Measures & money
Sabbath day’s journey
A conventional limit for travel on the Sabbath in later Jewish practice.
Also called · Sabbath journey
What it means
Exodus 16 tells the people to remain in their places on the Sabbath but gives no numerical distance in that passage. Jewish Sabbath rules describe a limit of two thousand cubits measured from a place of residence.
Mishnah Eruvin 4:8 discusses whether the two thousand cubits in each direction should be measured as a circle or a square. This is not a total of all distance walked during a day or an identical modern distance for every situation.
How it appears in the Bible
Acts 1 describes the disciples returning from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem and locates the mountain a Sabbath day’s journey away. The two thousand cubits in Joshua 3 describe a separate setting: the gap between the people and the ark.
Translation note
About one kilometer is an approximate description. The selected edition of Acts 1:12 gives no exact distance in meters.