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.

Where it appearsExodus 28 · Numbers 27 · 1 Samuel 28

Exodus Numbers 1 Samuel

Scroll down to the account

The movements, in the order the text gives them.

The Account of The Urim and Thummim

01
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.
Exodus can specify the cord that holds the breastpiece in place and then leave its most mysterious contents undescribed. The contrast is striking. The Urim and Thummim are introduced as known, named things to be placed in the garment, but no material, dimensions, inscriptions or operating instructions follow. The passage is exact about their setting and restrained about their form. A pair of differently colored stones may be a reconstruction; it is not a description supplied by this verse.
What is supplied is their purpose within Aaron's service. Judgment belongs with Israel's engraved names over the priest's heart, before the LORD. These are not instruments for satisfying detached curiosity about tomorrow. They are connected to decisions concerning the people whom Aaron represents. The old gloss lights and perfections is suggestive, but even the names do not settle whether anything shone or how an answer was received. The sentence ends not with a mechanism but with a responsibility: Aaron bears Israel's judgment continually before God. The unknown details should not obscure the known relationship. The breastpiece is worn by a priest, on behalf of a people, in the presence of the one whose judgment is sought.
Verse by verse
1. 28:30
  Lights and perfections is a traditional explanation of the names, not a description of their physical operation.
2. 28:30
  The verse does not specify two stones, their colors, or a yes-and-no inscription.
3. 28:30
  The breastpiece already bears the names of Israel's tribes in verses 21 and 29, giving the judgment a representative setting.
Worth knowing
Deuteronomy 33:8 reverses the familiar order, naming Thummim before Urim in the blessing of Levi. The following verses place them beside teaching God's judgments, keeping the covenant and offering incense and sacrifice. Their biblical setting is therefore wider than isolated predictions: they belong within the whole vocation of priestly service.
Exodus 28:30
King James Version · 1 verse
28:30And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron’s heart, when he goeth in before the LORD: and Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before the LORD continually.
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.
The installation is recorded; the demonstration is not. Moses places the breastpiece on Aaron and the Urim and Thummim in the breastpiece, but Leviticus does not interrupt the consecration to ask a sample question. The objects belong to an office being established before the congregation. Their presence is important enough to be named separately, yet they are not turned into the center of a spectacle.
The two acts of placement matter. First comes the garment on the man, then the named contents in the garment. That wording distinguishes the Urim and Thummim from a vague quality of Aaron's personality, while stopping short of a full physical description. The surrounding actions also keep their function in proportion: washing precedes them; the head covering, anointing and sacrifices belong to the same consecration. Receiving the means of inquiry does not replace the priest's need for consecration or atonement. Nor does possession make him an independent source of revelation. The placement fulfills what the LORD commanded through Moses. Leviticus is not granting Aaron a private device with which to make God speak. It is assigning him a responsibility within a service whose terms have already been given.
Verse by verse
1. 8:8
  The breastpiece is placed upon Aaron; the Urim and Thummim are then placed in the breastpiece.
2. 8:8
  The congregation has assembled at the entrance in Leviticus 8:3-4; this is part of a public consecration.
3. 8:8
  No question, answer or consultation procedure is recorded in this verse.
Worth knowing
Exodus 39:8-21 carefully describes the making of the breastpiece, its stones, rings, chains and fastenings, but gives no manufacturing account for the Urim and Thummim. Leviticus 8:8 records their placement instead. The distinction is important: their inclusion in the priestly equipment is explicit, while their origin and construction remain unreported.
Leviticus 8:8
King James Version · 1 verse
8:8And he put the breastplate upon him: also he put in the breastplate the Urim and the Thummim.
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.
Joshua has the spirit before Moses lays a hand on him, and he still needs Eleazar. Those two facts belong together. The appointment does not cure a spiritual vacancy, nor does the presence of the spirit make priestly consultation unnecessary. Numbers describes a qualified successor whose leadership is publicly authorized and whose decisions remain answerable to counsel sought before the LORD.
Moses is told to put some of his honor upon Joshua, not to reproduce every feature of his own position. The distinction becomes concrete in the instruction to stand before Eleazar. The coming leader does not simply inherit a private conversation with God on whatever terms he chooses. Priest, leader and congregation appear together, and the direction received concerns the going out and coming in of them all. The Urim is therefore not an ornament left over from the clothing instructions. It has a specified place in the life of the people. At the same time, the passage explains who asks, for whom, and before whom far more clearly than it explains how the answer appears. Its precision concerns responsibility. Joshua's authority is real, but it is not solitary.
Verse by verse
1. 27:18
  Joshua is already described as a man in whom is the spirit before the laying on of hands.
2. 27:19
  The charge is given before Eleazar and the whole congregation, not in a private transfer of office.
3. 27:20
  Some of thine honour distinguishes Joshua's commission from an unrestricted duplication of Moses' position.
4. 27:21
  Only Urim is named here; the omission of Thummim does not explain a separate operating procedure.
Worth knowing
