StrongerBible

kor

כֹּר

HebrewH3734cor, measure

Appears 9 times · tap a cell to see the verses

1Ki 4:22(5:2) (2×)1Ki 5:11(25) (2×)2Ch 2:10(9) (2×)2Ch 27:5Ezr 7:22Ezk 45:14
Root family
Word studyKOHRnoun

What kor means

the kor: the largest of ancient Israel's measures of capacity, equal to ten baths or one homer and holding roughly two hundred liters (about six bushels)

TranslatabilityUntranslatableCertaintyStrong

A kor was not a weight but a volume, the amount a fixed container held. It sat at the top of Israel's scale of capacity measures: ten times the bath (בַּת) used for wine and oil, and ten times the ephah (אֵיפָה) used for grain. Ezekiel states that equivalence outright and also identifies the kor with the older homer (חֹמֶר), the load a donkey could carry. The best estimates put a kor somewhere near two hundred liters, though that figure is reconstructed from ancient jars rather than known.

Almost every time the word appears, a king is moving food in bulk. Solomon's household gets through thirty kors of fine flour and sixty of ordinary flour in a single day; he ships Hiram of Tyre twenty thousand kors of wheat a year; the defeated Ammonites pay Jotham ten thousand kors of wheat and as much barley again; and the Persian king authorizes Ezra to draw up to a hundred kors of wheat from the provincial treasury. This is the unit of state supply lists and tribute records, which is why the numbers attached to it run so high.

Two details are worth noticing. The kor belongs to the dry side of the system, so grain, barley and milled flour are its normal contents, and the two places where oil is counted in kors stand out (in one of them the ancient Greek translation and the parallel account in Chronicles both give the oil in baths instead). And the word travels easily between languages: it appears in the Aramaic of the Persian decree quoted in Ezra, and the New Testament simply keeps it in Greek (κόρος) when a debtor in one of Jesus's parables owes a hundred kors of wheat.

Nuances

1aa quantity of dry goods counted out by this measure: wheat, barley, flour and meal supplied, shipped or paid in bulk
1Ki 4:22(5:2) (2×)1Ki 5:11(25) (2×)2Ch 2:10(9) (2×)2Ch 27:5Ezr 7:22
1bthe same measure applied to pressed olive oil, though liquids are otherwise counted in the smaller bath
1Ki 5:11(25) (2×)Ezk 45:14

What scholars say about kor

The kor is the largest capacity unit of the Israelite metrological system, defined in Ezekiel 45:14 as ten baths and there equated with the homer. HALOT and BDB treat it as a loanword from Akkadian kurru (ultimately Sumerian gur), a standard Mesopotamian capacity unit, which suits its concentration in royal and administrative contexts: the Solomonic provisioning lists, Ammonite tribute in 2 Chronicles 27:5, and the Persian decree quoted in the Aramaic section of Ezra, where the plural appears as כֹּרִין. Its absolute volume is disputed. Reconstructions of the bath jar from inscribed vessels at Lachish and Tell Beit Mirsim yield roughly 21 to 23 liters per bath and so about 210 to 230 liters per kor, while lower reconstructions of the bath bring the kor nearer 120 liters; Powell's survey treats any precise figure as provisional. The use of the kor for oil in 1 Kings 5:11 is anomalous in a system where liquids are normally reckoned in baths, and the Septuagint together with the parallel list in 2 Chronicles 2:10 reads baths there, so the commentaries divide over whether the Masoretic figure is original or corrupt.

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. כֹּרlexicon
  • BDB, s.v. כֹּרlexicon
  • Marvin A. Powell, "Weights and Measures," Anchor Bible Dictionary 6:897-908reference
  • Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, 199-206monograph
  • Mordechai Cogan, I Kings, Anchor Yale Bible 10commentary

All attested forms of כֹּר

m p absolute

כֹּרִים, כֹּרִין

2Ch 2:10, 2Ch 2:10, 2Ch 27:5, Ezr 7:22

m s construct

כֹּר

1Ki 4:22, 1Ki 4:22, 1Ki 5:11, 1Ki 5:11

m s absolute

כֹּר

Ezk 45:14