emerald, one of the most beautiful of all the precious stones. It is characterised by a bright green color, with scarcely any mixture, though differing somewhat in degrees. The true Oriental emerald is now very scarce. The best that are at present accessible are from Peru. In the time of Moses they came from India. upon it. They cannot be satisfactorily same with the ancient smaragdos, or identified. We can only approach a probability, more or less strong, that the gems which we now call the topaz, emerald, sapphire, carbuncle, &c., do truly answer to the original terms which they are thus made to represent in English. Our explanations must be taken therefore by the reader subject to the necessary abatement on this score. 1. SARDIUS. Heb. D odem, from adam, to be ruddy or the radical 5. SAPPHIRE. Heb. sappir. Gr. σanpeipos sapphiros. The word is very nearly the same in all known languages, and as to the sapphire itself it is, after the diamond, the most valuable of the gems, exceeding all others in lustre and hardness. It is of a sky-blue, or fine azure color, in all the choicest specimens, though other varieties occur. Indeed among practical jewellers it is a name of wider application perhaps than that of any of the rest of the precious stones. Pliny says that in his time the best sapphires came from Media. At present they are found in greater or less perpfection in nearly every country. 2. TOPAZ. Heb. pitdah. Etymology unknown. Gr. Tomasov, topazion, a name which Pliny says is derived from Topazos, an island in the Red Sea. Chal. yarkan and yarketha, signifying green. It is supposed to be the modern chrysolite, and its color to have been a transparent green-yellow. It comes now from Egypt, where it is found in alluvial strata. 6. DIAMOND. Heb. yahalom, from halam, to beat, to smite upon, so called from its extraordinary hardness, by which like a hammer it will beat to pieces any of the other sorts of stones. Thus the Greeks called the and daμaw, damao, to subdue, on account of its supposed invincible hardness. Accordingly Pliny says of diamonds, that they are found to resist a stroke on the anvil to such a degree that the iron itself gives way and the anvil is 3. CARBUNCLE. Heb. bareketh, | diamond adaμas, adamas, from Gr. a, not from pbarak, to lighten, glitter, or glister; answering to the avopa anth rax, of the Greeks, so called because when held to the sun it resembles a piece of bright burning charcoal. Indeed its name carbuncle means a little coal, and refers us at once to a lively coal-shattered to pieces.' This is no doubt red. Its modern name is the garnet. The Septuagint, Josephus, and Lat. Vulgate have rendered in this place by opapaydos smaragdos, emerald. But this is more properly the rendering of the next in order. The carbuncle and the emerald have in fact in some way become transposed in the Greek version. 4. EMERALD. Heh.nophek. Gr. ανθραξ. This gem is undoubtedly the exaggerated and fabulous, but it is sufficient to justify the propriety of the He. brew name, that diamonds are much harder than other precious stones, and in this all are agreed. This quality of the diamond, together with its incomparable brilliancy, renders it by far the most valuable of all the gems. The Gr. here has taσnis jaspis, or jasper. 7. LIGURE. Heb. 3 leshem. Gr. and an onyx, and a jasper: they | 25 And the other two ends of the shall be set in gold in their enclos ings. 21 And the stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names, like the engravings of a signet; every one with his name shall they be according to the twelve tribes. 22 ¶ And thou shalt make upon the breast-plate chains at the ends of wreathen work of pure gold. 23 And thou shalt make upon the breast-plate two rings of gold, and shalt put the two rings on the two ends of the breast-plate. 24 And thou shalt put the two wreathen chains of gold in the two rings which are on the ends of the breast-plate. Ayvpiov, ligurion. This is one of the most doubtful of the precious stones as to color. It is supposed to be closely related to the hyacinth (jacinth) of the moderns, which is a red strongly tinged with orange-yellow. two wreathen chains thou shalt fasten in the two ouches, and put them on the shoulder-pieces of the ephod before it. 26 And thou shalt make two rings of gold, and thou shalt put them upon the two ends of the breast-plate in the border thereof, which is in the side of the ephod inward. 