Ephah

The word ephah carries two unrelated meanings in scripture. As a unit of measure, the ephah is the standard dry-measure of household and sanctuary life — the basket-sized container against which manna, sin-offerings, harvest-yields, and prophetic judgments are calibrated. As a personal name, Ephah belongs to three distinct individuals: a son of Midian, a concubine of Caleb, and a son of Jahdai. The two senses share a spelling but not a story; this page treats them in separate sections.

The Ephah as Standard Dry-Measure

The ephah enters scripture in the wilderness, where Yahweh fixes its size against the daily manna-ration. Moses records the conversion at the close of the manna narrative: "Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah" (Ex 16:36). The omer — the per-head daily ration commanded by Yahweh and kept "throughout your⁺ generations" as a memorial of the wilderness-feeding (Ex 16:16, Ex 16:32) — is one-tenth of the larger ephah-unit. Ezekiel later anchors the ephah to the homer in the same ten-to-one ratio, and equates the dry-ephah with the liquid-bath: "The ephah and the bath will be of one measure, that the bath may contain the tenth part of a homer, and the ephah the tenth part of a homer: its measure will be after the homer" (Eze 45:11).

The Tenth-Ephah of Priestly Worship

The tenth-ephah recurs as the priestly remembrance-quantum. When a sinner cannot afford even the two-bird substitute, the substitute below it is "the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a sin-offering" (Lev 5:11). On the day Aaron and his sons are anointed, their perpetual oblation is "the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a meal-offering perpetually, half of it in the morning, and half of it in the evening" (Lev 6:20). The jealousy-ordeal carries the same measure: "the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal" as "a meal-offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance" (Num 5:15). And the continual burnt-offering is accompanied by "the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a meal-offering, mingled with the fourth part of a hin of beaten oil" (Num 28:5). The tenth-ephah is the priestly minimum — small enough for the poor sinner, fixed enough for the daily altar.

The Full Ephah in Household and Field

A full ephah is the household-scale unit of meal, grain, and barley. Gideon prepares "unleavened cakes of an ephah of meal" alongside a young goat and broth as the present he carries out to the angel of Yahweh under the oak (Jdg 6:19). Hannah brings up her weaned son to Shiloh "with a three-year-old bull, and one ephah of meal, and a bottle of wine" (1Sa 1:24). Jesse dispatches David to Saul's camp with an ephah of provisioning: "Now take for your brothers an ephah of this parched grain, and these ten loaves, and carry [them] quickly to the camp to your brothers" (1Sa 17:17). And Ruth's first day of gleaning yields "about an ephah of barley" — the dry-measure that registers the size of one widow's labor (Ru 2:17).

The Just Ephah Under Covenant Law

Because the ephah measures both worship and trade, the law binds it under the just-measure rule. The Levitical command places the ephah inside a four-member roster: "Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, you⁺ will have: I am Yahweh your⁺ God, who brought you⁺ out of the land of Egypt" (Lev 19:36). Deuteronomy forbids the dual-ephah household trick — the great ephah for buying, the small ephah for selling: "You will not have in your house diverse measures, a great and a small. A perfect and just weight you will have; a perfect and just measure you will have: that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you" (Deut 25:14-15). Wisdom restates the standard: "Diverse weights, and diverse measures, Both of them alike are disgusting to Yahweh" (Prov 20:10). Ezekiel issues the same decree to the restored community: "You⁺ will have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath" (Eze 45:10).

The Rigged Ephah and Prophetic Indictment

When the ephah is falsified, the prophets indict it by name. Amos hears the Sabbath-impatient grain-merchants plotting "to set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit" (Amos 8:5) — the under-filled ephah paired with the over-heavy shekel-weight. Micah names the same instrument: "Are there yet treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and a scant measure that is abhorred? Shall I be pure with wicked balances, and with a bag of deceitful weights?" (Mic 6:10-11). Isaiah turns the ephah into a judgment-ratio against Judah's vineyard: "For ten acres of vineyard will yield one bath, and a homer of seed will yield [but] an ephah" (Isa 5:10) — a homer of seed sown returns only an ephah, a tenth, the inversion of any healthy harvest.

The Ephah-Vessel of Zechariah's Vision

Zechariah's seventh vision turns the ephah-container into a prophetic image. The angel says, "This is the ephah that goes forth," and adds, "This is their desire in all the land" (Zec 5:6). The lead lid is lifted: "this is a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah" (Zec 5:7). The angel names her: "This is Wickedness: and he cast her down into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead on its mouth" (Zec 5:8). Two stork-winged women carry the sealed ephah away: "they lifted up the ephah between earth and heaven" (Zec 5:9). Asked the destination, the angel answers, "To build her a house in the land of Shinar" (Zec 5:10-11). The ephah here is the carrying-vessel that bears Wickedness out of the land and back to its place of origin.

The Larger and Smaller Measures

The ephah occupies the middle tier of a graded volume-system. The omer below it — one-tenth of an ephah — is the per-soul daily ration Yahweh commands in the wilderness (Ex 16:16, Ex 16:36). The homer above it is the ten-ephah master-standard. A homer of barley sown sets the valuation rate of a sanctified field at "fifty shekels of silver" (Lev 27:16). In the wilderness flesh-harvest, "he who gathered least gathered ten homers" of quail (Num 11:32). And the prophet's restored-temple decree fastens both ephah and bath to the homer at ten-to-one (Eze 45:11). The ephah thus functions as the marketplace-scale unit between the per-soul omer and the master-volume homer.

Ephah, Son of Midian

The personal name Ephah first appears in Abraham's second-wife line. After listing Keturah's sons, Genesis continues: "And the sons of Midian: Ephah, and Epher, and Hanoch, and Abida, and Eldaah. All these were the sons of Keturah" (Gen 25:4). The Chronicler restates the same list verbatim (1Ch 1:33), so Ephah is one of five named sons of Midian, Abraham's grandson by Keturah. The tribal name surfaces once in prophecy: in Isaiah's Zion-pilgrimage oracle, "the multitude of camels will cover you, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba will come; they will bring gold and frankincense, and will proclaim the good news of the praises of Yahweh" (Isa 60:6). Ephah is paired with Midian as the source-people of the dromedary tribute-train converging on the addressee with gold and frankincense.

Ephah, Caleb's Concubine

A second person named Ephah is a woman in the Caleb genealogy: "And Ephah, Caleb's concubine, bore Haran, and Moza, and Gazez; and Haran begot Gazez" (1Ch 2:46). She is unrelated to the Midianite line and to the measure-noun; the Chronicler simply records her as the bearer of three sons in Caleb's house.

Ephah, Son of Jahdai

A third Ephah appears two verses later in the same Caleb genealogy, as one of six sons of Jahdai: "And the sons of Jahdai: Regem, and Jothan, and Geshan, and Pelet, and Ephah, and Shaaph" (1Ch 2:47). He is named only here.