Talking With God

In biblical times there was a peculiar apparatus that the Israelite High Priest wore. It consisted of a robe to which was attached to an apron-like garment called an ephod. Fastened on the ephod was a breast-piece, which contained twelve precious and semiprecious stones in front and two more at the shoulders. In a pocket of the breast-piece were two items called the urim and thummim, abnay zeekawrone in Hebrew.

There are many ideas about the purpose and function of the ephod’s urim and thummim, but the Bible says little. The urim are mentioned a grand total of four times in the Five Books of Moses and only three more times elsewhere. (I distinguish between the Five Books and the others because there is no evidence that the ephod operated after King David‘s reign.) The thummim are found three times in the Five Books, twice elsewhere.

The first two mentions, Exodus 28:30 and Leviticus 8:8, are simply directions to put the two objects into the breast-piece. As we go through the references, note the recurring theme of talking with God.

“And you will put in the breast-piece of judgment the urim and thummim, and they will be on Aaron’s breast when he goes in before the Lord; and Aaron will carry the judgment of the Israelites on his heart before the Lord continually.” (Exodus 28:30)

In the third reference, the Bible says that when the Lord told Moses to appoint Joshua as his successor, He said, “And before Eleazer the priest he [Joshua] will stand and he will ask of him after the judgment of urim before the Lord.” (Numbers 27:21) Again, notice communication with the Lord.

Finally, when Moses blessed each of the tribes before he died, he said of the tribe of Levi, “Your thummim and your urim (be) with your pious one.” (Deuteronomy 33:8) While there are several ways to interpret the passage, the gist is simply the hope that the urim and thummim should remain in responsible hands.

That’s it for the urim and thummim in the Five Books. Not until 1 Samuel 28:6 are they mentioned again. There Saul, the first king of Israel, tried to communicate with the Lord after disobeying Him. “And Saul inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him, neither by dreams, nor by urim, nor by the prophets.” The only other references are identical ones in Ezra 2:63 and Nehemiah 7:65, which shed no light on their use or characteristics.

Let’s go to the original Hebrew abnay zeekawrone for a moment. Zeekawrone comes from the verb zawchar, meaning “to remember,” which is why most translators use “stones of memorial” to translate urim and thummim. However, zeekawrone also significantly means “to mention.” (There’s the communication theme again.) Genesis 40:14 uses both meanings in Joseph’s statement to Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer: “If you remember (z’chartanee) me … mention (v’heez’kartanee) me … to Pharaoh.” In Exodus 23:13 the Lord commanded, “The name of other gods you will not mention (tazkeerroo); it will not be heard out of your mouth.”

Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian-soldier (38-100 CE), described the ephod with its urim and thummim as communicating by having its stones light up in a sequence to answer questions to it. (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book 3, chapter 8, section 9) Whether or not Josephus was right about the system, the question arises: What does that have to do with “stones of memorial” as they are traditionally translated?

Derivation

Due to the sparseness of these scriptural references, it is difficult to get at the derivation of urim and thummim. There have, however, been many attempts. For example, The Jewish Encyclopedia says that they are probably adaptations of the words urtu, meaning “command, order, decision,” and tamitu, meaning “oracle,” found in the Babylonian Tablets of Destiny as items that rest on the breast of a god. (Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 12, 385) Another popular translation is “lights and perfections.” The concept of light is from the Hebrew word oor, meaning “fire” or “light,” oorim simply being the plural. In Ugaritic, ar means “light” and ur means “heat.” Urru is the same word in Assyrian and perhaps even ra, meaning both “sun” and the sun god of Egypt. Thummim is related to a group of words, including tawm, tome, and tawmim, all of which are said to derive from the root tmm. The general meaning of these words is “finish, make an end, perfect” or “to complete something.” Similarly, the Ugaritic tm means “entire, whole, completion,” and the same tm in the Egyptian means “complete, entire.” (Ugaritic: Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 153. Egyptian: Faulkner, Dictionary of Middle Egyptian. Also see Koehler and Baumgartner, et. al., Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon, 1742–50.)

Similar words in ancient Assyrian and Babylonian bear out the communicative notion. There the primary meaning of the word zakaru (long noted as a relative of Hebrew) rests in the idea of communication. In the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary there are six basic meanings: (Gelb, Landsberger, and Oppenheim, eds., Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, vol.21, 16–22, from Old Akkadian, Old Babylonian on).

