2. Besides these direct statements, there are others in which we maj', without violence, trace a reference, if not to both, at least to the Urim. When questions pre- cisely of the nature of those described in Numb, xxvii, 21 are asked by the leader of the people, and answered by Jehovah (Judg. i, I ; xx, 18) — when like questions are asked by Saul of the high-priest Ahiah, "wearing an ephod" (I Sam. xiv, 3, 18) — l)y David, as soon as he has with him the presence of a high-priest with his ephod (1 Sam. xxiii, 2, 12; xxx, 7, 8), we may legiti- mately infer that tiie treasures whicii the ephod con- tained were the conditions and media of his answer. The questions are in almost all cases strategical, " Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first?" (Judg. i, 1; so XX, 18), "Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul?" (1 Sam. xxiii, 12), or, at least, national (2 Sam.xxi, 1). The answer is, in all cases, very brief; but more in form than a simple yes or no. One question only is answered at a time.
3. It deserves notice, before we pass beyond the range
URIM AND THUxMMIM 677 URIM AND THUMMIM
of scriptural data, that, in some oases of deflection from tlie established relii^ioiis (frder. we tind the cphod con- nected not with the Urim, hut with the Teraphim, which, in tlie days of Laban, if not earlier, had been conspicu- ous in Aramaic worship. Micah, tirst consecrating one of his own sons, and then getting a Levite as his priest, maices for him "an cphod and teraphim" (Judg. xvii, 5; xviii, 14, 20). Throughout the iiistory of the north- ern kingdom, their presence at Dan made it a sacred place (ver. 30), and apparently determined Jeroboam's choice of it as a sanctuary. When the prophet Ho- sea foretells the entire sweeping-away of the system which the ten tribes had cherished, the point of extrem- est destitution is tliat " they shall be many days . . . without an ephod, and without teraphim"' (Hos. iii, 4), depris'ed of all counterfeit oracles, in order that they may in the end "return and seek the Lord." It seems natural to infer that the teraphim were, in these in- stances, the unauthorized substitutes for the Urim. The inference is strengthened by the fact that the Sept. uses here, instead of teraphim, the same word (SljXwv) which it usually gives for Urim. That the teraphim were thus used through the whole history of Israel may be inferred from their frequent occurrence in conjunction with other forms of divination. Thus we have in 1 Sam. XV, 23 '"witchcraft" and '' teraphim" (A. V. "idol- atry"), in 2 Kings xxiii, 24 '■ familiar spirits," " wizards, and teraphim" (A. V. "images"). The king of Baby- lon, when he uses divination, consults them (Ezek. xxi, 21). They speak vanity (Zech. x, 2). See Tekaphim. III. Theories of Interpreter x. — When the Jewish exiles were met on their return from Babylon by a question which they had no data for answering, they agreed to postpone the settlement of the ditficidty till there should rise up "a priest with Urim and Thummim" (Ezra ii, 63; Neh. vii, 65). The inquirj' what those Urim and Thummim themselves were seems likely to wait as long for a final and satisfying answer. On every side we meet with confessions of ignorance — " Non constat" (Kimchi), "Nescimus" (Aben-Ezra), " Difficile est invenire" CAu- gustine), varied only by wild and conflicting conject- ures.
1. Among these may be noticed the notion that, as Moses is not directed to muke the Urim and Thummim, they must have had a supernatural origin, specially createil, inilike anything upon earth (K. ben-Nachman and Hottinger in Buxtorf, Diss.de Ur. et Th. in Ugolino, xii). It would be profitless to discuss so arbitrary an hypothesis.
2. A favorite view of Jewish and of some Christian writers has been that the Urim and Thummim were identical with the twelve stones on which the names of the tribes of Israel were engraved, and the mode in which an oracle was given was by the illumination, simultaneous or successive, of the letters which were to make up the answer (Jalkut Sifre, Zohur in Exod. f. 105; Maimonides, K. ben-Nachman, in Buxtorf, lac. cit. ; Dru- sius, in Crit. Sac. on Exod. xxviii; Chrysostom, Grotius, et ill.). Josephus {Ant. iii, 7, 5) adopts another form of the same story, and, apparently identifying the Urim and Thummim with the sardonyxes on the shoulders of the ephod, says that the}' were bright before a vic- tory, or when the sacritice was acceptable, dark when any disaster was impending. Epiphanius {Be XII Gemm.) and the writer quoted by Suidas (s. v. 'EipovS) present the same thought in yet another form. A sin- gle dianrond {dcaiiag) placed in the centre of the breast- plate prognosticated peace when it was bright, war when it was red, death when it was dusky. It is conclusive against such views (1) that, wil hout any evidence, with- out even an analogy, they make unauthorized additions to the miracles of Scripture; (2) that the former iden- tify two things which in Exod. xxviii are clearly dis- tinguished; (3) tiiat the latter makes no distinction be- tween the Urim and the Thummim, such as the repeat- ed article leads us to infer.