bet
Table of Contents
bet
בת
Most of the time, 'bet' is understood in the English translations to mean “household”.
As a Measurement
However, there are a handful of cases where this word is incorrectly interpreted as a unit of measurement. This incorrect translation occurs primarily in the books of Exodus, Chronicles, and Ezekiel.
Chapter 45 of the book of Ezekiel defines various standards of weights and measures. In this chapter though, we also find the assignment of certain goods with a certain portion per household. This appears to indicate a system of Universal Basic Income. Most translations erroneously interpret the word 'bet' used in this context as a separately defined measurement, but this is not justified in the context. Rather, the normal meaning of = “household” should be understood contextually here as “per household”.
In this context 'bet' kind of does refer to a unit of measure, but the unit is literally “per household”. This same usage occurs in 2 Chronicles chapters 2 and 4 where King Solomon enters a contract with the King of Tyre to provide food, wine and oil for 20,000 Lebanese workers and their households as payment for their woodworking skills.1).
This brings us back to the usage in the book of Exodus. 
- finish this…
1)
As an interesting side note; this same contract contains another clause to hire a skilled hi-tech cherubim programmer
bet.txt · Last modified: 2025/05/18 14:27 by ken