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43-466: According to the description in Exodus, this breastplate was attached to the tunic-like garment known as an ephod by gold chains/cords tied to the gold rings on the ephod's shoulder straps and by blue ribbon tied to the gold rings at the belt of the ephod. The biblical description states that the breastplate was also to be made from the same material as the ephod—embroidery of 3 colors of dyed wool and linen—and

86-418: A girdle , and had two shoulder straps which were fastened to the front of the ephod by golden rings, to which the breastplate was attached by golden chains ( Exodus 28:6–14 ). From this description, it appears to have been something like an apron or skirt with braces , though Rashi argued that it was like a woman's riding girdle. The biblical description also adds that there were two engraved gems over

129-485: A few letters from the names of Abraham , Isaac , or Jacob , or from the phrase "[these are] the tribes of Jeshurun", so that there were 72 letters in total (72 being a very significant number in Kabbalistic thought). Other researchers, such as Paul Phelps, believe that the order of gemstones that are displayed on the chestpiece correlates to the order that Ezekiel viewed the gates of Zion , as each gate represents one of

172-497: A garment, an Ephod was also used for oracular purposes, in conjunction with Urim and Thummim ; the Books of Samuel imply that whenever Saul or David wished to question God via oracular methods, they asked a priest for the ephod. Since the oracular process is considered by scholars to have been one of cleromancy , with the Urim and Thummim being the objects which were drawn as lots, the ephod

215-401: A striped gem (red – sardonyx, green – malachite, yellow – pale golden agate, blue – sky-blue agate). The four colors of red, green, yellow, and blue are the first four colors (apart from black and white) distinguished by languages and are distinguished in all cultures with at least six color distinctions (the other two being black and white). These colors roughly correspond to the sensitivities of

258-485: Is considered by scholars to have been some form of container for the Urim and Thummim; to harmonise this with the descriptions of the ephod as a garment, it is necessary to conclude that the ephod must have originally been some sort of pocket , which the priests girded to themselves. However, the biblical text states the Urim and Thummim were placed in the breastplate, not the ephod, in Leviticus 8 :8. The integration of

301-586: Is described as standing in the sanctuary at Nob , with a sword behind it (1 Samuel 21:9). In the book of Exodus and the Book of Leviticus , one is described as being created for the High Priest to wear as part of his official vestments (Exodus 28:4+, 29:5, 39:2+; Leviticus 8:7). In the Bible, in the contexts where it is worn, the ephod is usually described as being linen, but did not constitute complete clothing of any kind, as

344-614: Is plainly described as having been worshipped, and therefore the cult image of a deity, while the object made by Micah is closely associated with a teraphim , and the ephod and teraphim are described interchangeably with the Hebrew terms pesel and massekah , meaning graven image , and molten image , respectively. Even the ephods used for oracular purposes were not necessarily just pieces of cloth, as they are not described as being worn, but carried (though some translations render 1 Samuel 2:28 as "wear an ephod'" rather than "carry an ephod" );

387-528: Is probably the right-hand side, as Hebrew is a right to left script): In the New Testament Book of Revelation is the description of a city wall , with each layer of stones in the wall being from a different material; in the original Koine Greek , the layers are given as iaspis , sapphiros , chalcedon , smaragdos , sardonyx , sardion , chrysolithos , beryllos , topazion , chrysoprason , yacinthos , amethystos . This list appears to be based on

430-655: The Asmodeus legend from the Talmud ( Tractate Gittin 68a-b), the location of the Shamir was told to King Solomon by Asmodeus, whom Solomon captured. Asmodeus was captured by Benaiah ben Jehoiada, who captured the demon king by pouring wine into Asmodeus' well, making him drunk, and wrapping him in chains that were engraved with a sacred name of God. Once captured, Asmodeus is brought to Solomon in Jerusalem, where Asmodeus informs Solomon that

