Priestly breastplate

Hebrew Bible

The jewels

First row

• Odem / Sardios – both names mean red, and probably refers to sard, a very common stone in classical cultures. All authors agree that this stone was of a red colour. With due respect to the Septuagint, Odem might also refer to carnelian, which was flesh-coloured, or to jasper, which was usually a deep blood-red, was valued as a charm against bleeding, and was common in the surrounding nations of Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria. The Chinese Union Version refers to this stone as being a ruby.
• Pit'dah / Topazios – despite the suggestion of the Septuagint that it was topaz, topaz was scarcely known at the time the Book of Exodus was written ; in the classical era, topazios referred to Topazos Island, on which a particular yellow mineral was mined. Others suggest that topaz was merely peridot, a light green semi-precious stone, and which stone in the ancient world was found primarily on Topazos Island as well as on St. John's Island in the Egyptian Red Sea. The word pit'dah is thought by scholars to be connected with the Assyrian word hipindu, which refers to something that flashed, and thus the jewel in question would fit the description of chrysolite, a translucent greenish yellow mineral, common throughout the Levant, and particularly found on a particular Zabargad in the Red Sea, under the control of the Egyptian Pharaoh.
• Bareḳet / Smaragdos – Bareketh etymologically means 'lightning flash', whence shimmering or shiny. Smaragdos is cognate with emerald, but is somewhat of a false friend as the Greek term could apply to a number of different green gems, not just the emerald in particular. Smaragdos was often used in Greek literature to refer to an intensely bright crystal found in columnar formations. Emerald in the stricter modern sense of green beryl exists locally in Egypt. Items carved from emerald are known from as early as the 12th Dynasty, 1900s BCE, during the Bronze Age. But these emeralds are random finds, and not actively mined until the Ptolemaic period. Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemies, is famous for her love for the Egyptian emerald. Other minerals resembling emerald are heliodor and rock crystal ; there is much to be said for Smaragdos being either of those. Although "emerald" is the most common form used to describe the Hebrew word, bareḳet, in other sources, the word bareḳet is rendered as "onyx". Aquilas the proselyte, in his Aramaic translation of the Pentateuch, writes בָרקָן = barḳan, for this word. According to the Midrash Rabba, the stone called bareḳet had veins or parallel bands of colours white, black and red running through it, suggesting that it may have actually been a kind of agate or onyx. This may explain why in some French translations the word is rendered as "agate". In the South Arabian dialect spoken in Yemen during the Middle Ages, baḳarani was an exceptionally beautiful and rare onyx stone mined on Mount Anis, in Yemen, one variety of which having a red surface with a vein of white over another of black running through it. Symmachus, an ancient Jewish translator whose Greek translation of the Pentateuch appeared in Origen's Hexapla, has also written κεραύνιος, literally meaning ‘of a thunderbolt’, and a more direct translation of the stone known in Hebrew as bareḳet relating to baraḳ ‘lightning’ in Exodus 28:17. Jerome, however, understood the Greek word to mean "onyx".

