Priestly breastplate


The priestly breastplate or breastpiece of judgment was a sacred breastplate worn by the High Priest of the Israelites, according to the Book of Exodus. In the biblical account, the breastplate is termed the breastplate of judgment, because the Urim and Thummim were placed upon it. These elements of the breastplate are said in the Exodus verse to carry the judgment of God concerning the Israelites at all times.

Hebrew Bible

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 linen—and was to be 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— of a cubit by of a cubit, folded so that it formed a pouch to contain the Urim and Thummim.
The Hebrew term for the breastplate, , 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 , 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.

The jewels

According to the Biblical description, the twelve jewels in the breastplate were each to be made from specific minerals, none identical to 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 ‮שָׁמִיר‬‎ shamir in Hebrew, which Jewish legend explains to be a small, rare creature which could cut through the toughest surfaces. According to most authorities such as Rabbi David Kimhi and Rabbi Jonah ibn Janah, shamir was a stone stronger than iron, probably emery which finds its equivalent in the Greek, σμήρις.
There are different views in classical rabbinical literature as to the order of the names; the Jerusalem Targum, for example, argued that 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 a few letters from the names of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, or from the phrase " the tribes of Jeshurun", so that there were 72 letters in total.
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 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 obscure and historically subjected to dispute. Several recent studies have developed a scientific methodology for identifying the jewels of the breastplate. Harrell, Hoffmeier & Williams compared the Hebrew gemstones with attested gemstones from Ancient Egypt. Ayil compared the Hebrew names with names of gemstones from across the Ancient Near East, claiming to have identified 11 out of twelve with a high degree of certainty.
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 Septuagint's translations are contradictory. Several Greek names for various gems have changed meaning between the classical era and modern times. Classical rabbinical literature argues that the names were inscribed using shamir because neither chisels nor paint nor ink were allowed to mark them out, whereas 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 the identity of the minerals.
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 names and proposed identities of the jewel stones are as follows:

First row

  • Odem / Sardios – derives from the Hebrew root meaning 'red' and probably refers to carnelian or sard, a common gemstone in classical cultures. All authors agree that this stone was red. A parallel semantic development occurred in the Akkadian term sāmtu, which derived from sāmu, suggesting that Odem referred to carnelian. Carnelian was a common gemstone in the surrounding regions of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Some modern translations translate this stone as being a ruby, however rubies were unknown in biblical times.
  • Pitdah / Topazios – despite the suggestion of some interpreters that it was topaz, topaz was scarcely known at the time the Book of Exodus was written; in the classical era, topazios always refers to peridot. Peridot, a light green semi-precious stone, was found carved into two known Middle Kingdom scarabs. The word pitdah is thought to be related to Greek topazios.
  • Bareḳet / Smaragdos – Bareketh etymologically derives from a root meaning 'yellow-green', whence its color. Smaragdos is cognate with emerald, but is somewhat of a false friend as the Greek term could apply to several different green gems, not just the emerald. Emerald in the stricter modern sense of green beryl exists locally in Egypt, but was not actively mined until the Ptolemaic period. Taking into account the implication that Bareketh was green, there is much to be said for bareḳet being green jasper.

    Second row

  • Nofekh / Anthrax – Nofekh appears to be a loan word from the Egyptian term mfkꜣt, referring to turquoise, a greenish-blue gemstone. This mineral was most frequently mined in Egypt during the second millennium BCE at the sites of Serabit el-Khadim and Gebel Maghara in the Sinai Peninsula. The Babylonian Targum and first Jerusalem Targum support this identification, favoring it being green.
  • Sappir / Sapphiros – despite sounding like sapphire, sapphire was unknown before the era of the Roman Empire. Once sapphire became better known, it was rendered in Greek and Latin as hyacinth or of jacinth. The term sappir referred to lapis lazuli, a mineral of similar color to sapphires and that the name gradually came to refer to the latter mineral on account of its color. Lapis lazuli is a stone with a deep, ocean-blue color which was frequently sent as a gift to Akhenaten from Babylon. Theophrastus mentions the stone sapphiros as being "dark" and having the "color of verdigris", as well as being "speckled as of with gold". Theophrastus' description of sapphiros fits lapis lazuli.
  • Yahalom / Iaspis ἴασπις – in some other places the Septuagint instead has Beryllios where the Masoretic reads Yahalom. A few scholars have suggested that Yahalom may refer to diamonds, owing to their hardness, though the ability to cut diamonds had not been discovered before the classical era. The Septuagint employs the word Iaspis, which Pliny the Elder only described as referring to a category of blue-green stones composed of a great number of mineral species. In the Syriac Peshitta of the sixth or seventh century, the word used to describe this stone is ܢܩܥܬܐ = naq'atha, a word which is sometimes transliterated into Arabic as it is pronounced in Aramaic, mainly by Arabic-speaking Christians. Bar-Ali, a 9th-century Arab author, brings down two opinions about this stone, the naq'atha, saying, by one opinion, that it is "honey-coloured", and by the other opinion that it is "turquoise, a blue-coloured stone". In some versions of the Peshitta, the Aramaic word rendered for the same stone is shabzez. Other scholars have proposed a variety of quartz, especially the common milky quartz. Spanish Jewish scholar Abraham ibn Ezra says the yahalom was a white stone.

    Third row

  • Lešem / Ligurios – the Hebrew name appears to be derived from Egyptian nšmt, referring to amazonite. This identification is in contrast to the Septuagint, which identifies it as Greek liggourrion or lyngurium. Some scholars have taken to imply that it referred to amber.
  • Ševo / Achates – ševo derives from the Akkadian term šubû, meaning agate, and achates definitely refers to a banded agate. Archaeological finds indicating widespread circulation of agate through Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Iran, and the Levant. Agate’s banded appearance and varied coloration made it a prized material for ornamentation, amulets, and seals.
  • Aḥlamah / Amethystos – Aḥlamah is derived from Egyptian ḫnmt referring to red jasper, a mineral widely attested in Egypt. The Septuagint's rendering with amethystos refers to amethyst, a purple mineral which was believed to protect against getting drunk from alcohol. Both gemstones were known in Egypt. In the Babylonian Targum, aḥlamah is translated into a term meaning strong drinking, which appears to reference beliefs about amethyst, but in the Jerusalem Targum, it is translated into a term meaning calf's eye. The Midrash Rabba, while describing the stone's color, says: " similar to clear wine whose redness is not too strong."