How far you could walk on the Sabbath without breaking it: two thousand cubits, about half a mile.
Length
889–914 m (0.552–0.568 miles).
Defined as 2000 cubits.
Inherits the disagreement over the cubit.
The distance itself is rabbinic rather than biblical. The law says only that no one should leave his place on the seventh day; the two-thousand-cubit limit is the rabbis' working measure of what "his place" meant, reasoned from the pasture given round the Levitical towns. Luke uses it once, as a plain distance, to say how far the Mount of Olives is from Jerusalem — which is the sort of detail that tells you who he expected to be reading.
Two thousand cubits is the rabbis’ measure, not the Law’s: Exodus 16:29 says only that no one should leave his place on the seventh day. Luke uses it as a plain distance, the walk from Jerusalem up to the Mount of Olives. Bethany, where Lazarus lived, was about three Sabbath days’ journeys out.
Not a word scripture uses. Scripture never gives the distance. Exodus 16:29 says no one should leave his place on the Sabbath; the two-thousand-cubit figure is later rabbinic reckoning, and Acts 1:12 simply uses the phrase as a distance everyone knew.
Where it appears
Acts 1:12Olivet, a Sabbath day's journey from Jerusalem