M. Glikman,
Israel
17.04.2016
Sages say: “The Era of the Mashiach
is coming. The Temple will be
rebuilt. A High Priest will take up his
duties again. By this time his attire
should be ready including the Hoshen.
The Era of the Mashiach is the Era of Prosperity. Thus, we have a lot of work before us. "
1.
The dimentions of the hoshen are 24 cm by 24 cm, when folded, and 24 cm
by 48 cm, when unfolded. It is 144 cm in
the perimeter (assuming that “the arm” equals 48 cm as stated in the book by
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz “The Essential Talmud” (1994) with the reference to Rabbi
Noach and in our article “Вокруг хошена” (2012)( in blog : mglikman.blogspot.com).
2.
“Ephod is held on the shoulders by two sardonyx stones… The names of the sons of Jacob are engraved on
these stones, and the names of the older ones are on the right shoulder”
(Josephus, “Antiquities of the Jews”).
Yitzchak Abarbanel (1437-1508) in his Torah commentary also wrote
that the name of Reuven, the firstborn, was carved in the stone placed on the right
shoulder of a High Priest. The author of
the מנחת
חינוך ( Minchat Chinuch, 1869
) רבי יוסף באב"ט (Rabbi Yosef Babad) when
describing the order of names on the ephod stones followed the same rule.
This means
that the FIRST HOSHEN STONE – odem – WAS PLACED ON THE RIGHT SIDE of the
High Priest’s breast, while the LAST one – yashfe – on the LEFT.
3.
“And you shall take two shoham stones and engrave on them the names of the
children of Israel… according to their birth. With the work of
an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a signet, shalt
thou engrave the two stones with
the names of the children of Israel… And
you shalt put the two stones upon the
shoulder – pieces of the ephod for stones of memorial unto the
children of Israel. " (Shemot (Exodus) 28:9-12, Pentateuch ,
London,1930, p.154).
This refers to the twelve sons of Jacob –
Israel from four different mothers.
Reuven was the firstborn, then Shimon, Levi, Yehuda (by Leah), Dan and
Naphtali (by Bilhah). These were the
oldest six. Gad and Asher were born by Zilpah. Then Leah gave her husband two more sons:
Issachar and Zevulun. The last ones to
come into this world were Yosef and Binyamin (born by the matriarch Rachel)
(see also Bereshit (Genesis) 35:23-26). When the garments for the High Priest were
made, these names were engraved on two carnelians, which served as memorial
symbols.
“…and Aaron shall bear their names … for a memorial.” (Shemot (Exodus) 28:12).
“Engravings
of a signet” – Onkelos in his translation used the word " "תגלוף - engraving - .גליפהRASHI starts his commentary on this verse by saying:
“as in the Translation” referring to Onkelos, then explains that special depressions
had to be made like on a signet ring. All
the signets found by archeologists within the territory of modern Israel were made
in the intaglio technique, i.e. both texts and pictures have recessed mirror image. This technique was very popular in Mesopotamia,
in the Land of Meluhha, and in Egypt (O.Y. Neverov, 1976, S.I. Chodjash, 1999),
and after the Exodus of the Jews it was used for making the hoshen. An imprint on clay or wax produced a direct protuberant
image. At the end of 2015 a new
discovery was reported – a royal seal imprint from the First Temple period
dating 698-727 BC. The letters of the
Hebrew text (the ancient Hebraic script) were similar in shape to the
Phoenician script.
In
1986 a sculptor and jeweler David Katz exhibited in the Diamond Museum (Ramat
Gan, Israel) an ephod and hoshen woven by him and decorated by the ornamental
stones with the names of the sons of Jacob-Israel engraved on them by the
“signet engraving”. All the letters were
in the ancient Hebraic script and the image was mirrored. The inscriptions on the stones were directed outwards
at the Museum visitors.
Gerhard
Groenewald (2011) – http://www.ministries.moadim.za.org/breastpiece presented another example of inscribing the names
on the hoshen stones in the ancient Hebraic script. The only problem was that the inscriptions were
made as seal imprints, i.e. as direct images.
