Day'S Journey
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [1]
(רֶּרֶךְ יוֹם, מִהֲלִךְ יוֹם, ὁδὸς ἡμερησίη, Herod. 4:101), a distance such as (in the East) a person might travel in a single day. (See Sabbath- Day'S Journey). According to Jonah 3:3, the circuit of Nineveh was three days' journey. This mode of describing distances is also found in Greek, Roman, Arabian, and Persian writers (see Strabo, 17:835; Pliny, v. 4, 9; 6:35; Livy, 25:15; 30:29; Athen. 1:7). It needs scarcely be remarked that in itself (if strictly taken) it would be a very vague and fluctuating measurement, the length of a day's journey depending so much on the peculiar circumstances under which each pedestrian travels (see Casaubon ad Strab. 1:35; Ukert, Geogr. d. Griech. u. Rom. I, 2:58). But the ancient writers seem to have fixed on the average of what was usually performed by foot-travelers (Herod. 3, 9; 4:9). Herodotus in one place says (iv. 401) a day's journey amounts to 200 stadia (comp. Polyb. 3, 8; Livy, 21:15); in another (v. 53) to 150 (comp. Pausanias, 10:33, 2). According to Vegetius (Mil. 1:9), twenty Roman miles, that is, 160 stadia, were reckoned for a day's journey. In the Arabian geographers the length of a day's journey is equally variable; yet among them, as in the East at the present day (Tavernier, 1:48), it may be stated generally at about seven leagues, or from eighteen to twenty English miles, which is probably not far from the distance intended by that expression in Scripture, which occurs chiefly in the Pentateuch ( Genesis 30:36; Genesis 31:23; Exodus 5:3; Exodus 8:27; Numbers 11:31; Deuteronomy 1:2), but also elsewhere ( 1 Kings 19:4; 2 Kings 3:9), and even in the Apocrypha ( 1 Maccabees 5:24; 1 Maccabees 5:28; 1 Maccabees 7:45; Tobit 6:1), in the New Test. ( Luke 2:44; Acts 1:12), often in Josephus, (Ant. 12:4, 6; Revelation 2:9; Life, 52), and in the Talmud (see Otho, Lex. Rabb. p. 421). (See Journey).
