The Seventh Stone of the Breastplate
The seventh stone of the Breastplate is given as Lesham, variously rendered as Ligure, Agate, Jacinth, Hyacinth, Amber, Sapphire, Turquoise, Opal. The gem needed must, according to Dr. E. G. Hirsch, be “brilliant and of intense lustre.” The Midrash says that the stone was “white like the colour of antimony.” The colour in the Midrash Bemidbah is given as sapphire blue, and by astrological authorities generally as dark crimson or tawny. The sign is the airy home of the planet Venus: and its colour can be more correctly gauged from the colours identified with the planet itself, which are given as follows: yellow, lemon yellow and pale blue, art tints in general, white and purple, white and shining, white in the morning, reddish in the evening, changeable, etc., Gesenius translates LESHAM as Opal, and Dr. M. H. Breslau accepts his reading as correct. The Opal is given for the seventh stone in translations from the Hebrew Bible, and this is most probably the correct one. This beautiful gem was in great repute in ancient times, and Pliny in lauding its charms tells us that it was found in India, Egypt, Cyprus, Thasos and other places. It is found recorded on Antique Clay Tablets whereon is impressed catalogues of treasures taken from conquered cities. Its softness and delicacy rendered it easy to cut and carve, and specimens of opal intagli have been found. Mr. King mentions one in the Praun collection, of mediocre antique Roman work which was engraved with the heads of Jupiter, Apollo and Diana surrounded by nine stars. The same author mentions a big opal set in a quabalistically inscribed ring of gold with astrological symbols. The midrashic “white like the colour of antimony” may fairly describe a common variety of opal. Antimony is a brittle flaky metal of bluish-white colour and crystalline texture. No gem can exhibit “the brilliant and intense lustres” more than the precious opal which is not only brilliant and lusterful but beautiful, tender and comprehensive of all the colours of the rainbow. What gem can answer so to the Talmudic identification of the qualities of Venus, viz., Splendour? The Venus of Libra is more ethereal than the Venus of Taurus and is well presented in the charming statue of the Venus of Medici, that of Taurus being expressed in the figure known as the Venus of Milo. This ethereal Venus is the immaculate glorious woman whose absolute beauty the greatest poets, writers, painters, sculptors and musicians have striven to express in words, in form, in colour and in sound. Thus is Venus the noble cogency of divine pure love which has been striving through all the ages to make the world a paradise and to bring man back again to the Eden he has lost. No blood sacrifices stained the altars of this lovely goddess, and the ancients delighted in bringing to her temples sweet blossoms and fragrant spices for incense. So great was the charm and wonder of this Heavenly One that Momus, the god of Sarcasm, who spared neither god nor man, died of vexation because he could find in her nothing to ridicule, nothing to blame, nothing to jeer at, for before such pure beauty criticism and ridicule must be mute. As Venus Urania she arises amidst the foam of the sea (the occult import serving but to intensify the beauty of the legend) with a blue sky above her head and peaceful sunlit waters at her feet, a symbol of that eternal love which unites the elements and spreads the lustre of true harmony wherever are to be found those wise enough to know it. Socrates wrote that he was uncertain whether there was one Aphrodite or two, and doubtless the philosopher recognized the various phases of the goddess when blended with, or corrupted by, anything less than the conception of pure idealism in all its expressions. The ancients called the opal “Cupid”—a worthy tribute to the sublime beauty of his glorious mother. One might compare the opal to the union of Thaumas (Wonder), the Son of the Earth, with Electra (Brightness), a daughter of Oceanus, and with their child Iris (Rainbow).
Rare Opals
Kelsey I. Newman Collection
Issachar is the tribe of the Balance, “an ass bending between two burdens.” The ass in the East today as it was in the days of the Bible is regarded as an emblem of constancy, patience, endurance and stolidity, and frequent allusion is made to it in sacred writings: “Speak, ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk by the way.” (Judges 5. 10.) Josephus replies with vigour to the assertion of Apion that the Jews worshipped an ass’s head. In the mythology of the Egyptians the good and evil essences are symbolised by two wild asses, and mention is made in “The Book of the Dead” of the duel between the ass and its “eater,” the night serpent. The ass also as a symbolic animal of Jupiter represented Justice in the ancient world, hence its association with the Balance becomes clear. The tribe Issachar, this “servant of tribute,” is symbolic of absolute truth for “a false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight.” (Prov. 11. 1.), and “He that speaketh truth showeth forth righteousness: but a false witness deceit.” (Prov. 12. 17.) The entry of the Son of the Virgin into Jerusalem—the city of Virgo—riding on an ass, as told in that chapter of parables, Matthew 21, is not devoid of symbolic meaning. Hermes or Thoth is the recorder of the scales in the Egyptian Hall of Judgment and he may also be said to ride upon the scales for the sign Libra follows the sign of the Virgin. Libra has been described as the most sensitive sign of the Zodiac, the opal is its ideal gem and the opal is the gem for the seventh division of the Breastplate and on it was engraved the tribe of Dan.
The Eighth Stone of the Breastplate
The eighth stone of the Breastplate is Shebo, rendered as Agate by the Authorised Version, the Vulgate, Marbodus and others.
Gesenius gives the derivation of Shebo from a root which means “to take prisoner,” and his illustrious pupil, Julius Fürst, connects it with a root meaning “to glitter.” Dr. Deane derives it from another meaning “to obscure, to dull,” and expresses the opinion that the problem “cannot be solved by etymology alone.” He believes SHEBO to be some variety of crystallised quartz. Dr. Breslau in translating SHEBO as Agate has good supporters. The variety known as Banded agreeably fits in with the demands of the planet Mars through the sign of its expression Scorpio, termed the sign of the Serpent. Its wavy lines typify the undulations of the serpent, the lines of a fortress or the restless waves of the sea. The opinion has been expressed that SHEBO may have some connection with the Indian Serpent of the Underworld—Sesha or Shesha, and the connection may be further extended to the huge serpent which slays and is slain by Thor as told in the Song of Vala.
The sign Scorpio is in astrology the sign of death, the dead and all connected therewith. It is expressed by the Serpent of Eden in that magical third chapter of Genesis, a chapter that has demanded the special study of mystical philosophers for ages. The sign Scorpio is also symbolized in the person of the goddess Serket, pictured as a human-headed scorpion or as a goddess with scorpion head-dress. She protected the Canopic Jars which contained the embalmed viscera of the departed. Aesculapius, the god of medicine, was worshipped under the form of a serpent at Epidaurus, and in the Vatican statue he is represented leaning on a staff around which is coiled a serpent; statues of his daughter Hygieia show her with a serpent in different attitudes. In those and numerous other serpent stories all associated with the sign Scorpio to a greater or lesser degree, the majesty and the mystery of life and death are philosophically implied.
The traditional colour of the sign Scorpio is given as brown, a shade of brown well describes the agate stone. The Midrash Bemidbah gives gray which, though not in agreement with other authorities, certainly does indicate a species of Agate.