Seah (unit)

The se'ah or seah (

Its size in modern units varies widely according to the criteria used for defining it.

Biblical Seah

The seah is found in Genesis 18:6 where Abraham orders Sarah to prepare three se'im of flour into loaves:

וימהר אברהם האהלה אל שרה ויאמר מהרי שלש סאים קמח סלת לושי ועשי עגות

And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said: "Make ready quickly three measures (se'im) of fine meal, knead it, and make loaves."

According to Herbert G. May, chief editor of two Bible-related reference books, the bath may be archaeologically determined to have been about 5.75 U.S. gallons (22 liters) from a study of jar remains marked "bath" and "royal bath" from Tell Beit Mirsim.^[2] Using the standard of a bath unit, which has been established to be about 22 litres, 1 se'ah would equal about 7.3 litres, or 7.3 dm³.

The Jewish Study Bible estimates the biblical seah at 7.7 liters (2.0 U.S. gal).^[3]

Seah in Orthodox Judaism

In the context of a

, whose view is that the size of eggs has progressively become smaller over the ages, therefore requiring a larger measure. According to this view, one se'ah is 14.3 litres, and therefore an ablution (mikveh) of forty se'ahs (the minimum measure needed to effect ritual purity) must contain at the least 575 litres, by their standard.^{[note 1]}

Those dissenting and who hold the view that eggs today have the same size as the eggs used in measurement by the

can be measured by filling-up a space 10 fingerbreadths × 10 fingerbreadths square (the finger's breadth being the width of one's thumb, about 2.5 cm), with a depth of 3 fingerbreadths and 1/10 of another fingerbreadth, along with a little more than 1/100 of another fingerbreadth, found that medium-sized eggs of our modern age have not diminished in size.

See also

• Biblical and Talmudic units of measurement

Notes

References

1. ISBN 0 19 815402 X
   , who, like all the earlier and later rabbinic writers, prescribes 6 kabs to each seah; 4 logs to each kab; the content of 6 eggs to each log.
2. ^ The Interpreter's Bible, Buttrick ed., Abingden Press, Nashville, 1956, volume VI, p. 317 (p. 155 in the Internet Archive copy of the text^{[full citation needed]}).
3. ISBN 978-0-19-529751-5
   .
4. Eruvin
   4b.
5. ^ Yoma 31a.
6. ^ Numbers Rabbah, 18:17.
7. Arukh HaShulchan
   (Yoreh De'ah 324:6–7).
8. ^ Shelomo Qorah, Arikhat Shulhan – Yilkut Chaim, vol. 13, Bnei Brak 2012, p. 210.
9. Kessef Mishneh
   ibid.