Biblical Cubits to Meters (cubit to m)

1 biblical cubit equals 0.54 meters exactly.

1 biblical cubit = 0.54 meters

How to convert biblical cubits to meters

To convert biblical cubits to meters, multiply the number of biblical cubits by 0.54. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply meters by 1.851851852 (rounded).

meters = biblical cubits × 0.54

Example: 10 biblical cubits = 5.4 meters.

Approximate value. Standards for the biblical cubit varied by place and period, so this converter uses the most commonly cited value. Treat results as estimates, not exact figures.

About these units

Biblical Cubit (cubit)

Biblical (Hebrew)Historical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

The cubit of the Hebrew Bible, taken here as the rabbinic cubit of about 54 cm (21 in). Estimates range from about 48 cm to 57.6 cm, so the exact value is debated.

Latin cubitum means elbow, and the cubit began as the span from elbow to fingertip. The Hebrew term is amah. The Bible gives measurements in cubits for Noah's Ark, the Tabernacle and Solomon's Temple, so the length matters to anyone trying to reconstruct them. Since arms differ, the unit varied by country and era, and no single figure is certain.

In the second century CE the rabbis defined a cubit as six handbreadths, each of four fingerbreadths, which gives roughly 54 cm. Later authorities disagree: Avraham Chaim Naeh calculated 48 cm, and the Chazon Ish 57.6 cm. Maimonides also described a shorter cubit of five handbreadths for measuring the altar. The 54 cm rabbinic figure is the one used here. A rough modern comparison is the length of a forearm and a hand, or between 19 and 23 inches.

1 biblical cubit = 0.54 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Cubit; Wikipedia: Sabbath day's journey (biblical mile)

Meter (m)

Metric (SI)Current unit

The SI base unit of length. Since 1983 it is defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

Meter comes from the Greek metron, a measure. In 1791 the French National Assembly defined it as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole along a great circle through Paris, after rejecting the length of a seconds pendulum because that length changes with local gravity. The surveyors Delambre and Méchain measured the meridian arc, and in 1799 a platinum bar known as the Mètre des Archives became the physical standard. NIST notes that this Earth-based meter turned out to be about 0.2 mm shorter than the true pole-to-equator fraction it was meant to represent.

The 1875 Treaty of the Meter created the CGPM and the BIPM to look after common standards, and in 1889 a platinum-iridium prototype bar took over; the original is still kept at the BIPM. In 1960 the meter was tied to 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of an orange-red krypton-86 line, and in 1983 to the speed of light, which made length a quantity derived from the time standard. The 2018 revision reworded that definition without changing the meter's size. NIST offers a handy yardstick for scale: a pace, meaning two steps, is roughly a meter or a yard.

The meter is the reference unit for length on this site.

Sources: BIPM: history of the metre; NIST: the meter and the SI redefinition; Wikipedia: Metre

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