The omer is an ancient Israelite unit of dry measure used in the era of the Temple in Jerusalem. It is used in the Bible as an ancient unit of volume for grains and dry commodities, and the Torah mentions as being equal toone tenth of an ephah. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, an ephah was defined as being 72 logs, and the Log was equal to the Sumerian mina, which was itself defined as one sixtieth of a maris; the omer was thus equal to about of a maris. The maris was defined as being the quantity of water equal in weight to a light royal talent, and was thus equal to about 30.3 litres, making the omer equal to about 3.64 litres. The Jewish Study Bible, however, places the omer at about 2.3 liters. In traditional Jewish standards of measurement, the omer was equivalent to the capacity of 43.2 eggs, or what is also known as one-tenth of an ephah. In dry weight, the omer weighed between 1.560 kg. to 1.770 kg., being the quantity of flour required to separate therefrom the dough offering. The word omer is sometimes translated as sheaf — specifically, an amount of grain large enough to require bundling. The biblical episode of the manna describes God as instructing the Israelites to collect an omer for each person in your tent, implying that each person could eat an omer of manna a day. In the Torah, the main significance of the omer is the traditional offering of an omer of barley on the day after the Sabbath, or, according to the rabbinical view, on the second day of Passover during the feast of unleavened bread, as well as the tradition of the Counting of the Omer - the 49 days between this sacrifice and the two loaves of wheat offered on the holiday of Shavuot. During the Temple period, the offering of the omer was one of twenty-four priestly gifts, and one of the ten which were offered to priests within the Temple precincts, when Jewish farmers would bring the first of that year's grain crop to Jerusalem. Jews in Lancaster, Pennsylvania used an omer board from about 1800 to keep track of harvest days between Passover and Pentecost. An example of such a board survives at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. The omer should not be confused with the homer, a much larger unit of volume for liquids.