It is important
to emphasize that in all the pictures or reconstructed copies of the ephod and
the breastplate of the High Priest (including the ones made by the Temple
Institute in Jerusalem) the inscriptions on the stones are made from the left
to the right in relation to the breast of the High Priest and directed outwards
at an outside observer. As if we and not
the High Priest must read the answer of the Almighty.
In the
literature on the ephod stones, there is no consensus on the order, in which the
twelve names were placed on these two stones. צבי נתנזון (Zvi Natanzon ,1992) suggests twelve alternative
ways found by him in the literature on the topic. We personally believe that the Torah is very specific:
six names on each stone “in order of their birth”. In our opinion, the above-mentioned variety
of lists can be explained by the fact that nobody except Bezalel and Aholiab,
who manufactured the Tabernacle and the High Priest’s garments, saw the
inscriptions on the stones. The stones
of the ephod were placed in golden frames with the TEXTS TURNED INWARDS. The kohanim, levites and the congregants only
saw the clear surfacea of the back sides of the stones.
4 . “And thou shalt make the breastplate of judgment
the work of an artist: after the
work of the ephod thou shalt make it … And thou shalt fill it with fillings of stones , even four
rows (turim) of stones…” (Shemot
28:15-20).
In translations into English or Russian the
Hebrew word טור is translated as “rows, ряд”. The
same is in German –"vier Reihen".
In the English translation of Josephus we read: "… stones … three in
a row, four lines…" (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, London, 1961, vol. IY, p.
395 ). The authors of the Translation of the Seventy as well as Josephus
translated the word “tur” by the Greek word "stichon" - "stichos"-
a row, line.
The
Hebrew-Russian Dictionary (M. Klainbart, A. Solomnik, Jerusalem, 1987, p. 96)
states that “טור” (tur) means column. F.L. Shapiro (1963) gives the translation as column,
rank. The B. Podolsky Dictionary
(1992) slightly widens the options as: a row, column, rank, newspaper
column, mathematical row. The Even
Shoshan Dictionary (1993) uses two words to explain the word: a row and
column. This means that the word
“tur” has a double meaning. A survey of
the schoolchildren sample in the city of Bnei Brak (Israel) gave an
unequivocal answer: - טורmeans column.
In the
ancient times the word “tura” meant fort.
The word “tower” is tura in French, turm in German and tornis
in Latvian, while “dhura, dhurA” in Sanskrit mean a pole and “dhArikA”
means a pillar. All this points
to a vertical structure.
A simple
analysis of the hoshen illustrations on the Internet showed that 40% of pictures
and replicas place stones in columns, while 60% - in rows, including the reconstructed
breastplates in the Temple Museum in Jerusalem and in the Diamond Museum in
Ramat Gan (Israel). Almost in all the pictures
with row placement, the first stone – odem – is located to the right of
an observer and on the left side of the High Priest’s chest (see Figure
1).
|
bareqet
|
pitda
|
odem
|
|
yahalom
|
sapir
|
nofech
|
|
ahlama
|
shevo
|
leshem
|
|
yashfe
|
shoham
|
tarshish
|
Let us carry
out a simple experiment and turn the table 90 degrees counter clockwise. We
will get the following table (Figure 2):
|
odem
|
nofech
|
leshem
|
tarshish
|
|
pitda
|
sapir
|
shevo
|
shoham
|
|
bareqet
|
yahalom
|
ahlama
|
yashfe
|
The stones are now in vertical
columns – four columns of three stones each. Projecting this table on a man’s chest we will
see the first column on his right side, etc.
It is important to emphasize that this was the order in which the stones
were placed on the High Priest’s hoshen.
4.
" And the stones shall be with the names of the
children of Israel , twelve, according
to their names , like the
engravings of a signet; every one
with his name shall they be according to the
twelve tribes” (Shemot 28:21).
Most of the commentators understood this verse literally
and equated the names of the sons of Jacob-Israel to the names of the tribes,
which came out of the Egyptian slavery.
However, there were thirteen tribes camping around the Tabernacle. The tribe of Levi, selected by the Most High to
serve Him in the Tabernacle, the Temple and on the way to the Promised Land,
did not get its own allotment of land and was settled among the other
tribes.