473-677: The Book of Exodus describes the Ephod as an elaborate garment worn by the high priest , and upon which the Priestly breastplate containing the Urim and Thummim rested. According to this description, the Ephod was woven out of gold , blue , purple , and scarlet threads, was made of fine linen and was embroidered with skillful work in gold thread ( Exodus 28:6–14 ). Gideon is additionally described as creating an ephod made up of 1700 shekels of gold ( Judges 8:25–27 ). Tractate Yoma 72a argues that each of

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516-605: The Hebrew Bible , was worn by the High Priest of Israel , an artifact and an object to be revered in ancient Israelite culture, and was closely connected with oracular practices and priestly ritual. In the Books of Samuel and Books of Chronicles , David is described as wearing an ephod when dancing in the presence of the Ark of the Covenant (2 Samuel 6:14, 1 Chronicles 15:27) and one

559-498: The first Temple in Jerusalem in place of cutting tools. For the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem, which promoted peace, it was inappropriate to use tools that could also cause war and bloodshed. Referenced throughout the Talmud and midrashim , the Shamir was reputed to have existed in the time of Moses as one of the ten wonders created on the eve of the first Shabbat just before God finished creation . Moses reputedly used

602-434: The retinal ganglion cells. (The retinal ganglia process color by positioning it within a blue to yellow range, and separately positioning it within a red to green range.) [REDACTED] Media related to Priestly breastplate at Wikimedia Commons Ephod An ephod ( Hebrew : אֵפוֹד , romanized :  ʾēp̄ōḏ ; / ˈ ɛ f ɒ d / or / ˈ iː f ɒ d / ) was a type of apron that, according to

645-516: The Biblical description, the twelve jewels in the breastplate were each to be made from specific minerals , none of them the same as another, and each of them representative of a specific tribe, whose name was to be inscribed on the stone. According to a rabbinic tradition, the names of the twelve tribes were engraved upon the stones with what is called in Hebrew: שמיר = shamir , which, according to Rashi ,

688-512: The Books of Samuel describe. 1 Chronicles 15 states that David was "clothed with a robe of fine linen, as were all the Levites who bore the ark... [and] David also wore an ephod of linen," and 2 Samuel 6 :14 that "David was wearing a linen ephod". There appears to have been a strong religious and ceremonial implication to wearing an ephod, since the 85 priests at Nob are specifically identified as being

731-399: The Hebrew term used in these passages for "carry" specifically implies that the ephod was carried either in the hand or on the shoulder. The conclusion thus is that the ephod in these cases referred to a portable idol the lots were cast in front of. Some scholars have suggested that the connection between the idol and the garment is that the idol was originally clothed in a linen garment, and

774-540: The Septuagint's version of the list of jewels in the Breastplate – if the top half of the breastplate was rotated by 180 degrees, and the bottom half turned upside down, with Onchion additionally swapping places with Topazion , the lists become remarkably similar; there are only four differences: Whether there is any pattern to the choice of gemstones depends on their identity. Taking the majority view of scholars regarding

817-407: The Shamir to engrave gemstones . He also used the blood of the Shamir worm to make carved jewels with a mystical seal or design. According to an interview with George Frederick Kunz , an expert in gemstone and jewelry lore, this led to the belief that gemstones so engraved would have magical virtues, and they often also ended up with their own powers or guardian angel associated with either the gem or

860-429: The Shamir to engrave the stones of the priestly breastplate of the High Priest of Israel . King Solomon, aware of the existence of the Shamir but unaware of its location, commissioned a search that turned up a "grain of Shamir the size of a barleycorn." Solomon's artisans reputedly used the Shamir in the construction of the Temple. The material to be worked, whether stone, wood or metal, was affected by being "shown to

903-564: The Shamir was not given to him, but to Rahab , the angel of the sea. The angel of the sea had then given the Shamir to a bird, identified by the Talmud as the Hoopoe (Hebrew דּוּכִיפַת), who had been using the Shamir to split rocks to build its nests. The Shamir is then retrieved by placing glass over the Hoopoe's nest, forcing the bird to use the Shamir to break through the glass. King Solomon also used

