross, Frank M. “An Inscribed Weight,” in The Excavations at Araq el-Emir, AASOR 47, ed. Nancy Lapp, 27–30. ASOR, 1983.

• Ussishkin, David. “The Destruction of Lachish by Sennacherib and the Dating of the Royal Judean Storage Jars,” Tel Aviv, 4 (1977): 28–60.

• Ussishkin, David. Excavations at Tel Lachish, 1975–1977: Preliminary Report. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Univ. Institute of Archaeology, 1978.

• Wolters, Al. A Metrological PRS-Terms from Ebla to Mishna,@ Eblaitica, IV (2002): 223–241.

RFS