(Gen 1:4-5 KJV) And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
The above extract is the first reference to experience, judgement and measurement in the Bible. Its significance lay in the fact that all judgements and measurements are always relative to some prior experience. Light was good, compared to the darkness and their differentiation gave rise to the measure of 1 day.
Later we see the human body, that is the distance between the elbow and the tip of the fingers (a cubit) being used as the relative measure for the dimensions of the Ark.
(Gen 6:15 KJV) And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.
Imagine how difficult it would be to plan and build any object without a standard unit of measure to outline the dimensions: (Gen 6:15 Al) And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The ark shall be ‘this’ long, ‘this’ wide, and ‘this’ high. The room for error in such a subjective specification is obvious and yet, because the specification lacks prescriptive measurements for ‘this’….to Err is also impossible.
Unless all humanity remained identical to the size of Noah, a ‘cubit’ is a relative and changeable measure on every man. Yet, since the thing being built was measured in relative human terms, if Noah had been a giant, the boat effectively becomes tailor made.
Since about 1670 most of the world has been utilising the decimal system of measure, measuring things in tens of standard units. Mathematically this was far more sensible than having a range of number systems based on local objects and body parts.
But how do we measure Heaven and Earth?
We have now measured the Earth's circumference at the Equator as 40,075.16 km (24,901.55 miles); And the Earth's circumference between the North and South Poles as 40,008 km (24,859.82 miles).
We have also made much scientific progress in the measurement of space and the nature of our reality. The ocean though seemingly one mass of immeasurable water that occupies 72% of the surface of the earth can be measured roughly in cubic decimetres or 10 centimetres x 10 centimetres x 10 centimetres of space or plastic buckets, if you had enough. The movement of ‘electro-magnetic’ energy or ‘light’ in empty space is now measured at 299,792,458 metres per second. And all atomic matter is now measured as potential energy in the form of e=mc2.
And so it is we continue to measure the universe in units of our own divising, our measurements do not bring us closer to the truth or God. Our measures just enable us to objectify our reality such that we can mentally grasp, physically manipulate and symbolically communicate our relative circumstances in time and space. Heaven however, remains immeasurable…
(Mat 6:27 KJV) Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
MEASUREMENT