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946-497: The Shamir." Following this line of logic (anything that can be 'shown' something must have eyes to see), early Rabbinical scholars described the Shamir almost as a living being. Other early sources, however, describe it as a green stone. This is supported by contemporary scholars who believe that the Shamir was emery , a blue-green stone mined as an abrasive powder for thousands of years. The word emery comes from Koinē Greek : σμύρις , romanized:  smúris , which likely shares

989-544: The Temple could no longer see the apparitions of the angel of the Lord , make divinations with the Ephod, or give responses from the Holy of Holies . Shamir worm In the Gemara , the shamir ( Hebrew : שָׁמִיר ‎ šāmīr ) is a worm or a substance that had the power to cut through or disintegrate stone, iron and diamond. King Solomon is said to have used it in the building of

1032-507: The Unseen, they would not have continued in despised toil. Saba' 34 :14 According to commentators such as ibn Abbas , when Solomon died his body remained leaning on his staff for a long time, nearly a year, until "a creature of the earth, which was a kind of worm," gnawed through the stick weakening it and the body fell to the ground. It was then that the jinn knew that he had died a long time before and until then they were working hard thinking he

1075-581: The breastplate, חֹשֶׁן ‎ ( ḥōšen ), appears to be named from its appearance; The 19th-century German biblical scholar August Dillmann thought that it was likely to be derived from the Hebrew word חֹצֶן ‎ ( ḥōṣen ), meaning "fold", relating to its function. According to the Talmud , the wearing of the Hoshen atoned for the sin of errors in judgment on the part of the Children of Israel . According to

1118-410: The description of the Ephod in Exodus to the priestly source and a date later than the other mentions of the ephod; biblical scholars believe that the ephod may have evolved into this highly ceremonial form from more primitive beginnings (the simple linen form described in the Books of Samuel ), much like how the highly liturgical maniple evolved from an ordinary handkerchief . Besides its use as

1161-488: The identity of the gems, and including the implication from the Book of Revelation that the onyx at the end of the fourth row was a sardonyx , there are four colors – red, green, yellow, and blue – each represented by a clear gem (red – carbuncle, green – heliodor, yellow – chrysolite, blue – amethyst), an opaque gem (red – carnelian/red jasper, green – green jasper, yellow – yellow jasper/yellow serpentine, blue – lapis lazuli), and

1204-507: The identity of the minerals. Others suggest that they were engraved with emery, having the similar property of a diamond used in cutting other stones and which was called in Greek σμήρις ( smeris ). Explanations of the symbolic meaning of the jewels generated a great deal of both Jewish and Christian writing and were a staple component of the tradition of lapidaries or books on gemology . The jewel stones are as follows (the first item in each row

1247-466: The name of Manasseh. He consecrated it to God, but after his death homage was paid to it as an idol. In those days the Israelites were so addicted to the worship of Beelzebub that they constantly carried small images of this god with them in their pockets, and every now and then they were in the habit of bringing the image forth and kissing it fervently." According to the Bible, this action eventually caused

1290-495: The names appeared in the order according to which they were born. Maimonides describes the jewel stones arranged in four rows, saying that on the first stone belonging to Reuben were also engraved the names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, while on the last stone belonging to Benjamin were also engraved the words "the tribes of God"; kabbalistic writers such as Hezekiah ben Manoah and Bahya ben Asher argued that only six letters from each name were present on each stone, together with

1333-558: The names of the concubines' sons interposed between the two sons of Rachel. Unfortunately, the meanings of the Hebrew names for the minerals, given by the Masoretic text , are unclear. Though the Greek names for them in the Septuagint are more apparent, some scholars believe that they cannot be wholly relied on for this matter because the breastplate had gone out of use by the time the Septuagint

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1376-442: The precisely engraved gemstones. The Quran mentions a creature thought to be the Shamir, when pointing out the ignorance of the jinn who worked for Solomon concerning the occult , and emphasizing that all knowledge rests only with God: And when We decreed death for him, nothing showed his death to them save a creeping creature of the earth which gnawed away his staff. And when he fell, the jinn saw clearly how, if they had known

