StrongerBible

bat

בַּת

HebrewH1324“bath, gallons, ...”

Appears 13 times · tap a cell to see the verses

1Ki 7:261Ki 7:382Ch 2:10(9) (2×)2Ch 4:5Isa 5:10Ezk 45:10Ezk 45:11 (2×)Ezk 45:14 (4×)
Root family
Word studyBAHTnoun

What bat means

the bath: the standard large measure for liquids, chiefly wine and oil, matching in size the ephah used for grain

TranslatabilityUntranslatableCertaintyStrong

The bath is the working unit of ancient Israel's liquid measures, the one a scribe reaches for when wine or olive oil is being counted out in quantity. The system ran two matching scales, one for what pours and one for what is scooped, and the bath was paired with the grain measure of identical size, the ephah (אֵיפָה). Both were a tenth of the largest bulk unit, the homer (חֹמֶר), which also went by the name kor (כֹּר). Below the bath came the smaller measures of the sanctuary, the hin (הִין) at a sixth of a bath and the log (לֹג) smaller still.

The word turns up in a narrow set of places, and each one puts it to a different use:

  • royal supply lists, where wine and oil are issued by the thousand
  • the building account of Solomon's temple, where the great bronze basin and the ten smaller ones are rated by how much they hold
  • Ezekiel's plan for a restored nation, where the bath is legislated as a public standard that has to be honest

Nobody can pin its exact size. Storage jars recovered at Lachish and elsewhere carry the word scratched into the clay, and the capacity reconstructed from those fragments comes to roughly six gallons, about twenty-two liters. An older figure, worked out from the way Josephus converted the bath into Greek liquid units, ran nearly twice that. So a Bible that prints a number in gallons or liters is passing on a scholarly estimate, not something the Hebrew itself states.

Because the bath governed how much oil or wine actually changed hands, it carried moral weight. A trader who quietly shrank his bath cheated every customer, which is why Ezekiel lists an honest bath beside honest scales among the things a renewed people owes God. Isaiah turns the same unit into a picture of ruin: ten acres of vineyard yielding a single bath is a harvest that has all but failed.

Nuances

1aa measured amount of liquid: so many baths of wine, oil, or water, whether supplied, harvested, or held in a container
1Ki 7:261Ki 7:382Ch 2:10(9) (2×)2Ch 4:5Ezr 7:22Isa 5:10
1bthe bath as the fixed public standard itself, set in relation to the other measures and required to be honest
Ezk 45:10Ezk 45:11 (2×)Ezk 45:14 (4×)
Variants

The same word in another spelling or form.

בַּתAramaic“bath”This is the Aramaic form of bath, the largest liquid measure in the Bible. It occurs in one verse only, in the plural, inside Artaxerxes's written order in Ezra, where the king allows the temple treasury to issue Ezra up to a hundred baths of wine and a hundred baths of oil. It names exactly the same unit as the ordinary Hebrew bath used for wine, for oil and for the capacity of the bronze basin in Kings, Chronicles, Isaiah and Ezekiel. Only the language and the shape of its plural ending set it apart.

What scholars say about bat

The standard lexica treat בַּת as a single lexeme denoting a capacity measure for liquids, equivalent to the dry אֵיפָה and equal to one tenth of a חֹמֶר, on the strength of the explicit equations in Ezekiel 45:11 and 45:14. BDB, HALOT and DCH list the occurrences without sense division, and there is no lexical dispute about the referent. Discussion concentrates instead on metrology. R. B. Y. Scott's studies of Israelite weights and measures argued from storage-jar sherds inscribed bt lmlk at Lachish and Tell Beit Mirsim for a bath of roughly 22 litres, revising downward the older figure of some 36 to 40 litres derived from Josephus's conversion of the bath into Greek liquid units in Jewish Antiquities. Marvin Powell's survey in the Anchor Bible Dictionary treats the lower figure as the better supported one while noting the margin of error inherent in reconstructing a vessel from fragments. On the Ezekiel material, Zimmerli reads 45:10 to 12 as a metrological appendix whose point is the enforcement of a single honest standard, and the divergence between 1 Kings 7:26 and 2 Chronicles 4:5 on the capacity of the bronze Sea is handled in the commentaries as a transmission or reckoning difference rather than as evidence for two different units.

Where scholars disagree about bat

How much the bath actually held.

  • majorityAbout 22 litres, roughly six gallons, the capacity reconstructed from storage jars inscribed with the word itself at Lachish and Tell Beit Mirsim.; R. B. Y. Scott, "Weights and Measures of the Bible," Biblical Archaeologist 22 (1959); Marvin A. Powell, "Weights and Measures," in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 6
  • minoritySome 36 to 40 litres, nearly twice as much, the older figure derived from Josephus's conversion of the bath into Greek liquid units.; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. בַּת IIlexicon
  • BDB, s.v. בַּת IIlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. בַּתlexicon
  • R. B. Y. Scott, "Weights and Measures of the Bible," Biblical Archaeologist 22 (1959)article
  • Marvin A. Powell, "Weights and Measures," in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 6dictionary
  • Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, Hermeneia (on Ezekiel 45:10-12)commentary
  • Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8primary-source

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of בַּת

c s absolute

בַּת, בָּת

1Ki 7:26, 1Ki 7:38, Isa 5:10, Ezk 45:11, Ezk 45:14, Ezk 45:14, Ezk 45:11

c p absolute

בַּתִּים

2Ch 2:10, 2Ch 2:10, 2Ch 4:5, Ezk 45:14, Ezk 45:14

c s construct

בַת

Ezk 45:10