Bible dictionaries
Stature
What Bible dictionaries say about “Stature”, one article after the other.
Easton’s Bible Dictionary & Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
Stature - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)
STATURE, n. [L., to set.] The natural highth of an animal body. It is more generally used of the human body.
Foreign men of mighty stature came.
Matthew George Easton, Easton’s Bible Dictionary; Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)
The article in Easton + Webster 1828International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE 1915)
stat'-ur (madh, middah, "measure" (Nu 13:32, etc.), qomah, "standing up" (1Sa 16:7, etc.); helikia, "greatness"): This last word means "height of the body," "stature," in Lu 2:52; 19:3; Eph 4:13, but it can mean "length of life" equally well and has this force in Joh 9:21,23; Heb 11:11. And this meaning, not "stature" (as in the King James Version), is fixed for Mt 6:27 parallel Lu 12:25, for to add some 18 inches (see CUBIT) to one's "stature" would be a grotesque feat, while it is the smallness of the act that is emphasized. Hence, the translation "able to extend his long path of life by a single cubit" (the Revised Version (British and American) "measure of life"). Compare also "great of stature" Baruch 3:26 (eumegethes).
Burton Scott Easton
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia — James Orr, general editor and contributors; CrossWire SWORD module ISBE 2.2
The article in ISBE 1915