“The priests, the Levites—all the tribe of Levi—shall have no part
nor inheritance with Israel… the Lord is their
inheritance, as He said to them” (Devarim (Deuteronomy) 18:1-2).
The tribe
of Yosef. When Yosef lived in Egypt he
had a family: children, grandchildren, greatgrandchildren, etc. However, by the time of Exodus there was no
“tribe of Yosef”, instead there were two separate tribes called after his two
sons Menashe and Ephraim. The Patriarch
Jacob “adopted” them: “as Reuven and Shimon, they shall be
mine” (Bereshit 48:5) and blessed the sons of Yosef with many descendants: “…and
his descendants shall become a multitude of nations” (Bereshit 48:19).
While
in the desert after the Exodus the twelve tribes were divided in groups of three:
Yehuda, Issachar and Zevulun stood along the eastern side of the Tabernacle, Reuven,
Shimon and Gad – along the southern side, Ephraim, Menashe and Binyamin – along
the western side and Dan, Asher and Naftali – the northern side. The tribe of Levi, supervised by Moshe
Rabbeinu and his brother Aaron, had a special position right around the
Tabernacle.
In our opinion, a more accurate understanding of
the meaning of this Torah passage can be expressed by the following sentence: “AND
THE NUMBER OF THESE STONES SHOULD BE ACCORDING TO THE NUMBER OF THE SONS OF
ISRAEL, TWELVE ACCORDING TO THEIR NUMBER, AND EACH ONE SHOULD BE ENGRAVED AS A
SEAL WITH THE MATCHING NAME OF ONE OF THE TWELVE TRIBES OF ISRAEL”, i.e.
allocation according to the names of the twelve tribes that came out of Egypt
and are listed in Bamidbar (Numbers) 1.
The opinions
of the famous Torah commentators are divided.
Yitzchak Abarbanel, while noting the unknown order of placing the names
on the hoshen stones, suggested the allocation in accordance with the order the
tribes camped in the desert. Josephus and
RASHI believed that the order of birth should be followed as on the ephod
stones. The Targum Yerushalmi presents
the allocation according to “the mothers”: first the six sons of Leah, then the
sons of the concubines and, finally, the sons of Rachel. An attempt to link the colors of the stones with
the colors of the banners of each tribe is outlined in Bamidbar Rabbah. It should be noted that the mineralogical
aspect of the hoshen stones has not been established, therefore, their colors
also remain a mystery. Rabbi Ovadia Klimovsky
(toldot.ru) used to say: “Since Reuven, the first son of Leah, had lost his
firstborn status… this right passed on to Yosef, the first son of Rachel. That is why his sons Ephraim and Menashe became
the patriarchs of two tribes… Whenever the tribe of Levi “is taken into
account”, the tribe of Yosef is considered as one, for example, on the
breastplate of the High Priest”.
Zvi
Natanzon (1992) counted five main “names and stones” combinations that can be found
in the Hebrew literature. See Table 1.
Table 1. Various options of placement of the tribes’ names on the hoshen
stones.
|
Stones\Options
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
|
|
odem
|
Reuven
|
Reuven
|
Yehuda
|
Reuven
|
Reuven
|
|
|
pitda
|
Shimon
|
Shimon
|
Zevulun
|
Shimon
|
Dan
|
|
|
bareqet
|
Levi
|
Levi
|
Issachar
|
Нафтали
|
Issachar
|
|
|
nofech
|
Yehuda
|
Yehuda
|
Gad
|
Levi
|
Shimon
|
|
|
sapir
|
Issachar
|
Dan
|
Reuven
|
Yehuda
|
Naftali
|
|
|
yahalom
|
Zevulun
|
Naftali
|
Shimon
|
Gad
|
Zevulun
|
|
|
leshem
|
Dan
|
Gad
|
Ephraim
|
Dan
|
Levi
|
|
|
shevo
|
Naftali
|
Asher
|
Menashe
|
Asher
|
Gad
|
|
|
ahlama
|
Gad
|
Issachar
|
Binyamin
|
Issachar
|
Yosef
|
|
|
tarshish
|
Asher
|
Zevulun
|
Dan
|
Zevulun
|
Yehuda
|
|
|
shoham
|
Yosef
|
Yosef
|
Asher
|
Yosef
|
Asher
|
|
|
yashfe
|
Binyamin
|
Binyamin
|
Naftali
|
Binyamin
|
Binyamin
|
|
5.