1419-599: The same root as the Semitic shamir . For storage, the Shamir was meant to have been always wrapped in wool and stored in a container made of lead; any other vessel would burst and disintegrate under the Shamir's gaze. The Shamir was said to have been either lost or had lost its potency (along with the "dripping of the honeycomb") by the time of the destruction of the First Temple during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC) . According to

1462-474: The shoulder straps like epaulettes made from shoham . This is thought by scholars to mean malachite , by Jewish tradition to mean heliodor , and in the King James Version translated as " onyx ", and with the names of the 12 tribes written upon them; the classical rabbinical sources differ as to the order in which the tribes were named on the jewels ( Sotah 36a). Critical textual scholars attribute

1505-468: The stones in the breastplate, as well as the Hebrew usage of Urim as "lights," suggest that the Urim and Thummim may have been a type of ocular device through which the priest would look when receiving divine communication. The object at Nob , which must have been somewhat freestanding since another object was kept behind it, and the objects made by Gideon and by Micah from molten gold, logically cannot have just been garments. The object made by Gideon

1548-596: The term ephod gradually came to describe the idol as a whole. According to the Talmud , the wearing of the ephod atoned for the sin of idolatry on the part of the Israelites . Gideon went on to make an ephod out of the gold won in battle; according to Ginzberg's The Legends of the Jews : "In the high priest's breastplate, Joseph was represented among the twelve tribes by Ephraim alone, not by Manasseh, too. To wipe out this slight upon his own tribe, Gideon made an ephod bearing

1591-418: The textures was combined in six threads with a seventh of gold leaf, making 28 threads to the texture in total. The biblical description (Exodus 28:16, 39:9) continues describing the size of the breastplate which is affixed to the front of the ephod as a square measuring one span by one span (the width of an outstretched hand from little finger tip to outstretched thumb tip). Stating that it was held together by

1634-411: The twelve tribes, with the gates themselves being studded with gemstones. There was also a different order for the names inscribed on the two "onyx" stones on the High Priest's shoulders. One opinion suggests that the names of the twelve tribes were arranged in groups after their mothers: Leah's six sons aligned one after the other on one stone, with Judah heading this list, followed by Rachel's sons with

1677-539: The type of people who wore an ephod; though the Masoretic Text here describes them as being linen ephods (1 Samuel 22:18) the word "linen" is not present in the Septuagint version of the passage, nor is it present when the Septuagint describes David and Samuel as girding themselves with an ephod. Therefore, some textual scholars regard its presence in the Masoretic Text as a later editorial gloss . A passage in

1720-452: The whole of Israel to turn away from God yet again and the ruin of Gideon and his family. Gideon had 70 sons from the many women he took as wives. He also had a Shechemite concubine who bore him a son he named Abimelech , which means "my father is king" ( Judges 8:31 ). According to the ancient apocryphal Lives of the Prophets , after the death of Zechariah ben Jehoiada , the priests of

1763-460: Was a small, rare creature which could cut through the toughest surfaces, but according to Rabbi David Kimhi and Rabbi Jonah ibn Janah , was a stone stronger than iron (possibly Naxian stone ). The word has its equivalent in the Greek, σμήρις ( smeris ). There are different views in classical rabbinical literature as to the order of the names; the Jerusalem Targum , for example, argued that

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1806-463: Was created. Several Greek names for various gems have changed meaning between the classical era and modern times. However, although classical rabbinical literature argues that the names were inscribed using a Shamir worm because neither chisels nor paint nor ink were allowed to mark them out, a more naturalistic approach suggests that the jewels must have had comparatively low hardness to be engraved upon. Therefore, this gives an additional clue as to

1849-420: Was to be 1 ⁄ 3 of a cubit squared, two layers thick, and with four rows of three engraved gems embedded in gold settings upon it, one setting for each stone. The description states that the square breastplate was to be formed from one rectangular piece of cloth— 1 ⁄ 3 of a cubit by 2 ⁄ 3 of a cubit, folded so that it formed a pouch to contain the Urim and Thummim. The Hebrew term for

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