Distance was walked, so Scripture measures in walking terms: “three days’ journey,” “eleven days’ journey from Horeb” (Deut 1:2), Emmaus “threescore furlongs from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:13), Bethany “about fifteen furlongs off” (John 11:18). The Talmud defines a day’s journey for a man of medium gait as ten parasangs, in the Jewish Encyclopedia’s reckoning roughly 28 miles. The Sabbath had a legal ceiling: 2,000 cubits in any direction from one’s town or declared Sabbath place (the Mishnah even rules the corners of the square and the traveler overtaken by dusk), about two-thirds of a mile, which is exactly how Acts measures Olivet: “a sabbath day’s journey” from Jerusalem (Acts 1:12). The rabbis’ own “mile” (mil) was this same 2,000 ells, shorter than the Roman mile, “with which,” the JE cautions, “it must not be confused.”
Daily life in Bible times
Journeys on foot
Distance & travel
Sources, trace every one
Every cited verse, in full. Tap any reference to open it in the reader.
- Acts 1:12bsb
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, which is near the city, a Sabbath day’s journey away.
- Deuteronomy 1:2bsb
It is an eleven-day journey from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea by way of Mount Seir.
On contested questions we show every major view, attributed and cited, and pick no winner. Answers are synthesized from primary sources, truth you can trace, not opinion.