Another
name for hoshen is “hoshen hamishpat” – hoshen of justice, breastplate
of judgment. Coming before the Arch of the Covenant (some
believe that it was in front of the curtain separating the Holy of Holies,
where the Arch of the Covenant was kept) the High Priest would ask G-d for an
answer about the situation or destiny of the entire people or a specific tribe
for a specific period of time, about a defeat or victory in a war, etc. The Almighty judged His people “and gave the
answer through the Urim Ve-Tumim that was inside the folded (doube) hoshen”
(RASHI). The tradition informs us that
the letters engraved on the stones became more “prominent” (בולטות ) (the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Yoma 73b), began
to “stick out” as described in the book "יפה מראה ". We understand this as to be more prominent, backlit
in the relation to the outer surface of the stone, to glow on the outer
surface. “Urim” comes from the word “or”
– light, “Tumim” – from “tam” – perfection.
“In glowing and completion, the lights gave the full answer”. One of the Greatest Miracles of the Almighty:
the letters glowed and the High Priest bowing his head read the answer.
Josephus wrote that in the moments of G-d’s
presence during the worship the right stone on the ephod “began to sparkle
especially powerfully” and produced an unprecedentedly bright light.
“The L-rd G-d proclaimed to the Jews, when they
were about to go to war, a victory through these twelve precious stones that
were sewn on the breastplate of the High Priest… these stones began to glow strongly and
sparkle” ( 3,8,9 ).
Perhaps, for this reason RAMBAM believed that
the twelve hoshen stones to be the Urim Ve-Tumim. It is known that Moshe Rabbeinu received the
Urim Ve-Tumim in a finished form and was told to insert it inside the
hoshen. Some believe that it was “a
parchment or a golden plate” with the seventy two names of the Most High. Without the Spirit of G-d (Shekhina), without the Urim Ve-Tumim, hoshen
was just another part of the High Priest’s garments. After the return of the Jews from the Babylonian
captivity the Temple was rebuilt and the High Priest’s garments were
restored. However, the Urim Ve-Tumim was
not there. Confirming this fact Josephus
wrote that the ephod stone and the hoshen stones stopped glowing two hundred
years before he wrote his book (3, 8, 9).
“Stick
out”. THE INSCRIPTIONS ENGRAVED ON THE STONES OF THE
BREASTPLATE, WERE DIRECTED TOWARDS THE URIM VE-TUMIM. They were hidden from prying eyes. The Urim Ve-Tumim emitted G-d’s Light, under
the influence of which certain letters in the names of the tribes began to glow
as if they had just appeared. When it
came to a specific tribe, the whole name glowed, and then it was said: “the
stone glowed”. The prominent letters
were located UPSIDE DOWN (from the point of
view of a casual observer), however, for the High Priest they were in the
correct order: from right to left and readable, as if an open book (the Book of
Destiny of the Jewish people) laid on his chest.
In
order to understand the above-said, please perform a small experiment. Place an open book or a page of printed
Hebrew text on your chest and see in what position it is easier to read the
text.
The order
of the placement of the names of the tribes and the location of the letters comprising
these words were crucial for the subsequent process of the High Priest
communicating with the Most High.
6.
Twelve names and twelve names of the stones. The link between the two is specified by the
Almighty and written down in the Torah.
Which of the lists presented in the Table 1 is the most correct? And perhaps, there are other options of
placing the name of the tribes on the hoshen?
It is knows that every Hebrew word has a specific
numerical meaning, it is called the gematria of words.
“Gematria is one of the methods of “revealing the
hidden meaning” of words by assigning a numerical value to a word or
phrase in the belief that words or phrases with identical numerical values bear
some relation to each other even if these words differ significantly in their
meaning” (Wikipedia). Encoding the words by use of numbers, assigning
a numerical value to each letter leads to abstraction, transition to a new
dimension, where, after some mathematical operations, new insights and
understanding of the original word appear and the hidden semantic links are
revealed. I.V. Abramova (2013) after analyzing
a whole range of Hebrew medical terms came to the conclusion that in the Hebrew
language the connectivity between the words is adequate to the system of connectivity
between the objects. According to M. Laitman
(2008): “Gematira, as a way of expressing spiritual conditions, is not a
science but rather a recoding method.
