Exodus 28:30
Put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim
They arrive with the definite article and no explanation, and the verse moves straight on to Aaron bearing judgment on his heart.
Objects of the Bible
The Urim and Thummim
Never described, never explained, and the silence of it is what tells Saul he has run out of time.
They are introduced without introduction. Thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim, as though the reader already knows what those are. No material is given, no shape, no size, no method of use. The names mean something like lights and perfections, and every attempt since to say what they were is a guess. What the text supplies instead is the function and the limits.
Scroll down to the story
The movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of The Urim and Thummim
- 01
- 02
Leviticus 8:8
He put in the breastplate the Urim and the Thummim
At the ordination they are placed by Moses along with everything else, listed between garments without comment.
- 03
Numbers 27:18-21
He shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of Urim
Joshua gets authority and a limit in the same sentence. The successor to Moses does not get the access Moses had.
- 04
1 Samuel 28:6
The LORD answered him not
Dreams, Urim and prophets are named in one verse as three ways of asking, and all three are shut. The next verse is about a woman at Endor.
- 05
Ezra 2:63
Till there stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim
After the exile, families who cannot prove their priestly descent are suspended, pending a means of asking that nobody any longer has.
Why it matters
They are for asking. Joshua is told to stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of Urim before the LORD, and at his word they shall go out and come in. It is a mechanism for decisions a leader cannot make alone. And the most eloquent appearance is a failure to work: when Saul enquired of the LORD, the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. Three channels named, all silent, which is what sends him to Endor that night.
3 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
