7. The latest Jewish interpreter of eminence (Kalisch, on Exvd. xxviii, 31), combining parts of the views ('2) and (3), indentifies the Urim and Thummim with the twelve tribal gems, looks on the name as one to be ex- plained by a hendiadys (light and ])erfection = perfect illumination), and believes the high-priest, by concen- trating his thoughts on the attributes they represented, to have divested himself of all seltiahness and prejudice, and so to have passed into a true prophetic state. In wiiat he says on this point there is much that is both beautiful and true. Light foot, it may be added, had taken the same view (ii, 407 ; vi, 278), and that given above in (3) converges to the same result. See Trance.
8. Philo, the learnetl contemporary of Josephus, rep- resents the Urim and Thummim as two images of the two virtues or powers — SijXaxTiv Tt Kcii ci\i)3tiav. Tiie fidl (juotation is : To St Xoytiof (the pectoral, or breast- plate) ; reTpdywvoi', SnrXovv KartaKevciZBTO, (oaavti jSafftf, Wa duo apsTcig dyaXixaTixpop?) (that they might carry the image of the two powersj ; cijXiixyiv ts Ktii aXij^tiai' {Be. Vita Mosis, lib. iii, p. 152, t. 2, ed. Man- gey). He also uses the following words (iJe Monarch. lib. ii, p. 82-1-, Opj^. ii, 22G) : 'Etti tov Xoytiov Cirri'i V(paanara KUTairoiKiXXti, TrpoaayoptiHoi' to /.liv cij- Xwaiv, TO S' dXij^uai'. This statement of Philo has been thought by many recent interpreters to be sup- ported by certain external evidence. It had been no- ticed by all the old commentators that a remarkable resemblance existed between the Urim and Thummim of the Jewish high-priest and the custom recorded by yElian ( V\ir. [list, xiv, 347) of the Egyptian archjudge, who was always a priest venerable for age, learning, and probity, and who opened judicial proceedings by sus- pending, by a gold chain hung round his neck (comp. Gen. xli, 42), an image made of a sap|)hire stone, which was called 'AX j'/.&eta, i.e. "truth," and with which Dio- dorus Sicidus (i,48, 75) says he touched (TTiOocrS'flro) the party who had gained the cause. Certain traces of a similar custom among the Homans had also been ad- verted to — namely, that among the Vestal Virgins, at least she that was called Maxima, and who sat in judg- ment and tried causes as the Pontifex Maximus did, wore a similar antepectorale (Lipsius, De Vesta et I'ts- talibus Si/ntdf/ma [Antv. IGOo, ap. Plant.], cap. ult.). But these resemblances among the Egyptians were con- sidered to have been derived by them from the Jews, m consequence of their correspondence with them after Solomon's marriage with Pharaoh's daughter (Patrick, on Exod. xxviii, 30). Sidisecpient discoveries, however, among the antiquities of Egypt lead to the conclusion that these resemblances belong to a much earlier period. Sir G. Wilkinson says the figure of Truth which the Egyptian archjudge suspended from his neck was, in fact, a representation of the goddess who was worshipped under the dual, or double, character of Truth and Justice,
Ancient Egypliau Siaudinj,' Figures of the Goddess of Truth and Justice.
and whose name, Thmei, the Egyptian or Coptic name of Justice or Truth (comp. the Greek Sf/nc), appears to have been the oriyin of the Hebrew Thummim — "a word," he remarks, " according to the Sept. translation, implying truth, and bearing a further analogy in its plural termination." He also remarks that the word Thummim, being a plural or dual word, corresponds to the Egyptian notion of the '■•two Truths," or the double capacity of this goddess. " This goddess," he says, " fre- quently occurs in the sculptures in this double capacit}-, represented by two figures exactly similar," as in the above cut. " It is," he adds, " further ob- servable that the chief- priest of the Jews, who, before the election of a king, was also the judge of the nation, was alone entitled to wear this honorary badge. Does the touch of the successful liti- gant with the figure, by the Egyptian arch- judge, afford any il- lustration of such pas- sages as Isa. vi, 7 ; Jcr. i, 9; Esth. v, 2, or of those numerous i n- Aiicicnl Egyptian Sitting Figure stances in which of tlie Goddess of Truth aud touching is represent- '^"*''''^^" ed as the emblem or
means of miraculous virtue?" Our authority for these Egyptian antiquities adds that the ancient (Sept.) inter[iretalion of the Urim and Thummim, as signifying "'light and truth," presents a striking analogy to the two figures of Ke, the sun, and Thmei, truth, in the breastplate worn by the Egyptians. Here Thmei is represented, as she frequentlj' is, by a single figure wearing two ostrich feathers, her emblem, because all the wing - feathers of this bird were considered of equal length, and hence meant true or correct" (^Anr. Eijypt. [Lond. 1842], ii, 27, etc.; v, 28, etc. See also other remarks on the dual offices of Thmei, in Gallery of A ntiquities, selected from the British Museum by F. Arundale and J. Bono- mi). Upon a view of the preceding facts, even so orthodox an antiquarian as Hengstenberg {Ef/i/jit and \ the Hook of Jloses, ch.v'i) pj.rm I adopts 3Ir. Mede's opinion,
on E'jyptiau Breast- plates.
URIM AND THUMMIM
679
URLSPERGER
that the Urim and Thummim were " things well known to the patriarchs," as divinely appointed means of in- quiring of the Lord (den. xxv, '22, 23), suited to an in- fantine state of religion; that the originals were pre- served, or the real use at least, among tlie Abrahamidse, and, at the reformation under Moses, were simply rec- ognised; that the resemblances to them among the Egyptians were but imitations of this primeval mode of divine communication, as were the heathen auspices of similar means originally connected with the sacrifice of animals.