Ephah

Occurrences in Scripture

The ephah is a unit for measuring dry goods such as grain or flour. It appears in many passages of the Old Testament.

• Sacrificial regulations: Leviticus 5:11 directs a person who cannot afford even two turtledoves or two young pigeons to bring "the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour" as a sin offering. Numbers 5:15 prescribes "the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal" as the offering brought by a husband who suspects his wife.
• Everyday accounts: Ruth gleaned in the field of Boaz and beat out what she had gathered, "and it was about an ephah of barley" (Ruth 2:17). When Hannah brought Samuel to the house of the LORD, she took "one ephah of flour" (1 Samuel 1:24). Jesse sent David to take "an ephah of this parched corn" to his brothers (1 Samuel 17:17).
• Just measures: Leviticus 19:36 and Ezekiel 45:10 command the use of "a just ephah." Amos 8:5 and Micah 6:10 rebuke merchants who cheat by "making the ephah small."
• Zechariah's vision: In Zechariah 5:5–11 the prophet sees an ephah going forth. When its lead cover is lifted, a woman is sitting inside, and the angel declares, "This is wickedness." Two women with wings "like the wings of a stork" carry the ephah to the land of Shinar to build a house for it there.

Background

Exodus 16:36 explains that the omer, the unit used in gathering manna, is the tenth part of an ephah. Ezekiel 45:11 stipulates that the ephah and the bath (a liquid measure) are of the same capacity and that each is the tenth part of a homer.

Scholars differ in calculating the modern equivalent of the ephah, with estimates ranging from just over 20 liters to about 40 liters. Some hold that the word was borrowed from Egyptian. The ephah in Zechariah's vision is generally understood as a container or basket holding that quantity of grain.

Significance in Scripture as a Whole

In Old Testament sacrifice, the ephah served as the standard for a small offering that even the poor could bring. In the prophetic books it became a symbol by which honesty and justice were measured, and falsifying balances and ephahs was denounced as the sin of exploiting one's poor neighbors.

The ephah as a unit does not appear in the New Testament. Nevertheless, the theme of honest measurement and fair dealing carries over into the ethical teaching of the New Testament.

Interpretation and Debate

Interpretations of the ephah vision in Zechariah 5 vary.

• Removal of sin: Many commentators read the vision as depicting God lifting wickedness out of the land and returning it to Shinar, the region of Babylon and the setting of the Tower of Babel narrative.
• Symbol of commercial greed: Because wickedness is placed in a vessel used to measure grain, some interpret the vision as an indictment of commercial greed.
• Symbol of idolatry: Another view takes the "house" as a temple and the woman as an idol, reading the vision as idolatry being removed to a foreign land.
• Eschatological interpretation: Some dispensationalist interpreters connect the vision with Babylon in Revelation 17–18.

The text does not identify the two winged women; identifying them definitively as angels is a matter of interpretation.

Other Words with the Same Spelling

In the New Korean Revised Version, "Ephah" is also used as the name of a person or tribe. Ephah is the name of a son of Midian (Genesis 25:4), and "the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah" in Isaiah 60:6 also refers to this tribe. This is a different word from the unit of volume treated in this article.