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Cab

Hebrew קַב. Also called Qab, Kab.

A small dry measure, named once — during a siege so severe that a quarter of one sold for five shekels.

Volume (dry)
1.11–1.33 L (1.17–1.41 qt). Defined as 1/18 of a ephah. Inherits the disagreement over the ephah.

The cab appears exactly once, and the context is the point: during the siege of Samaria a donkey's head sold for eighty shekels of silver and a quarter of a cab of dove's dung for five. The measure is there to convey how little food that was for how much money.

The dry measures, drawn to scale Grain baskets at true volume beside a 6-foot man: a cab, an eighteenth of an ephah, 1.11–1.33 L; an omer, a tenth of an ephah and one person's daily manna, 2–2.4 L, beside a 2-litre bottle; a seah, a third of an ephah, 6.67–8 L; and an ephah, 20–24 L (5.28–6.34 gal), beside a 5-gallon bucket. Ten ephah baskets stacked four, three, two and one make a homer, 200–240 L, a donkey-load. a 6-ft (1.8 m) man a caban eighteenth1.11–1.33 L1.17–1.41 qtan omera tenth: a day’s manna2–2.4 L2.11–2.54 qta seaha third6.67–8 L1.76–2.11 galan ephahthe anchor20–24 L5.28–6.34 gal2-litre bottle5-gallon bucket12345678910a homer, ‘a donkey-load’ten ephahs200–240 L · 52.8–63.4 gal
Each basket holds its measure at the middle of the range above. The ephah is the anchor: a seah is a third of it, an omer a tenth and a cab an eighteenth, and ten ephahs make a homer, the word for a donkey’s load. An omer of manna, a day’s food for one person (Exodus 16:16), is about a 2-litre bottle’s worth.

Where it appears

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