Mathematics is also a recording method.
The science is what we extract through the experiment and experience.”
There
are examples in literature of using gematria for an assessment of the value of
the hoshen and locations of the names of the tribes on its stones: John Tng
(2005) in the article "The Gospel in the Stones", Ian Mallett (1997), Aaron B. Cohen (2005), V.P.
Babanin (2006).
In his book “ Тайны кристаллов Первосвященника” (2006) V.P. Babanin writes about using
gematria (“the cipher-code” of the Bible) for in-depth studies of spiritual and
mystical meaning of the hoshen and its stones.
The author uses the primary gematria and the descriptive analysis for
the combinations of the numerical values of letters for the first and the
second options from the Zvi Natanzon’s Table.
He does not come to a definitive conclusion: “The author, based on the
conducted research … does not draw conclusions in favor of any of the options
of placement of the names of the sons of Israel on the stones of the High
Priest’s breastplate. I simply drew the attention
of other researches… My opinion I will keep to myself” (p. 107).
Thus, having
two rows of numbers, we can check the hypothesis of the mathematical
connectivity of these rows. The Pearson pair
correlation coefficient is best suited in our case. We have used the primary gematria of the
names of the twelve hoshen stones and the fourteen names of the sons and
grandsons of Jacob-Israel. We have not
found any similar calculations in any literature available to us. The result is presented in the Table 2.
|
|
|
Reuven
|
909
|
|
odem
|
605
|
Shimon
|
1116
|
|
pitda
|
98
|
Levi
|
46
|
|
bareqet
|
702
|
Yehuda
|
30
|
|
nofech
|
630
|
Dan
|
704
|
|
sapir
|
350
|
Naftali
|
570
|
|
yahalom
|
85
|
Gad
|
7
|
|
leshem
|
370
|
Asher
|
501
|
|
shevo
|
308
|
Issachar
|
830
|
|
ahlama
|
84
|
Zevulun
|
745
|
|
tarshish
|
1210
|
Yosef
|
876
|
|
shoham
|
345
|
Binyamin
|
812
|
|
yashfe
|
395
|
Ephraim
|
891
|
|
|
|
Menashe
|
395
|
The calculation of the correlation coefficient was carried out based on the
formulas presented on the site “Optimization Tasks. Online solutions.” http://www.uchimatchast.ru/aplication/pirson.php
The results of the calculation are presented in
the Table 3. The correlation
coefficients of the five options from the book by Zvi Natanzon.
|
Options
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
|
Correlation coefficient
|
-
0,038
|
-
0,364
|
- 0,
023
|
-
0,063
|
- 0,
404
|
It turns out that in all five cases there is no
correlation between the samples as the absolute values of all the obtained correlation
coefficients were less than the critical value (for a sample with the number of
elements m=12, with a significance level p=0,05 the critical value of the
Pearson coefficient r=0.58, and with a significance level of p=0,01, the r=0,71).
We have continued our search for new
options. The significant one was the
option with the correlation coefficient of r = 0,778 and the location of the
groups of three names like in the desert – in accordance with the cardinal
directions.
Table 5.
|
Odem - Zevulun
|
Nofech - Naftali
|
Leshem – Ephraim
|
Tarshish - Shimon
|
|
Pitda - Yehuda
|
Sapir - Asher
|
Shevo - Binyamin
|
Shoham - Reuven
|
|
Bareqet - Issachar
|
Yahalom - Dan
|
Ahlama - Menashe
|
Yashfe - Gad
|
However,
the study would not be complete without the control sample. We have chosen twelve male names from the Tanach
starting with the same letter as the words in the main group (names of the
tribes) and containing the same number of letters. Both groups are presented in the Table 6.
