And within the oracle he made two cherubims of olive tree, each ten cubits high.
24 And five cubits was the one wing of the cherub, and five cubits the other wing of the cherub: from the uttermost part of the one wing unto the uttermost part of the other were ten cubits.
25 And the other cherub was ten cubits: both the cherubims were of one measure and one size.
26 The height of the one cherub was ten cubits, and so was it of the other cherub.
27 And he set the cherubims within the inner house: and they stretched forth the wings of the cherubims, so that the wing of the one touched the one wall, and the wing of the other cherub touched the other wall; and their wings touched one another in the midst of the house.
Book of the Chronicles 6:23-27
A cubit arose from the time God told an angel to go and measure the city along with a lot of other things. Rather than learn all of mans measures of which there were plenty, God told him simply to go and measure. So, he did, using what he had most readily available, his arm. Now it just so happens that when you measure the distance between your elbow and the tip of your longest finger, it is a certain length. Some people have said that it is a certain measure on average. I do not mind about that but you and I both know if you measure by arms not everyones arm is the same size. Some are shorter, some are fatter, some are smaller, some are longer. Just think of it though, what a convenient measure your arm makes. That is because it is attached to your body at a series of angles. We would talk about those later. First, though let us see how to measure. What the angel did was put his arm down, marked where it began and ended, then put it down again at the last place he left off. In that way then, he measured everything in sight. It must have taken quite awhile and I was sure it was not as easy as simply making something like a tape measure. Things such as those are made up of hundreds of arm units all taped up together. Notice the height of the statue. Let us say a cubit is accepted on average of 18 inches. How tall were the cherubs?
10
18
Can also be written as
10
8
__
80
AND
10
10
__
100
Now add 100 and 80 to make
100
80
__
180
Good job! That will be 180 inches or how many feet? There is 12 inches in a foot, let us say.
12 into 18 (I know, it is 180, I shortened it into 18 because 12 goes in there once with 6 left over. If it did not, it would be into all 180)
12 into 180 goes 1 times 12 which makes
12
60 (I carried the 0 down since 12 cannot go into 6 anymore; 12 goes into 60 a total of 5 times which makes)
60
0 (with 0 left over)
So, the answer would be 15 feet tall. That in non-metric units though which means everything is non-standard. What if I wanted to say convert over to metric units? Very quickly, let us look at the categories.
millimeter 0.001
centimeter 0.01
decimeter 0.1
Meter 1
Hectometer 100
Kilometer 1000
Let us see something else. Would not life be much simpler, if everything was still say measured in cubits. It sure would simplify things a lot. Now that you think about it, 10 cubits is not that tall, now, is it? You could very easily fit say two men and a child into that height. What about something much simpler? Let us try to know how tall the statues are in total. We would want to add them together for this one right here.
10 cubits
10 cubits
_____
20 cubits (because you add the zeros to make 0 and add the ones next to make two - that makes it twenty)
So, the statues are 20 cubits tall when combined which should tell me how large the temple was inside.
10 cubits wide on the wings which touched the walls 10 cubits wide on the wings which touched the walls
20 cubits wide when touching in the middle
Just so you know, that is 15 feet tall and 15 feet wide when added to another 15
15 feet
15 feet
___
0 (5 and 5 is ten, carry the one to the next position) 2 (1 and 1 is two and add on the one you just carried)
30 feet wide inside the temple
Let us say each man is say two feet wide.
2 goes into 30 by how much?
2 into 3 goes once
2 into 30 = 1_
2
(subtract 2 from 3 to get one left over
Add the one to the 0 to make 10
Then divide 2 into 10
(two goes into ten 5 times)
Multiply the 2 and the 5 together to make 10
Subtract the ten you now have from the ten left over to make
0
That means 15 men can stand shoulder to shoulder in the temple at two feet wide comfortably. That is an awfully narrow place. Now let us look at something else. Say you want to find out how wide this thing is in meters.
30 feet: x meters:
3.28 foot: 1 meter
Multiply like this: 3.28 foot by x meters makes 3.28x 30 foot by 1 meter makes 30 meters.
30 meters = 3.28x
Now divide 3.28 into 30 meters leaving x by itself.
3.28 into 30 (not quite ten, let us try 8?) 3.28 times 8 makes 4 (carry six to the 2 place; 8 times 2 makes 16 plus 6 is 22 so put the two beside the four and then carry the other two to the third place; 8 times 3 makes 24 plus 2 which is 26. The total is 2624 and do not forget the decimal point in two places. The answer is 26.24 for how many meters. Somebody send help. Why was the temple so small at all? Solomon, it seems had only one job. Whatever could have happened? Would anybody like to guess how much material Solomon wasted? We will find out the answer to that one soon enough.