27 And two other rings of gold thou shalt make, and shalt put them on the two sides of the ephod underneath, toward the fore-part thereof, over against the other coupling thereof, above the curions gírdle of the ephod. 28 And they shall bind the breastplate by the rings thereof unto the if, as many mineralogists and critics suppose, the beryl is the same as the chrysolite, it is a gem of yellowish green color, and ranks at present among the topazes. 11. ONYX. Heb. shoham; called onyx from Gr. ovvč, onyx, from its resemblance of its ground color to that lunated spot at the base of the human nail, which the Greek word signifies. It is a semi-pellucid stone of a fine 8. AGATE. Heb. 12 shebo. Gr. axarns, achates, agate. This is a stone of a great variety of hues, which is thought by some to be identical with the chrysopras, and if so it is probably that a golden green was the predomin-flinty texture, of a waterish sky-colored ant color. ground, variegated with bands of white and brown, which run parallel to each other. It is here rendered by the Gr. ẞnpyλov, beryllion, beryl, from some apparent confusion in the order of the names. See Note on Gen. 2. 12. 12. JASPER. Heb. yashepheh. 9. AMETHYST. Heb. п ahlamah. Gr. apetvoros, amethystos, from a, not, and petvoros, drunken, because wine drank from an amethyst cup was supposed by the ancients to prevent inebriation. The oriental amethyst is a transparent gem, the color of which | Gr. ovuxiov, onuchion. The similarity seems to be composed of a strong blue and a deep red; and according as either prevails, affording different tinges of purple, and sometimes even fading to a rose color. It comes from Persia, Arabia, Armenia, and the East Indies. 10. BERYL. Heb. tarshish. Gr. Xovoodidos, chrysolithos. A pellucid gem of a sea or bluish green. But of the Hebrew name has determined most critics to consider the jasper as the gem intended by this designation. This is a stone distinguished by such a vast variety of hues, that it is extremely hazardous to fix upon any one as its distinguishing color. The brown Egyptian variety is conjectured to have been the one selected for the Breast-plate. The annexed cut, conformed to the | lish name we consider as unfortunately usual model, will convey a tolerably chosen. Pectoral, i. e. breast-plate is correct idea of the general form and ap- decidedly preferable. Josephus calls pearance of the Breast-plate. The Eng-it Essen. THE BREAST-PLATE. which probably involves the complex idea of the stones corresponding with the names in number, and also of having the names actually sculptured upon them. 21. And the stones shall be with the | the names of the children of Israel,' names. Heb. al shemoth, upon the names. The more natural and direct phraseology would be the names shall be upon the stones,' but the expression is idiomatic, and probably implies that the stones should be accompanied or distinguished by the names; or we may adopt the construction of Noldius (De Heb. Partic. sub voc. 3) and all the ancient versions, and render it'the stones shall be according to 28. Unto the rings of the ephod. Of these two rings nothing was said in the account of the construction of the Ephod above; probably because the use of them would not so fully appear till the Breast-plate and its position came to rings of the ephod with a lace of blue, that it may be above the curious girdle of the ephod, and that the breast-plate be not loosed from the ephod. 29 And Aaron shall bear the be described as is done in the present context. names of the children of Israel in the breast-plate of judgment upon his heart, when he goeth in unto the holy place, p for a memorial before the LORD continually. P ver. 12. cominitted to him as their representative, and that he should never cease to feel burdened in soul with this grave responsibility, especially whenever he was called to act in his capacity as sacerdotal judge of the chosen tribes. In this fact we are no doubt at liberty to read one very interesting feature of the typical intent of the jewelled Breastplate. The priesthood of Aaron shadow glorious priesthood of Christ. In the execution of his office as the great High Priest of the Church, he was ordained to enter into the holy place, there to appear in the presence of God for us. This he has done. He ascended to heaven after his resurrection, that he might there complete the work he had begun on earth. On his heart are engraven the names of all his people, and not one of them is overlooked or forgotten. He presents them all before his Father, as