Commentaria in Exodum
1. The ornament of the breast, commonly called the rational, regards and signifies the office of judge: hence it is always called the rational of Judgment: cf. Num. 27:21. It stands to the Urim and Thummim as the ark to the tables of the law: it is merely a repository. This is shown both by its form, which is hollow like a purse; and by the construction of the Hebrew phrase, as Rabbi Levi ben Gerson already observed, in Spencer, chap. 2, p. 327: “Because Moses, after the precious stones were inserted in the Pectoral, is commanded to put in it the Urim and Thummim, this makes one believe that the Urim and Thummim were something which Moses put into the Pectoral, in the same way as he put the tables into the ark, because in both places the same phrase (conf. Ez. 25:16) is used.” The Hebrews and R. Solomon add that the letters of the twelve tribes engraved on these stones stood out, or came together, so that the priest could form words from them and answer those who inquired: as when David asked, 2 Kings 2: Shall I go up into one of the cities of Juda? The Lord answered him: Go up; there they say that those three letters stood out, ain from the name of Simeon, lamed from Levi, he from the name of Juda. This invention seems ingenious.
2. Urim, therefore, will be light, or illumination in judging; which being supposed, Thummim cannot be rendered perfection: for perfection does not suit judgment, but suits illumination in judging, so that the sense is perfect illumination. So Carpzov, Apparat. critic. Ant. p. 76: “They are indeed two and disparate words, Urim (lights) and Thummim (perfections), but which by a very common hendiadys denote one thing, most perfect illuminations.” Gesenius also, Thesaur. p. 54, joins these two words in sense, rendering them true revelation, which translation however errs in several respects: first, that Thummim does not signify true, and next, that the notion of truth is contained in the notion of illumination, whereas illumination in discerning truth may be more or less perfect. Add that the word Urim occurs not once only, e.g. Num. 27:21; 1 Sam. 28:6; but Thummim never alone: whence it is rightly inferred that Urim is the principal denomination, Thummim the secondary, and taken as an adjective.
3. The Urim and Thummim was a certain corporeal thing, falling under sight and touch, enclosed in the Rational: hence the Rational was doubled like a purse; and therefore Schroeder errs: see above. Again, that thing was single: hence it is sometimes designated by the word Urim alone, according to the axiom: Denomination is made from the principal part; Thummim is a secondary notion, not necessary, added as a mere epithet. Michaelis and Gesenius therefore err who admit several things. From the places 1 Sam. 23:9; 2 Sam. 2:4, it is plain that the answer sought from the Urim and Thummim could not be given by a simple affirmation or negation, such as a lot can give: the three lots, therefore, are gratuitously assumed by Michaelis. Nor with greater reason would two only be assumed, one denying, the other affirming; for the notions of Urim and Thummim, so far from being opposed, on the contrary seem so conjoined as to express one and the same. Moreover, those two things, at least on this hypothesis distinct, would be badly designated by the word Urim alone, as we have said above is done not once. But what that single thing was, of what material, or in what form, I answer with Prideaux, Orat. on the vestments of Aaron 2 (in Spencer, p. 327): “It suffices to have observed that the Urim and Thummim were delivered by God, received by Moses, and were enclosed between the doubling of the Rational as in a kind of case. Whoever has rashly asserted anything beyond this, let him see that in vaunting his knowledge he does not become a laughing-stock to the unskilled and the skilled alike.”
4. That corporeal, visible, single thing, etc., was either a means and as it were an instrument by which the High Priest was illuminated to judgment, or only a symbol and as it were a sign and external attestation of this illumination. The former cannot be said, for it is repugnant to the whole economy of the Mosaic institution, which rejects all magic as an abominable thing, much less admits it. The latter, on the contrary, agrees wonderfully with the institution of Moses. For as the tables of the law, laid up in the ark, represented all the laws and precepts given by God to the Israelites, and, as a monument of the divine covenant, asserted how Jehovah stood toward the Israelite people, so the symbol of the Urim and Thummim signified and attested that divine illumination in judging would never fail the High Priest. Cf. the words of Rabbi Levi ben Gerson cited above.
5. The illumination by Urim and Thummim was not granted to the High Priest absolutely and without restriction. The very institution and form of the Rational indicate its use. For the Rational consists of twelve precious stones, arranged in a square, representing the whole Israelite people as the people of God. Hence the Judgment and Illumination regard Israel so far as it is the people of God, not private affairs. In fact it is plain from history that illumination by Urim and Thummim was never granted, nay never sought, except when the affairs of the whole people were at stake. Cf. Num.
