According to the Biblical description, the twelve jewels in the breastplate were each to be made from specific
minerals, none identical to another, and each of them representative of a specific tribe, whose name was to be inscribed on the stone. According to a rabbinic tradition, the names of the twelve tribes were engraved upon the stones with what is called שָׁמִיר
shamir in Hebrew, which Jewish legend explains to be a small, rare creature which could cut through the toughest surfaces. According to most authorities such as Rabbi
David Kimhi and Rabbi
Jonah ibn Janah,
shamir was a stone stronger than iron, probably
emery which finds its equivalent in the Greek, σμήρις (
smeris). There are different views in
classical rabbinical literature as to the order of the names; the
Jerusalem Targum, for example, argued that the names appeared in the order according to which they were born.
Maimonides describes the jewel stones arranged in four rows, saying that on the first stone belonging to Reuben were also engraved the names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, while on the last stone belonging to Benjamin were also engraved the words "the tribes of God";
kabbalistic writers such as
Hezekiah ben Manoah and
Bahya ben Asher argued that only six letters from each name were present on each stone, together with a few letters from the names of
Abraham,
Isaac, or
Jacob, or from the phrase "[these are] the tribes of Jeshurun", so that there were 72 letters in total (72 being a very significant number in Kabbalistic thought). There was also a different order for the names inscribed on the two "onyx" stones on the High Priest's shoulders. One opinion suggests that the names of the twelve tribes were arranged in groups after their mothers: Leah's six sons aligned one after the other on one stone, with Judah heading this list, followed by Rachel's sons with the names of the concubines' sons interposed between the two sons of Rachel. Unfortunately, the meanings of the Hebrew names for the minerals, given by the
Masoretic Text, are obscure and historically subjected to dispute. Several Greek names for various gems have changed meaning between the classical era and modern times. whereas a more
naturalistic approach suggests that the jewels must have had comparatively
low hardness to be engraved upon. Therefore, this gives an additional clue as to the identity of the minerals. All authors agree that this stone was red. A parallel semantic development occurred in the
Akkadian term
sāmtu ("carnelian"), which derived from
sāmu (also meaning "red"), suggesting that
Odem referred to carnelian. Carnelian was a common gemstone in the surrounding regions of
Egypt and
Mesopotamia. Some modern translations translate this stone as being a
ruby, however rubies were unknown in biblical times. •
Pitdah (פִּטְדָה in the Masoretic Text) /
Topazios (in the Septuagint) – despite the suggestion of some interpreters that it was
topaz, topaz was scarcely known at the time the Book of Exodus was written;
Peridot, a light green semi-precious stone, was found carved into two known
Middle Kingdom scarabs. The word
pitdah is thought to be related to Greek
topazios. •
Bareḳet (בָּרֶקֶת in the Masoretic Text, cf. בָּרְקַת) /
Smaragdos (in the
Septuagint) –
Bareketh etymologically derives from a root meaning 'yellow-green', whence its color.
Smaragdos is
cognate with
emerald, but is somewhat of a
false friend as the Greek term could apply to several different green gems, not just the emerald. Emerald in the stricter modern sense of green
beryl exists locally in Egypt, but was not actively mined until the
Ptolemaic period. Taking into account the implication that
Bareketh was green, there is much to be said for
bareḳet being
green jasper.
Second row •
Nofekh (נֹפֶךְ in the Masoretic Text) /
Anthrax (in the Septuagint) –
Nofekh appears to be a
loan word from the Egyptian term
mfkꜣt, referring to
turquoise, a greenish-blue gemstone. This mineral was most frequently mined in Egypt during the second millennium BCE at the sites of
Serabit el-Khadim and
Gebel Maghara in the
Sinai Peninsula. The
Babylonian Targum and first Jerusalem Targum support this identification, favoring it being green.
Theophrastus mentions the stone
sapphiros as being "dark" and having the "color of
verdigris", as well as being "speckled as of with gold". Theophrastus' description of
sapphiros fits
lapis lazuli. •
Yahalom (יָהֲלֹם in the Masoretic Text) /
Iaspis ἴασπις (in the Septuagint) – in some other places the Septuagint instead has
Beryllios where the Masoretic reads
Yahalom. In the Syriac
Peshitta of the sixth or seventh century (MS. B.21, Inferiore of the Ambrosian Library in Milan, Italy), the word used to describe this stone is ܢܩܥܬܐ = ''naq'atha
, a word which is sometimes transliterated into Arabic as it is pronounced in Aramaic, mainly by Arabic-speaking Christians. Bar-Ali, a 9th-century Arab author, brings down two opinions about this stone, the naq'atha
, saying, by one opinion, that it is "honey-coloured", and by the other opinion that it is "turquoise, a blue-coloured stone". In some versions of the Peshitta, the Aramaic word rendered for the same stone is shabzez
. Other scholars have proposed a variety of quartz, especially the common milky quartz (known for its moon-like whiteness). Spanish Jewish scholar Abraham ibn Ezra says the yahalom'' was a white stone.
Third row ] •
Lešem (לֶשֶׁם in the Masoretic Text) /
Ligurios (in the Septuagint) – the Hebrew name appears to be derived from Egyptian
nšmt, referring to
amazonite. This identification is in contrast to the Septuagint, which identifies it as Greek
liggourrion or
lyngurium. Some scholars have taken to imply that it referred to
amber. Archaeological finds indicating widespread circulation of agate through Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Iran, and the Levant. Agate’s banded appearance and varied coloration made it a prized material for ornamentation, amulets, and seals. •
Aḥlamah (אַחְלָמָה in the Masoretic Text) /
Amethystos (in the Septuagint) –
Aḥlamah is derived from Egyptian
ḫnmt referring to
red jasper, a mineral widely attested in Egypt. The Septuagint's rendering with
amethystos refers to
amethyst, a purple mineral which was believed to protect against
getting drunk from
alcohol (amethyst's name refers to this belief, and literally translates as "not intoxicating"). or to
peridot 12 jewels in the New Testament In the New Testament
Book of Revelation is the description of a
city wall, with each layer of stones in the wall being from a different material; in the original
Koine Greek, the layers are given as
iaspis,
sapphiros,
chalcedon,
smaragdos,
sardonyx,
sardion,
chrysolithos,
beryllos,
topazion,
chrysoprason,
yacinthos,
amethystos. This list appears to be based on the Septuagint's version of the list of jewels in the Breastplate – if the top half of the breastplate was rotated by 180 degrees, and the bottom half turned upside down, with
Onchion additionally swapping places with
Topazion, the lists become remarkably similar; there are only four differences: •
Onchion (literally
onyx) has become
sardonyx (red onyx) •
Anthrax has become
chalcedon (literally meaning
chalcedony, of which
the red variety is the most common).
Anthrax literally means
coal, presumably the red color of burning coal. •
Ligurios has become
chrysoprason. Scholars suspect that
ligurios was a pale yellowish mineral, and although
chrysoprase now refers to a specific gemstone which is generally apple-green in color, in earlier times it referred to gems of a yellowish
leek-green, such as
peridot;
chrysoprase literally means
golden leek. These colors roughly correspond to the sensitivities of the
retinal ganglion cells. (The
retinal ganglia process color by positioning it within a blue to yellow range, and separately positioning it within a red to green range.) == See also ==