1. “to declare,” as in “to declare under oath,” “to make mention”
2. “to invoke,” as in to invoke “the name of a deity” or “to name, as king”
3. “to speak”
4. “to name, proclaim”
5. “to mention, to invoke, to name”
6. “to take an oath”

The Ugaritic word zg translates as “to make a sound: and “lowed.” (Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook Glossary, 403,393. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 149.) The Arabic zagzaga means “spoke faintly.” The g is roughly pronounced cha.

I could also demonstrate that there are Egyptian words with similar meanings, and in Talking With God I do. Here I will just say that the prevalent speak/communicate meaning of similar sounding words in these ancient languages persuades me that zawchar is a very ancient concept. I make that point because understanding of the original meanings of words became unclear or forgotten over time leading to the traditional translations we know today. Case in point: The age of the similar foreign words indicates that instead of abnay zeekawrone meaning “stones of memorial,” it could have originally meant “stones of communication/mention.” The modern translation, “stones of memorial,” has clouded modern understanding of the purpose of the stones though it was perfectly clear at the time they were in use. The persistent legends and ancient histories regarding the stones’ oracular nature suddenly take on a more logical meaning.

Here’s my take: The Bible is indicating that the priest wore the ephod as a sort of portable walkie talkie for communicating with the Lord when they were away from the main communication device, the ark of the testimony. The urim and thummim, deriving from the ideas of light and completion respectively, were the on and off switches. The urim would turn on the stones in the ephod to communicate by signal, and the thummim would turn them off when communication was finished.

To learn more about Talking With God: The Radioactive Ark of the Testimony. Communication Through It. Protection From It. by Roger D. Isaacs, order your copy at TalkingWithGod.net.

Was the story of the Israelites fleeing Egypt after years of slavery history or myth? Were there really 10 plagues that became so progressively terrible that they forced the Pharaoh to finally release all the Israelite slaves? Was there really a leader named Moses, and did he guide this “mixed multitude” for 40 years in the wilderness of the Sinai desert? These questions have puzzled biblical scholars, archeologists, and all those interested in solving one of the Old Testament’s most intriguing mysteries.

Passover is the Jewish festival that celebrates the flight of the Israelites out of Egypt. During this Passover season it is particularly pertinent to wonder, did the Exodus really happen?

Clues and speculations abound regarding alleged items of evidence discovered for the Exodus, and nearly all have their champions and detractors. It seems that every time a theory is proposed and the Exodus mystery appears to be solved, it is quickly shot down for one reason or another.

Nevertheless, ongoing archeological and etymological investigations into the Exodus have produced some tantalizing items and scholarship. Presented for your consideration are Exhibits 1–4. Read and wonder…

Exhibit 1: The Ipuwer Papyrus. How could plagues described in an Egyptian papyrus be so similar to those found in the Bible?

In the early 1800’s, a papyrus was found in Egypt called The Admonitions of an Egyptian. It is now in the Leiden Museum in Holland. An Egyptian named Ipuwer wrote it at the end of the Middle Kingdom, around 1650 B.C.E.; scribes copied it in the 19^th Dynasty, in the 1200’s B.C.E. Below are some of the amazingly similar plagues described in both the Ipuwer papyrus and the Bible. (The biblical plagues befell the Egyptians at the time of Moses and the Exodus, which has been dated sometime between 1570 to 1290 B.C.E.)

*Admittedly this biblical reference about hair falling out occurs after both the writing of Ipuwer and the flight out of Egypt. However, I include it here because in my book, Talking With God: The Radioactive Ark of the Testimony., I explain that the cloud that settled on the ark was radioactive, and one of the effects of close contact was hair loss. Mysteries abound!

The disparity of the dates between the Ipuwer and Exodus documents is enough to convince many scholars that no relation exists between the two. In addition, prevalent theory now claims the papyrus is simply ahistorical. Be that as it may, the similarities are striking, and why they are remains a mystery. Could it be that the scribes who copied the document at the time of the Exodus were experiencing similar calamities to the earlier ones and were using Ipuwer’s words to warn the present-day Pharaoh?

Exhibit 2: The Israelites’ Travel Itinerary and the Egyptian Maps. Did the cities the Israelites camped in on their way to Canaan really exist?

