By JAMES NEIL, M.A.
A sign that arrested my attention in Jerusalem was the measuring of wheat and barley, and, as far as I am aware, it had never been described until I gave an account of it in my “Palestine Explored.”
Each year in July or August all the dwellers in Eastern cities have to buy sufficient corn to last them for a twelve-month. When it is brought to the purchaser’s door, a professional measurer invariably attends to find out and certify the true contents of each sack and to act as a kind of impartial umpire between buyer and seller.
The measurer uses a wooden measure, like our own bushel measure but not so deep, called a timneh. He seats himself crosslegged on the ground and begins to scoop the grain, which is turned out in a heap before him, into the timneh with his hands. When the measure is partly full he seizes it and gives it two or three swift half-turns, thus shaking it together, and so making it occupy a smaller space. He again scoops in more corn and repeats the shaking as before, and does so again and again until the measure is filled to the brim. This done, he presses upon it all over with the outstretched palms of his hands, using the whole weight of his body so as to pack it still more closely.
Then out of the centre of the pressed surface he removes some of its contents, making a small hollow. He is about to erect a building on the top, and very naturally digs a foundation. With more handfuls of corn he now raises a cone above the timneh. With much skilfulness he carries this cone up to a great height until no more grain can possibly be piled on its steep sides and that which he adds begins to run down and flow over. Upon this, the interesting and elaborate process is complete, the measure is regarded as of full weight and is handed over to the buyer.
Corn is always meted out in this way, and is quoted in the market at so much per timneh. I have taken great pains to find out the exact contents by weight of this Palestine measure. The experiment I made was with wheat of the best quality. I found that a timneh of such filled up to the brim, unshaken, unpressed and without the cone, weighs just thirty-seven pounds, but with the cone forty-four pounds. When, however, shaken together, pressed down and flowing over in the manner described, it holds forty-eight pounds.
“Give,” said our Blessed Lord, in graphic and vivid allusion to this professional measuring, “and it shall be given to you”; “good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall they give into your bosom (that is, into the capacious natural breast-pocket formed by that part of the loose Eastern kamise, or shirt, which is above the girdle), for with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again” (Luke vi. 38; see also Matthew vii. 2; and Mark iv. 24).
Observe, there is no less than eleven pounds difference in weight between a measure filled to the brim, as we fill it here, and one such as I have described filled according to the beautiful method of Bible lands, when it is “pressed down, shaken together, running over.” In this way 30 per cent is added to its value! This is, indeed, good interest for our money, but thus liberally shall those be rewarded who have learned to imitate the example of their God and Saviour—who, blessed be His name, gave His own life—in the divine art of generous giving. (Good News Broadcaster—January, 1958.)