Chomer

The chomer (Hebrew חמר transliterated chômer, pronounced kho'-mer, also spelled homer) is the largest volume of measure in the Bible. It is used for both dry and wet goods and is equivalent to about 57.5 gallons (220 liters), making it slightly larger than the common 55-gallon barrel. The volume held by a chomer is measured by making a cylinder that is 1 cubit across by 1 cubit tall. However, clay chomer vessels were not usually cylindrical, but more vase-shaped for storage and transportation considerations.

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  The volume held by a chomer is measured by making a cylinder that is 1 cubit across by 1 cubit tall.
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  Clay chomer vessels were not usually cylindrical, but more vase-shaped for storage and transportation considerations.

The chomer divides into 10 wet measurement baths or into 10 dry measurement ephahs (Ezekiel 45:11), but the Bible emphasizes that these are the exact same volume, just wet versus dry measure. It was once called a cor when used for liquids (Ezekiel 45:14), but even there the Bible calls it a chomer, too.

A chomer is roughly a 55-gallon barrel, while an ephah is roughly a 5-gallon bucket.

The majority opinion, historically, was that a chomer held about 80 gallons (300 liters). This has changed since the discovery of ancient jars in Tell Beit Mirsim marked “bath”, which contained about 5.75 gallons (22 liters). If a bath is 5.75 gallons, then it’s about the same size as a modern 5-gallon bucket. And 10 baths would be 57.5 gallons, one chomer. Interestingly this is almost exactly the same as the common 55-gallon drum known worldwide. So when you hear “chomer” think of a barrel, and when you hear bath or ephah think of a bucket.

Etymology

The word “chomer” comes from the Hebrew “chamor”, meaning “donkey” or “ass”. This is because donkeys were the primary way of hauling large quantities of goods, and this was the amount of weight a donkey could carry on his back – thus, it was quite literally one ass-load of grain.

If filled with water or wine, our barrel would have weighed about 480 pounds, too much for any donkey, so the definition of a chomer would have to be based on the amount of dry goods a donkey can carry. One chomer, 57.5 gallons of grains, would weigh about 250 pounds.

Donkeys carrying two bundles – two ephahs – plus a woman on their backs.

In this picture of modern Syrian donkeys, each donkey is carrying bundles of straw I would guess weigh around 50 pounds each (imagine a square bale of hay). The women probably weigh around 120 or so more – they’re short, but not skinny. Plus the saddle. This is at least 220 pounds, and it probably isn’t the biggest load ever loaded on a donkey.

People regularly rode donkeys throughout the Bible. In Exodus 4:20, a woman and two children of unknown age were placed on one; figuring a typical healthy woman at 125 and imagining an average of 30 pounds each for young children, that’s 185 pounds, conservatively.

AD 1236 England – Illustration of a donkey carrying bag of grains.

The image at right is from AD 1236 England and displays a bag of grain which could have easily weighed 200 pounds, if it really is the same size as the man balancing it.

In the Bible, Baalam, an adult male who probably weighed between 150 and 200 pounds rode a donkey in Numbers 22:30. And this, apparently, was a female (verse 33). A male could have carried more. Thirty brothers all rode asses (Judges 10:4). And there are many other examples of riding donkeys in the Bible.

All of these examples point to an upper limit on a typical Biblical donkey of around 250 pounds, perhaps even 300. This is precisely consistent with the heaviest dry unit commonly carried on a donkey – grains. A full load of grains, properly loaded on a donkey, would be equivalent to one chomer; about 1 modern 55-gallon drum full.

Omers And Chomers

When sheaves are bundled, they are usually stacked into “stooks” to dry. They average around 10 bundles each. If more are added, the ones in the middle don’t dry properly; if there are fewer of them, they fall over in the wind. Thus, each one of these stacks would yield ten omers, or one ephah of grain.

Bundled sheaves of wheat, called “stooks”

The picture earlier of the wheat bundles being carried on a donkey’s side probably had one ephah on each side of the donkey, with a woman on top. It makes a handy size as a bundle – again a reason to have it be a unit. These ephah-bundles were then hauled to the threshing floor, where they were piled in a heap (Song of Solomon 7:2).

The same Hebrew word chomer has another meaning in the Bible. It also means “a bubbling up, i.e. of water, a wave; of earth, mire or clay (cement); also a heap; hence, a chomer or dry measure”. So a bubbling up, a piling up, a heap – as in a heap of sheaves.

The donkeys carry the ephahs to the threshing-floor, where it is piled into a heap, while oxen or donkeys drag a scraper over the grain to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Heaps

There is most likely a typical size for this heap that was regularly done as one “batch”. Based on the picture at right, it looks like about 10 stacks from the picture above, or 100 sheaves... making it precisely one chomer, one heap.

And when the threshing is finished and the grain is separated out, that heap will yield exactly one donkey load of finished grain, one chomer. Both meanings are true, rather like a pun; what is surprising is that both completely different definitions (a heap on a threshing floor, a donkey’s capacity in finished grain from that heap) happen to be exactly the same.

Donkey load of unthreshed grain.

While a donkey can carry the weight of a full threshed chomer of finished grain, he cannot carry a full chomer of sheaves with all the straw attached. Not to mention the added volume would be very difficult to balance. But you certainly could carry a half-chomer which is probably why it had its own name, letek. That’s about what you see on the picture at the right – a donkey load of unthreshed grain, which yields a letek, half-chomer, of grain.

Hosea 3:2 So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer [letek] of barley:

The word chomer has one more definition in Hebrew, by far the most common – it means clay. Both because clay is formed from a “heap” into a pot, but more importantly because clay was the most common container available to hold chomers.

So two donkey-trips of sheaves, two leteks, filled the threshing floor with a chomer-heap and yielded a chomer-load of grain, which was then put in a chomer-pot of clay. The names for these things reveals the elegant linguistic truth; a chomer is the amount that a donkey can carry, the heap threshed at one time, and the clay the container is made of to hold that volume.