One of the most contentious problems regarding the Exodus investigation is the fact that there is no archeological evidence for various places mentioned in the biblical travel itinerary of the Israelites as they fled Egypt for the Promised Land, Canaan. In an article in the September/October 1994 issue of Biblical Archaeological Review, Charles R. Krahmalkov, then Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Languages at the University of Michigan, points out that various scholars have used this explanation to “reject the entire story” of Israel’s origins, and therefore the Exodus.

However, Krahmalkov discusses a number of biblical sites that appear to be corroborated by Egyptian sources. Among them are Dibon (Numbers 13:45), a city where the Israelites’ camped on their way to invade Canaan, and Hebron (Numbers 13:22), another city targeted for invasion.

Krahmalkov concedes the lack of archaeological evidence, but he points out that the Egyptians thoroughly mapped these sites, as well as a number of other regions mentioned in the Bible. The mapping was done in the Late Bronze age, in Dynasties XVIII and XIX (according to his dating, 1560–1200 B.C.E. He dates the Exodus in the range of 1400–1200 B.C.E.). Also include are the cities of Iyyn and Abel (biblical Abel Shittim) both in Numbers 13: 45–50; Yom haMelach (Numbers 34:3); and Athar (Hebrew Atharim) (Numbers 21:1). The maps survive in list form, and they are found on the temple walls of ancient Egyptian kings. Since they are documented in the most important extra-biblical source—Egypt—the evidence is strong that these cities indeed existed at the time of the Exodus.

Exhibit 3: Aper-el’s Tomb. Was there a Hebrew advisor to Egyptian kings at the time of the Exodus?

In 1987, searchers rediscovered a tomb in the Saqqara region of Egypt belonging to a man they call Aper-el. They say his name is an Egyptian version of a Hebrew name. Aper-el was vizier to the famous Amenhotep III (1370–1293 B.C.E., 18^th Dynasty) and later to his son, the monotheistic king Akhenaten. They dated the tomb around 1353–1335 B.C.E., but there is something of mystery here.

The tomb was originally discovered by the legendary archeologist Sir Flinders Petrie in the 1880’s. He copied an inscription that spells the vizier’s name Aperia. I don’t know if the 1987 team found other inscriptions with the -el ending, but -el would be the equivalent of Elohim, one of the terms for God in the Bible. The ending -ia would indicate Ya, short for YHWH or Yaweh, the other biblical name for God, generally translated “Lord.” (Think the familiar Halleluya, Hebrew for “praise the Lord.”)

It is tantalizing to wonder if Aper-el/Aperia was indeed a Hebrew advisor to the young king Akhenaten. If so, did Aper-el/Aperia influence Akhenaten’s thinking toward monotheism? In any case, it would place a Hebrew advisor to the kings within the range of years claimed for the Exodus just as Joseph was to an Egyptian king hundreds of years earlier. In the book of Genesis, Joseph rose from captive to be second only to the Pharaoh, and he was empowered to save Egypt from starvation during a seven-year drought. It isn’t known how Aperel/Aperia got there!

Exhibit 4: Is the name of the Hebrew midwife in Exodus the same as that of a slave mentioned in an ancient Egyptian papyrus?

The Brooklyn Museum has a papyrus, possibly from Thebes, with a list of slaves from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, about 1740 bce. It includes a slave named Shiphra and others with Semitic names. In the Bible, a Hebrew woman with the same name, Shiphra, was one of two midwives the Pharaoh commissioned to kill all the male Hebrew children at the time Moses was born (Exod. 1:15). She didn’t. Since by that time all Hebrews had been put into servitude by the Pharaoh, the midwife Shiphra would also have been a slave. The fact that the name Shiphra is found in both the Bible and the papyrus indicates that the name and the woman’s condition of slavery were familiar to both Israelites and Egyptians.

The mystery continues

Although the comparisons between the Ipuwer Papyrus and the Bible are tantalizing, Ipuwer alone does not provide absolute evidence for the Exodus and the Passover. For that matter it can’t even account for the existence of the Israelites.

While there is little tangible archeological evidence and until the mystery is finally solved, we are left to rely on the venerable Passover service to connect us to our past at this holiday season. We must be content to repeat the most pertinent of the famous “Four Questions,” which the youngest at the table asks on the first night:

“Why is this night different from all other nights?”

Facts about what really happened to the Israelites can be found in the new book Talking with God. The Radioactive Ark Of The Testimony. Communication Through It. Protection From It. by Roger D. Isaacs. Available at Amazon. Join our ongoing investigation of Old Testament mysteries at TalkingWithGod.net.