the objects of his own 29. Aaron shall bear the names, &c., in the breast-plate of judgment upon his heart. The phrase 'upon his heart' is not properly to be understood in this connexion in a physical sense, as if equivalent to ' upon his breast,' 'upon his bosom.' This is not the usage of the Hebrew in regard to the word 'heart.' After a pretty thorough ex-ed forth the infinitely greater and more amination of the many hundreds of cases in which the term occurs in the sacred writers, we have not been able to find a single instance, apart from the present, in which it is unequivocally employed in a physiological sense, to denote that grand organ of the human body which anatomists call the heart.' The passage which comes nearest to such a sense is that in Is. 1. 5, 'The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.' Yet even here the metaphorical sense is predominant; for as the sickness is not corporeal, but moral, so the mem-kind and solicitous sympathy and care, bers affected are to be considered as equally figurative. According to the prevailing usage of Scripture, the heart is regarded as the seat of intelligence and emotion. The feelings of love, hope, fear, joy, sorrow, &c., are refer red to the heart; and in the presenting them to adorn his diadem forever in case we cannot question that although the kingdom of his glory. as a matter of fact the Breast-plate was worn over the region of the heart, yet the dominant idea conveyed by the phrase is, that Aaron was to bear these names of the tribes in his kind and affectionate remembrance whenever he went into the holy place. The beautiful sculptured gems were to be to him a memorial or memento of the fact that the interests of the whole people were and they are dear to the Father, because they are dear to the Son. As he thus bears these his jewels on his heart while they are toiling and travailing here below, so will he finally transfer them from his bosom to his head, mak But this does not forbid the supposition, that in relation to God the stones of the Breast-plate may have subserved still another purpose. Certain it is that the whole scope of the context leads us to view them as indicating not only the subjects, but also the instruments, of those judicial decisions about which they were employed. They were in some way made use of as a medium of the oracular responses which the High Priest obtained by consultation from Jehovah in behalf of the Jewish people. But as this presents them in a distinct point of view, as intimately connected, if not absolutely identified, with the Urim and Thummim, we shall defer the sequel of our remarks on the Breast-plate till we come to the consideration of that very interesting but abstruse subject. In the mean time, we cannot forbear presenting the reader with the following translated extract from the work of Bähr before mentioned, in relation to the joint symbolical uses of the Ephod and the Breast-plate. Το and I would do him justice!' 1 Kings, 'The Ephod and the Hoshen or Pectoral, which formed the third general division of the High Priest's vestments, and signified the kingly dignity, do not stand in subordinate relation the one to the other, so that the Hoshen was merely an appendage to the Ephod, but they are both treated in the orig. inal as independent articles, yet at the same time making together one whole. The dignity also which they represent, must be in some way of a two-fold nature, or which exhibits itself under a double aspect; and thus in fact was the kingly dignity, both among the Hebrews and all oriental antiquity conceived of, viz., as uniting in itself the two grand prerogatives of lordship and judgment. Thus, 1 Sam. 8. 5, 6, 'And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing dis-key of the house of David will I lay pleased Samuel, when they said, Give upon his shoulder; so he shall open, us a king to judge us: and Samuel and none shall shut; and he shall shut, prayed unto the Lord.' So also 20, and none shall open.' That the sword "That we also may be like all the na- hung from the shoulder among the tions; and that our king may judge us, Greeks and Romans, will be seen by and go out before us, and fight our bat-reference to Hom. Il. 2. 45. Lipsius in tles.' 2 Sam. 15. 4, 'Absalom said moreover, Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, Tac. Annal. 1. 35. As to what relates to the judicial prerogative, we need not go beyond the designation given in the original to the Breast-plate, viz., |