Abarbanel: “It is required that the question be a counsel which concerns the business of the whole people, not about a particular and private matter of anyone,” on Exod. 28. Buxtorf, History of the Urim and Thummim, chap. 3: “It was not lawful, namely, to consult this sacred oracle about private business... but about public affairs. Hence the names of the tribes were inserted in the Pectoral, that they might know that this benefit was granted them only for the sake of these.”
6. How the High Priest consulted God, and in what way he gave responses, is easy to say. The High Priest asked of God by prayers illumination, that in a grave and public matter he might counsel the people well. What had come into his heart, that is, into his mind, when the prayers were ended, was held for the response of God, and that it was truly inspired in him by God the Urim and Thummim, which he wore applied to his breast, attested. As God, in sign of His singular protection of the Israelites, had set His visible seat in the midst of them, so to this same people, deserving so well of the salvation of other peoples, He granted an external sign and pledge, by which it might be certain that divine counsel and illumination in matters of great moment would never fail it; and none was more worthy to bear that visible pledge than the High Priest, the leader and prince of this priestly kingdom (Exod. 19:6). If the miracle of the thing offends anyone, let him first wonder at the Israelite people so singularly chosen by God, so divinely led, endowed with so great a dignity.
To explain what I think in so obscure a matter, I say first: It is plain enough from Scripture that God was wont to answer and give oracles when consulted by urim; or rather that urim is not used elsewhere except where the response of God is sought through the high priest, clothed in the pontifical vestments and especially the rational, and in urim; for thus it is said in Numbers 27:21: “Eleazar shall consult the Lord”; in Hebrew it is, Eleazar shall ask the Lord in the judgment of urim. Like passages are 1 Kings 23:15 in the Hebrew, and chap. 23, verses 2 and 4, and chap. 28, verse 6, and 1 Esdras 2, 63, and 2 Esdras 7:65, and elsewhere. For as they consulted God through the Prophets, so also through the pontiff clothed in pontifical vestments and in urim.
Secondly I say: It seems to me more probable that these two, urim and thummim, that is, doctrine and truth, were inscribed on the rational; so that when Scripture says: “Thou shalt put in the rational doctrine and truth,” the sense would be, thou shalt inscribe in the rational these two names: Doctrine and Truth, as on the tiara of the high priest were inscribed two words: “Holiness to the Lord,” as we shall see verse 36.
This opinion is proved first, because this is the plain and simplest sense of the words of Scripture, which scarcely admit another: for when Moses had at length described the twelve gems of the rational, and immediately before this precept of putting urim and thummim in the rational had again clearly mentioned the twelve gems: to what end, I ask, would he a little after inculcate the same so obscurely by the names urim and thummim? You will say, they are inculcated again by urim, that the use and end of these gems may be signified, namely that they will be like an oracle by which God, when consulted, will answer, as if he should say: Thou shalt put urim and thummim in the rational, that is, thou shalt put an oracle in the rational.
But on the contrary, first, this was sufficiently signified by the name of the rational of judgment, as I said verse 15, and more clearly or equally clearly than by the name of urim and thummim; if Scripture therefore wished to expound the rational of judgment, it would have used other and clearer words than urim and thummim.
Secondly, it was not Moses’ part to make, or put, an oracle in these stones, but God’s: therefore it is not well said, “Thou shalt put,” or, as in Hebrew, thou shalt give into the rational, doctrine, that is, an oracle; but it should have been said: “I will put, I will give through these stones an oracle.”
Thirdly, the particle “and” (vau), when it says: “And thou shalt put in the rational urim,” that is, doctrine, plainly signifies that something new, and altogether different from what has preceded, is commanded here, namely from the making of the twelve gems.
You will say secondly: These twelve gems are called milluim, that is, fullnesses, Exod. 25:7; it is not strange, therefore, if the same are called urim, that is, illuminations.
I answer: Those gems in Exod. chap. 28 are not called milluim, that is, fullnesses, but abne milluim, that is, stones of fullnesses, that is, with which the rational might be filled and adorned, by a phrase used among the Hebrews, which all explain there in the manner I have said; whence both the Chaldee and our version there render, for adorning the rational: but here they are not called stones of illuminations, but illuminations, or light and doctrine: for so our version and all others render the Hebrew urim.