In
the attempt to determine the identity of the stones enumerated in
Exodus xxviii and xxxix, as adorning the breastplate of the
high-priest, we must bear in mind that this "breastplate of Aaron" and
the one described by Josephus, and brought by Titus to Rome after the
capture of Jerusalem in 70 a.D., are
in all probability entirely distinct objects. The former, if it ever
existed, except in the ideal world of the authors of the Priestly
Codex, must have been composed of the stones known to and used by the
Egyptians of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, b.c., some
of them being, perhaps, set in the "jewels of gold and jewels of
silver" borrowed by the Israelites from the Egyptians just before the
Exodus ; on the other hand, the most trustworthy indications re-
14 " Der Midrasch Bemidbar Kabba," German transi, by Dr. Aug. Wünsche, Leipzig, 1885, pp. 15, 16. Parasha II. Of the tarshish it
is said the color resembled that of "the costly stone with which women
adorn themselves," possibly the pearl is signified. Hebrew text in
"Sepher Midrash Rabba," Vilna, 1845, pt. iii, "Sepher Bemidbar," p. 23.
19
