Furlong

The Greek stadion — a unit of about six hundred feet, traditionally rendered "furlong" in older English versions — appears in the New Testament in two registers: as a plain measurement of distance between places, and as the unit by which the new Jerusalem is measured. The UPDV converts the unit into miles in the running text, with a footnote at each occurrence preserving the underlying figure in stadia.

Distance Between Places

When John locates Bethany in relation to Jerusalem, he uses stadia: "Now Bethany was near to Jerusalem, about two miles away" (Jn 11:18). The footnote glosses the unit literally — "Literally, 'fifteen stadia'. A stadion was about 600 feet" — so the modern reader sees the practical distance while the underlying measurement is preserved on the page.

Measuring the New Jerusalem

The same unit returns at far larger scale in the apocalyptic measurement. "And the city lies foursquare, and her length is also as great as the width: and he measured the city with the reed, 1,380 miles: her length and width and height are equal" (Rev 21:16). The footnote again gives the unit literally — "Literally, '12,000 stadia'. A stadion was about 600 feet. More precisely, 606.75 feet in English distances, 600 in Greek, or 625 Roman" — making the cube of the city a measurable, if vast, figure rather than a vague metaphor.