RECONSTRUCTING THE BREASTPATE (HOSHEN) OF THE HIGH PRIEST

 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.”