Rosh Hashanah is called the Jewish New Year, and this year it begins at sundown, September 28th. The words Rosh Hashanah (head of the year) are not found in the Five Books of Moses at all. They are used just once and that is in Ezekiel 40:1, but there it is only in reference to a Jubilee year, not a New Year. The ordinance that is called Rosh Hashanah today is found in Leviticus 23:24. It is in the seventh month, called Tishri:

“And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the Israelites, saying in the seventh month on the first of the month you will have a Sabbath…a holy gathering. You will do no work of service….’ ”

The actual Jewish New Year, that is the first day of the first month, is ordained in Exodus 12:2 and refers to the month of Nisan:

“And the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron in the land of Egypt…This month shall be the head of months Rosh Chadoshim) for you. It will be the first of the months of the year for you.”

The day now called Rosh Hashanah has come to be a day leading to the holiday of Yom Kippur, which is traditionally observed as a time of self-examination and repentance. But that wasn’t its original purpose as described in the Bible. Its original purpose was to be a day of rest. One of seven rest days prescribed in the Bible, the others included Passover (Pesach), the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Chag Hamatzot), the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot), the Festival of Booths (Succot), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and the Sabbath day.

It is interesting that almost no online references to Rosh Hashanah refer to the biblical ordinance, but are overwhelmingly concerned with its later significance.

Why rest days? The clue is found in the law concerning the Sabbath day as found in the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:4. There the Lord commanded:

“Remember the Sabbath day, to sanctify it. Six days you will work…But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. In it you will not do any work, you, your son and your daughter, your man servant, your maid servant, nor your cattle nor the sojourner within your gates. Because in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day….”

There was a reason given why the Lord rested and why humans and work animals were also to rest. It is a fascinating reason, and it is detailed in my book Talking with God: The Radioactive Ark Of The Testimony. Available at Amazon. Join the ongoing investigation of the Old Testament’s puzzling questions at TalkingWithGod.net.

Read my latest article exploring the puzzle of the word “glory.” In it I ask how the biblical glory changed from a dangerous substance to “praise for the Lord.” I’d enjoy reading your thoughts.

Source

This question came to me from Debby, and it’s an interesting one. See what you think.

Roger:

I’m still reading your book but very often while looking up specific passages in my Bible, I get sidetracked.  Case in point:  After consulting Lev. 13 to see the NIV translation compared to your account of radiation burn, I ended up continuing through Lev. 14 to find the treatment for it.  And though I agree that radiation burn symptoms as you describe them are similar to what’s described in the 13th chapter, the cleansing process in the 14th chapter fall back into the “hocus pocus” category for me.  That’s where guilt offerings, wave offerings or sin offerings, come into play – with priests required to dip one finger into oil and then touch an earlobe, or kill one bird and let the other one fly away.  These things seem irrational in my rational world and I don’t see how this procedure would cleanse anyone of anything…

Here’s my answer.

Debby:

Once again you wonder about a significant question. Are the various sacrifices mentioned in my Chapter 10 pp 228-274, which are part of the cleansing (protection) process simply irrational “hocus pocus?”

My answer would be to suggest more “hocus pocus.”

Believe it or not a tiny white sphere, taken into your stomach:

• Will stop nausea caused by a mysterious radioactive machine (x-ray for radiation therapy). (Ondansetron).
• Will protect your body from heart attack (Lipitor).
• Will bring down your high blood pressure (Furosemide).
• Will make your blood more normal (Potassium, prevents low levels).
• Will return your arrhythmic heart to an even rhythm (Amidarone).
• Will make your head stop hurting (Aspirin).
• And:

  Will protect you from radioactivity!!  See  this recent article.

A tiny white sphere (pill)? Impossible!

And think of all those clear liquids that get squirted into your arm to protect you from so many terrible diseases. Miracles?

So just because we don’t know the mechanics of how the biblical systems worked doesn’t mean they didn’t (or did). Maybe someday it will all come clear!

Now also, in case you feel that answer is unsatisfactory, take a look at the incense study I did (Chapter 9, pp. 184-201). It shows how what many have understood to be only hocus pocus and “smell goods” was actually chemically designed for protection against radiation burn. I believe other such studies, say into your Leviticus 14 question, may clear up longstanding misunderstandings. And the powerful tool of etymology might again come to our aid in getting to the facts.

Thanks, Debby, for another excellent question!