Menachot 88 – Seven Measures for Liquids

There were seven types of measures for liquids in the Temple, based on a measure of “hin” (twelve login, or about 1 gallon): a hin, half-hin, third-of-a-hin, quarter-in, log, half-log, and a quarter-log. Rabbi Shimon says that the hin was not there, because only Moses used it, and then only once, but others claim that they kept Moses' hin. All that is based on the tradition that one needs seven liquid measures, and the measures have to be full. Rabbi Elazar bar Tzadok say that there was only one hin-measure, with incremental markings. He does not agree to the tradition of “seven measures.”

What function did each measure serve? For example, the quarter-log was to measure the quarter-log of water for the purification of metzora (spiritual leper) and for the quarter-log of oil of a nazir.

For all flour offerings the oil had to be measured with the “log” measure, so that an offering of sixty issaron (300 pounds) required to measure the log of oil sixty times. Rabbi Eliezer ben Yakov says that even a flour offering of sixty issaron would have only one log of oil in it.

Art: Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin - Water Glass and Jug