Hin
This is a tricky unit. The word is not Hebrew, most scholars believe it is an Egyptian unit where it is equal to about a pint. The Israelite unit is believed to be 1/6th of a bath without, as far as I can tell, any evidence beyond relatively recent Jewish tradition. The Bible says nothing that clearly defines the unit.
I find this troubling because the ephah, which is clearly to be “of the same measure” was divided into 1/10ths called omers. And the bath was plainly divided into tenths as well (Ezekiel 45:14). There is no name given for that unit, but the obvious assumption is that 1/10th of a bath is a hin, the same volume as an omer. But can we prove that?
In keeping with everything else God does, the hin must have a real-world definition that everyone used. Some “bucket” that would be logical for holding liquids. There were two ways liquids were stored in the Old Testament; pottery jars, which could be of literally any size... and animal skins.
1 Samuel 10:3 (BBE) ...you will see three men going up to God to Beth-el, one having with him … a skin full of wine:.
Wineskins – not used just for wine, but also for oil, milk, etc – were typically the hides of sheep or goats that had been slaughtered, skinned, the hair removed, then stitched together and turned inside out. A typical sheepskin is about 24” (61cm) across on average. If stitched together, that means a tube 7.64” (19.5cm) across. Useful length when the ends are closed off is probably about 30” (76cm). That container, like the one at right, would hold a little under 6 gallons (22l) – almost exactly a 5.75 gallon bath!
I’d like to have some independent confirmation of this volume, but I can’t find anything out there on how much a sheepskin holds. The math is pretty good though, and it’s definitely in the range it should be. Feel free to send me any facts you may have on the subject.
A smaller, easier-to-make bag was made from a stomach of a sheep or other small animal. I can’t find any reliable information on the typical volume of stomach or bladder bags either, but the traditional versions still used in Spain, called bota, average about 1-3 liters, exactly the same range as an omer!
Once again, the unit of measurement is an obvious and logical consequence of environment; the divine handiwork isn’t noticeable until you realize that the most logical containers for liquids are the exact same size as the most logical quantities of dry goods! And exactly 1/10th and 1/100th the volume of a donkey load of grain!
Without God’s planning, what are the odds that a sheep’s stomach would be the same volume as the amount of wheat a man can bundle in a sheaf? Or that a sheep’s skin sewn into a bag is exactly ten times larger? But there’s more!
