without shifting.
Verse 29
In this way Aaron was to bear upon his breast the names of the sons of Israel engraved upon this breastplate, as a memorial before Jehovah, whenever he went into the sanctuary.
Verse 30
Into this choshen Moses was to put the Urim and Thummim, that they might be upon his heart when he came before Jehovah, and that he might thus constantly bear the right (mishpat) of the children of Israel upon his heart before Jehovah. It is evident at once from this, that the Urim and Thummim were to bring the right of the children of Israel before the Lord, and that the breastplate was called choshen mishpat because the Urim and Thummim were in it. Moreover it also follows from the expression אל נתתּ, both here and in Lev 8:8, that the Urim and Thummim were not only distinct from the choshen, but were placed in it, and not merely suspended upon it, as Knobel supposes. For although the lxx have adopted the rendering ἐπιτιθέναι ἐπί, the phrase is constantly used to denote putting or laying one thing into another, and never (not even in 1Sa 6:8 and 2Sa 11:16) merely placing one thing upon or against another. For this, על נתן is the expression invariably used in the account before us (cf. Exo 28:14 and Exo 28:23.).
What the Urim and Thummim really were, cannot be determined with certainty, either from the names themselves, or from any other circumstances connected with them.[1]
The lxx render the words δήλωσις (or δῆλος) καὶ ἀλήθεια, i.e., revelation and truth. This expresses with tolerable accuracy the meaning of Urim (אוּרים light, illumination), but Thummim (תּמּים) means integritas, inviolability, perfection, and not ἀλήθεια. The rendering given by Symm. and Theod., viz., φωτισμοὶ καὶ τελειώσεις, illumination and completion, is much better; and there is no good ground for giving up this rendering in favour of that of the lxx, since the analogy between the Urim and Thummim and the ἄγαλμα of sapphire-stones, or the ζώδιον of precious stones, which was worn by the Egyptian high priest suspended by a golden chain, and called ἀλήθεια (Aelian. var. hist. 14, 34; Diod. Sic. i. 48, 75), sufficiently explains the rendering ἀλήθεια, which the lxx have given to Thummim, but it by no means warrants Knobel's conclusion, that the Hebrews had adopted the Egyptian names along with the thing itself.
- ↑ The leading opinions and the most important writings upon the subject are given in my Bibl. Archaeol. §39, note 9.
