“The word thummim has been less easy to interpret.
“The Egyptian radical tum signifies to be shut up, veiled, hidden, dark, obscure. This meaning reappears in the triliterate form of the Semitic Tamam.[73]
“As from the radical aor the Egyptians had made the god of light, so from the radical tum they made the name of the hidden god, the god veiled in darkness and obscurity, who had not manifested himself in the bright vesture of creation—the god Tum, hidden in the silence and darkness of eternity, in opposition or contrast to Horus, the god of the morning of creation, shining in the sunbeams, and glittering in the bright gems of the midnight skies.
“Thus, according to the etymology of these words, we have in the urim the
lights, beams, or rays, and in the thummim the obscurities and shadows, which doubtless passed over the face of the pectoral.… The high-priest grouped the luminous signs according to a system which remained one of the mysteries of the tabernacle. This key alone could give the interpretation of the will of Jehovah, and this may explain the curious episode in the time of the Judges to which allusion has already been made, when we find one of the tribes of Israel hire a Levite to place the ephod and interpret its oracles.”
What rule was followed in interpreting the answers—whether it was formed by grouping all the luminous letters, or only that one which was brightest in the name of each tribe—we know not. We do not even know whether the foregoing explanation is the true one, although we may safely allow that it answers to all the requirements of the Scriptural texts, as well as to the indications of tradition. It is thus that Josephus explains the manner in which the oracles were given by the “rational of judgment,” and well-nigh the whole of Jewish and Christian tradition follows in his steps.
Some have found a difficulty in the thirtieth verse of Exodus xxviii.: “Thou shalt place on the pectoral of judgment the urim and the thummim,[74] which shall be upon the heart of Aaron when he shall come before the Eternal.” But this text opposes no serious difficulty, as it is evident that Moses here speaks of the twelve stones. Besides, he is merely returning upon his subject at the end of a description (as is so frequently the case in the Pentateuch), as if to give a short summary of what he had previously been saying.
We have now, as briefly as may be, to consider the remaining “ornaments
of glory” exclusively appropriated to the high-priest. The tiara, which Moses calls Menizophet, is evidently too well known to those whom he is addressing to need description. We, however, have unfortunately no means of forming from this word any precise idea of its form, and are able only to indicate some of its adjuncts.
The Israelites were familiar with the symbols and rich ornaments which in Egypt characterized the head-dress of the deities and kings; each god and goddess wearing on the head a particular sign indicative of his or her attributes or functions, and consecrated by a long tradition. Among these symbols that of most frequent occurrence is the serpent Uræus, which encircles with its coils the heads of kings, raising broad, inflated chest over the middle of the forehead. The Uræus, by some capricious association, signified the only true and eternal king, of whom all earthly monarchs are but the image and representative incarnation. At the time the Hebrews were in Egypt the form of this serpent had been gradually modified into that of the fleur-de-lys, which we so often find carved on the brow of kings and sphinxes, springing from a fillet at the border of the head-attire. Instead of passing round the head, this fillet is only visible on the forehead, disappearing over the ears in the folds of a kind of veil.