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Ch. 12: Urim and Thummin

Ch. 12: Urim and Thummin Page of 377 Ch. 12: Urim and Thummin Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
the URIM and THUMMIN
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This was the Adamas of a cerulean colour (our Sapphire), which by its change of hue declared the favour or the wrath of Jehovah towards his people, for it turned black as night before a coming pestilence, red as blood before war, but shone bright and blue when it announced coming pros­perity.
Of this important jewel, the very soul, so to speak (if we credit Epiphanius), of the entire Rationale, neither the Pentateuch nor Josephus make the least mention, as an adjunct altogether distinct and superior to the breastplate itself; but the notice of it preserves a tradition of the original nature of the appendage, before the whole jewel had received the embellishments and enrichments of the Persian taste, in fact the Hebrew "Urim and Thummin" * are translated by the LXX. " The Declaration and the Truth." The latter word plainly enough refers to the Egyptian original, similarly designated. The Greeks, says Josephus, named the breastplate " The Oracle of Judg­ment," and this title too literally translated into ecclesiastical Latin, becomes "Eationale," though the proper rendering is " Oraculum." Its Hebrew appellation is " Hosen," or " Essen." It is worthy of remark that Epi­phanius particularizes the cerulean colour of the Declaration or Adamas.
The universal tradition amongst the Greeks as to the origin of the Jewish nation, and which Diodorus Siculus has recorded, related that it was a colony sent out from Egypt into Syria, at the very same time that Danaus sailed for Greece, and the striking similarity between the insti­tutions of Moses and the Egyptian laws, of which the same author gives a full and most interesting summary, supported
Ch. 12: Urim and Thummin Page of 377 Ch. 12: Urim and Thummin
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