Omer (unit)

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This article is about the Biblical dry measure unit. For the Biblical unit of volume for liquids, see Homer.
Sheaves of wheat: one sheaf is approximately one omer in dry volume.

The omer (

talent,[4] and was thus equal to about 30.3 L (8.0 US gal),[3] making the omer equal to about 3.64 L (0.96 US gal). The Jewish Study Bible (2014), however, places the omer at about 2.3 L (0.61 US gal).[5]

In traditional Jewish standards of measurement, the omer was equivalent to the volume of 43.2 chicken's eggs, or what is also known as one-tenth of an ephah (three seahs).[6] In dry weight, the omer weighed between 1.56–1.77 kg (3.4–3.9 lb), being the quantity of flour required to separate therefrom the dough offering.[7]

The word omer is sometimes translated as "sheaf" — specifically, an amount of grain large enough to require bundling. The biblical episode of the manna describes God as instructing the Israelites to collect an omer for each person in your tent, implying that each person could eat an omer of manna a day. In ritual, the Omer offering (which began the Counting of the Omer) consisted of an omer's quantity of freshly harvested grain. During the Temple period, the offering of the omer was one of twenty-four priestly gifts, and one of the ten which were offered to priests within the Temple precincts, when Jewish farmers would bring the first of that year's grain crop to Jerusalem.[8]

See also

References

  1. Aramaic Targum
    of pseudo-Jonathan ben Uzziel on Exodus 16:36 who says: "an omer is one-tenth of three seahs." Omer is also isaron In Hebrew measures, 1 seah is equal to the capacity of 144 eggs. Three seahs are the equivalent of 432 eggs; one-tenth of this is 43.2 eggs (The Mishnah, ed. Herbert Danby, Oxford University Press: Oxford 1977, Appendix II, p. 798)
  2. ^ Exodus 16:36
  3. ^ a b "Weights and Measures", Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  4. ^ there were two types of talent - royal and common, and each type came in a light form and a heavy form, with the heavy form being exactly twice the weight of the light form
  5. ISBN 978-0-19-939387-9
    .
  6. Aramaic Targum
    of pseudo-Jonathan ben Uzziel on Exodus 16:36 who says: "an omer is one-tenth of three seahs." In Hebrew measures, 1 seah is equal to the capacity of 144 eggs. Three seahs are the equivalent of 432 eggs; one-tenth of this is 43.2 eggs (The Mishnah, ed. Herbert Danby, Oxford University Press: Oxford 1977, Appendix II, p. 798)
  7. Bnei Barak
    ) brings down the traditional weight used in Yemen for each dirham, saying that it weighed 3.36 grams, making the total weight for the required separation of the dough-portion to be 1.77072 kg (3.9038 lb).
  8. Hallah
    , ch. 2)
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