The derivation of the Hebrew word chomer suggests that it originally indicated the quantity of grain which was carried by a donkey.
LEV 27:16: The amount of seed used to value a field here (50 shekels per chomer) is the amount that it will yield, not the amount used to sow it. In other words, it is an estimate of the field’s worth, not its area.
ISA 5:10: The Hebrew text here compares two capacities of measure, the chomer and the ’eyfah, which was equal to one tenth of a chomer. It is important to try to retain that the ratio of one unit of seed planted yields only one tenth of that unit in harvest. If this can be done, then the precise capacities of the chomer and the ’eyfah are less important. The point here is that harvest yields will be extremely poor. Most translations emphasize this by adding a word like “only,” “barely,” or “merely.”
EZK 45:11; EZK 45:11; EZK 45:11; EZK 45:13; EZK 45:13; EZK 45:14; EZK 45:14: This passage equates the ephah and the bath. Both are one-tenth of a homer. See also the comments under ’eyfah above, Ephah.
HOS 3:2: The total amount paid by Hosea for his wife was not very large. It was somewhat less than a bride price (compare DEU 22:29) and similar to the price to be paid for a slave (compare GEN 37:28; EXO 21:32). The mixture of silver and barley is unusual. The exact amount of barley cannot be known, because the text adds another Hebrew word, lethek, the value of which is unknown. Some commentators and translations understand it to be half the volume of a chomer, but this is only a guess. The Hebrew for the last part of this verse is literally “a homer of barley and a lethek of barley.”
Some translations follow the Septuagint, which has “a homer of barley and a wineskin of wine.”