|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THE HIGH-PRIEST'S BREASTPLATE 295
were struck upon some soft material to make an impression. Zebulun was the tribal name inscribed on the yahalom.
VII. Leshem. No stone in the breastplate
is more difficult to determine than this one. The Sep-tuagint, Josephus, and the Vulgate all translate ligu-rius, an
appellation sometimes applied to amber, a substance quite unfitted for
use in the breastplate among the other engraved stones. Probably the
original significance of ligurius was amber, this name being
used because Liguria, in northern Italy, was the chief source of supply
for Greece and the Orient; amber which had been gathered on the shores
of the Baltic being brought by traders to Liguria and forwarded thence
to other lands. As, however, the Greeks had another name for amber, electron, the name ligurion appears
to have been applied later to a variety of the jacinth somewhat
resembling amber in color, and then to other varieties of the same
stone. The original form of the name was evidently ligurion, which was later changed to lyncurion, and was then explained as meaning the urine of the lynx (from λύγξ, and  urine). This fanciful
etymology gave rise to the story that the ligurios, or rather lyncurius, was the solidified urine of the lynx. The term lyncurion, as
used by Theophrastus, may possibly have included the sapphire as well
as the jacinth, since he lays especial stress upon the coldness of this
substance, a quality characteristic of the sapphire, and also of the
still denser jacinth. Hence, it appears that we have, even in the name ligurius, some justification for accepting the rendering hyacinthus, suggested
by the list of foundation stones in Revelation xxi, 20, and already
proposed by Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia, about 400 a.D. Whether hyacinthus should be rendered "sap-
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
