King James Bible Dictionary

(from Lat. mille, "a thousand;" Matthew 5:41), a Roman measure of 1,000 paces of 5 feet each. Thus the Roman mile has 1618 yards, being 142 yards shorter than the English mile.

Matthew 5:41

a Roman measure of length, equal to 1618 English yards

4854 feet, or about nine-tenths of an English mile. It is only once noticed in the Bible, (Matthew 5:41) the usual method of reckoning both in the New Testament and in Josephus being by the stadium. The mile of the Jews is said to have been of two kinds, long or short, dependent on the length of the pace, which varied in different parts, the long pace being double the length of the short one.

MILE, noun [Latin mille passus, a thousand paces; passus being dropped in common usage.] A measure of length or distance, containing eight furlongs, 320 rods, poles or perches, 1760 yards, 5280 feet, or 80 chains. The Roman mile was a thousand paces, equal to 1600 yards English measure.

MI'LEAGE, noun Fees paid for travel by the mile.

MI'LESTONE, noun A stone set to mark the distance or space of a mile.

red; scarlet

(Miletum, 2 Timothy 4:20), a seaport town and the ancient capital of Ionia, about 36 miles south of Ephesus. On his voyage from Greece to Syria, Paul touched at this port, and delivered that noble and pathetic address to the elders ("presbyters," ver. 28) of Ephesus recorded in Acts 20:15-35. The site of Miletus is now some 10 miles from the coast. (See EPHESIANS, EPISTLE TO.)

Called also Miletum, a seaport in Asia Minor.

Paul visits
Acts 20:15

Paul sends to Ephesus for the elders of the church, and addresses them at
Acts 20:17-38

Trophimus left sick at
2 Timothy 4:20

(Acts 20:15,17) less correctly called MILETUM in (2 Timothy 4:20) It lay on the coast, 36 miles to the south of Ephesus, a day's sail from Trogyllium. (Acts 20:15) Moreover, to those who are sailing from the north it is in the direct line for Cos. The site of Miletus has now receded ten miles from the coast, and even in the apostles' time it must have lost its strictly maritime position. Miletus was far more famous five hundred years before St. Paul's day than it ever became afterward. In early times it was the most flourishing city of the Ionian Greeks. In the natural order of events it was absorbed in the Persian empire. After a brief period of spirited independence, it received a blow from which it never recovered, in the siege conducted by Alexander when on his eastern campaign. But still it held, even through the Roman period, the rank of a second-rate trading town, and Strabo mentions its four harbors. At this time it was politically in the province of Asia, though Caria was the old ethnological name of the district in which it was situated. All that is left now is a small Turkish village called Melas , near the site of the ancient city.