|
Reuven ראובן
|
רחמים Rachamim
|
858
|
|
Shimon שמעון
|
שבתאי Shabtai
|
713
|
|
Gadגד
|
גל Gal
|
33
|
|
Yehudaיהודה
|
יחיאל Yehiel
|
59
|
|
Issacharיששכר
|
יוחנן Yohanan
|
774
|
|
Zevulun זבולן
|
זכריה Zacharia
|
242
|
|
Ephraimאפרים
|
איתמר Itamar
|
651
|
|
Menashe מנשה
|
מבשר Mevaser
|
542
|
|
Binyamin בנימין
|
בתאול Betuel
|
439
|
|
Dan דן
|
דר Dar
|
204
|
|
Naftali נפתלי
|
נחשון Nachshon
|
1064
|
|
Asherאשר
|
אסף Asaf
|
861
|
|
Yosefיוסף
|
יאיר Yair
|
221
|
|
Leviלוי
|
לוז Luz
|
43
|
We have calculated the correlation coefficient.
In the option “according to birth” – r= -
0,506; “according to mothers” - r= - 0,095; “according to Abarbanel” - r= - 0,272; our own hypothesis (Table 5) - r=
0,433. All the values of “r” are below
the critical value, which indicates that there is no correlation.
But before we discuss the obtained results, here
is another illustration about the link between the names of the hoshen stones and
the names of the color shades in Hebrew.
|
12 hoshen stones
|
Gematria of colors
|
Names of colors
|
|
605 אדם
|
606
|
שרוק
|
|
98 פטדה
|
97
|
צהב
|
|
702 ברקת
|
732
|
לבן
|
|
630נפך
|
620
|
שייש
|
|
350 ספיר
|
360
|
שני
|
|
645 יהלם
|
649
|
אדמדמ
|
|
930 לשם
|
941
|
עמץ
|
|
308 שבו
|
308
|
צחר
|
|
84 אחלמה
|
99
|
סגול
|
|
1210תרשיש
|
1206
|
שקוף
|
|
905שהם
|
944
|
ארגמן
|
|
395ישפה
|
458
|
כחלת
|
The pair correlation coefficient in this case is
very close to 1 (r = 0,998).
Conclusions.
1.
The dimensions of the folded hoshen are 24 см х 24 см.
2.
The first stone of the ephod was located on the right shoulder of the
High Priest.
3.
The hoshen stones were placed in the four columns, three stones in each
column.
4.
The twelve names of the sons of Jacob in order of their birth were engraved
in the intaglio technique on the ephod stones: Reuven, Shimon, Levi, Yehuda, Dan
and Naftali on the right stone and Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zevulun, Yosef and Binyamin
on the left stone, in order to be always remembered.
5.
These stones were paced in golden slots (frames) with their smooth sides
outwards. The inscriptions were hidden
from prying eyes.
6.
Each of the twelve hoshen stones was engraved, by using the same intaglio
technique, with a name of one of the tribes of Israel, which came out of Egypt:
Yehuda, Issachar, Zevulun, Reuven, Shimon, Gad, Ephraim, Menashe, Binyamin,
Dan, Asher and Naftali.
7.
Like the ephod stones, these stones were also placed inside golden
frames with their mirror inscriptions inwards.
The shining letters of the Heavenly Answer would appear on their smooth
outside surfaces.
8.
The High Priest, his head bowed, could
easily read the verdict of the Most High, as the letters were located as if in
an open book held close to his chest.
9.
The Urim Ve-Tumim contributed to the appearance of the glowing imprint
of the letters. The Great Miracle.
10.
For the first time an attempt was made to use numerical values of the
names of the hoshen stones and the names of the tribes in order to discover the
hidden name connectivity. The result “stone
- name” was obtained with the meaningful correlation coefficient of r=0,778.
11.
The connection between the names of the hoshen stones and the words
denoting various colors is undeniable with r = 0,998. Each stone has a corresponding color
shade.
12.
An article “Кто изобрел ноутбук и камешки на груди….” (2010) by Alex Yusfin
was published on the site Moshiach.ru.
The author writes with a sense of humor and a large element of truth: “A
few little stones that played a role of a keyboard with letters and a display… However,
there was only one Programmer.”
This
reminds us the First Commandment written on the Tablets: “I am the L-rd your G-d, who brought you out of Egypt.”