Moses asks in Numbers 27:17 for a successor who will go out and come in before the people, and lead them out and bring them in. Verse 21 answers with the same movement language under the direction received through priestly inquiry. The repeated wording joins Moses' concern for the flock to the arrangement God provides.
Numbers 27:18-21
King James Version · 4 verses
27:18And the LORD said unto Moses, Take thee Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, and lay thine hand upon him;
27:19And set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation; and give him a charge in their sight.
27:20And thou shalt put some of thine honour upon him, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient.
27:21And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of Urim before the LORD: at his word shall they go out, and at his word they shall come in, both he, and all the children of Israel with him, even all the congregation.
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.
The sentence does not say that the equipment failed. It says the LORD answered him not. Dreams, Urim and prophets are named as channels through which an answer might come, and none provides one. The distinction is decisive: the means of inquiry do not control the one being addressed. A king can command servants to seek information. This answer cannot be commanded.
The silence sits inside a history already heavy with broken relationships. Samuel is dead. Saul has previously ordered the killing of the priests at Nob, while Abiathar escaped to David; 1 Samuel 23 records David receiving answers after calling for the ephod. None of that authorizes an invented account of which priest or replacement object Saul uses here. The verse leaves those mechanics unstated. Its clear assertion is the withheld reply. The next action gives the passage its bitter edge: the man who expelled mediums now orders his servants to find one. The issue is no longer simply lack of information. The chapter places his new inquiry against the very prohibition he had enforced. The Urim's importance is exposed in its silence: it was never a machine for producing a message on demand.
Verse by verse
1. 28:6
  The preceding verse expressly records Saul's fear; no additional private feelings need to be invented.
2. 28:6
  An earlier inquiry also receives no answer in 1 Samuel 14:37, although that verse does not expressly name Urim.
3. 28:6
  The verse identifies the LORD as the one who does not answer; it does not diagnose a broken object.
4. 28:6
  First Samuel 28:3 and 28:7 place Saul's expulsion of mediums beside his subsequent search for one.
Worth knowing
When Saul describes his predicament to Samuel in 1 Samuel 28:15, he mentions unanswered inquiry through prophets and dreams but does not repeat the reference to Urim found in verse 6. The omission is visible in the text. Its reason is not explained, so it should not become evidence for an invented account of his priestly equipment.
1 Samuel 28:6
King James Version · 1 verse
28:6And when Saul enquired of the LORD, the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.
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.
The return from exile includes an unresolved case. Some families claiming priestly descent cannot find their names in the genealogical register, and the governor does not solve the difficulty by treating uncertainty as proof. They are excluded from priestly service and the most holy food pending a decision that a priest with Urim and Thummim could provide. The ruling is restrictive, but it does not accuse them of inventing their ancestry. Missing evidence and demonstrated fraud are not the same thing.
Till there stood up is the phrase that gives the verse its reach. The community has returned, names are being counted, offerings are being gathered, and yet this means of authoritative inquiry is not presently available for the case. Restoration is real without being described as complete in every respect. The verse does not say when the Urim and Thummim disappeared, and it does not report that the awaited priest subsequently settled the matter. Nehemiah 7:65 repeats the same reservation. The ancient provision remains authoritative enough to define the hoped-for resolution, even where that resolution is deferred. The record leaves the case open rather than dressing an unanswered question as an answer.
Verse by verse
1. 2:63
  The disputed genealogical records and exclusion from the priesthood are explained in Ezra 2:61-62.
2. 2:63
  Most holy things refers to restricted sacred food, not a prohibition on eating ordinary meals.
3. 2:63
  The condition does not provide a date for the loss or future recovery of the Urim and Thummim.
4. 2:63
  Nehemiah 7:65 preserves the parallel ruling, including the expectation of a priest with Urim and Thummim.
Worth knowing
Tirshatha is an official title, not the personal name of a priest. Nehemiah 8:9 applies that title to Nehemiah while separately identifying Ezra as priest and scribe. In Ezra 2:63, the distinction matters: the governor can restrict access to the holy food, but the decision envisaged through Urim and Thummim belongs to priestly inquiry.
Ezra 2:63
King James Version · 1 verse
2:63And the Tirshatha said unto them, that they should not eat of the most holy things, till there stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim.

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.

Numbers 25:1-27:23
A Shepherd for the Congregation
Play here
Open song page Read lyrics
1 Samuel 28; 31
The Last Night of Saul
Play here
Open song page Read lyrics
1 Samuel 28
The Witch of Endor
Play here
Open song page Read lyrics

The videos

Every release whose passage falls inside these chapters, playing here.

Saul Seeks the Medium of Endor1 Samuel 28

Nearby

All the objects

Report an error on this page

The Urim and Thummim

The Account of The Urim and Thummim

Put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim

Verse by verse

Exodus 28:30

He put in the breastplate the Urim and the Thummim

Verse by verse

Leviticus 8:8

He shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of Urim

Verse by verse

Numbers 27:18-21

The LORD answered him not

Verse by verse

1 Samuel 28:6

Till there stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim

Verse by verse

Ezra 2:63

Why it matters

The music

A Shepherd for the Congregation

The Last Night of Saul

The Witch of Endor

The videos

Nearby