  Second row

• Nofekh / Anthrax – while Anthrax simply means coal, the Vulgate here has Carbunculus, referring to the carbuncle, which was red. Philo of Alexandria, when writing about this stone, says that it was red. He seems to be in agreement with Josephus, the LXX, and the Jerusalem Targum, the latter saying that it is כדכדנא, explained by Saadia Gaon as meaning karkand, a red variety of precious stone. Nofekh appears to be a loan word; it may derive from the Egyptian term m-f-k-t, referring to malachite or turquoise, both of which are a greenish blue; it may instead derive from lupakku, a term appearing in the Amarna letters, referring to a mineral of unknown colour which was sent in tribute to Akhnaten from Ashkalon. In classical rabbinical literature there is some debate between whether Nofekh was red or greenish blue; Exodus Rabbah and the second Jerusalem Targum favour it being red, while the Babylonian Targum and first Jerusalem Targum favour it being green.
• Sapir / Sapphiros – despite appearing to refer to sapphire, sapphire was essentially unknown before the era of the Roman Empire and its use in Greek texts is believed to be a mere transliteration of the Hebrew. Once it became more known, it was treated as merely being a form of hyacinth or of jacinth. It is more likely that the term Sapir referred to a mineral of similar colour to sapphires, and that the name gradually came to refer to the latter mineral, on account of its colour; scholars think the most likely candidate is lapis lazuli, a stone with a deep, ocean-blue colour which was frequently sent as a gift to Akhenaten from Babylon. Theophrastus mentions the stone sapphirus as being "dark" and having the "colour of verdigris", as well as being "speckled as of with gold". By all accounts, his description fits the lapis-lazuli.
• Yahalom / Iaspis ἴασπις – in some other places the Septuagint instead has Beryllios where the masoretic reads Yahalom. The word Yahalom appears to be connected with the Hebrew meaning strike hard, and possibly with the word hallamish meaning flint; hallamish is connected to the Assyrian word elmeshu, referring to a precious stone which was hard, and possibly white, or at least with an insignificant colour, and from which whole rings were sometimes made. A few scholars have suggested that Yahalom may refer to diamonds, owing to their hardness, though the skill of cutting diamonds had not been discovered before the classical era. Although the Septuagint's Onychion is the Greek term for onyx, onyx was not mined prior to the era of classical Greece. "Onyx" is derived from the Greek for fingernail, due to the pink-white veining. In the Syriac Peshitta of the sixth or seventh century, 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, translated as "diamond". This may account for today's understanding of this word, although in ancient times yahalom may have meant something else. Of the well-known honey-coloured gemstones, we find Citrene and Hessonite garnet, while in Africa we find Imperial Zircon, a honey-coloured stone with an extreme brilliance. Spanish Jewish scholar Abraham ibn Ezra says the yahalom was a white stone.

  Third row

• Lešem / Ligurios – the names here seem to refer to places: Leshem and Liguria, respectively. Theophrastus mentions the fossilized pine resin, amber, called in Greek liggourrion or lyngurium, as does Dioscorides and Aëtius. In Greek antiquity, this stone was believed to have been the solidified urine of lynxes, and its name a mere corruption of lykos ouron, meaning white urine, presumably in reference to its colour. Pliny described the ligurios as having certain electrical properties, which a number of scholars have taken to imply that it referred to amber. Amber was one of the first items to have been discovered to have electrical properties ; the English stem electric- derives from the Latin word for amber. In the Latin Vulgate the name was given as ligure, a Latinization apparently invented by Flavius Josephus, and equated with lyngurium, but Luther used hyacinth, and during the Renaissance belief in lyngurium died away. Modern scholars are inclined to think that the stone must have been similar to the pale colour of natural gold ; The Midrash Rabba states that the mineral had a black colour, and is there named כוחלין, meaning the antimony known as stibium. Rabbi Saadia Gaon, and other medieval rabbinical commentators, argued that the gem itself was an onyx, although Abraham ibn Ezra casts doubt on the accuracy of Rabbi Saadia's tradition. Modern English translations use either amber or jacinth.
• Ševo / Achates – achates definitely refers to agate, and ševo may be cognate with the Assyrian term subu, meaning agate. Agates were common in Egypt and Assyria, and were regarded as a potent talismans. Isidore of Seville lists agate as being among the black gems. The Midrash Rabba appears to argue for the jewel in question having been a grey variety. Conversely, in Rabbi Saadia Gaon's Judeo-Arabic translation of the Pentateuch, as well as in the medieval Samaritan Arabic translation, the stone is rendered as سبج, meaning, obsidian.
• Aḥlamah / Amethystos – amethystos refers to amethyst, a purple mineral which was believed to protect against getting drunk from alcohol, and was commonly used in Egypt. Aḥlamah appears to be derived from a term meaning strong, though it may equally be derived from Ahlamu, a place where Amethysts were found; in the Babylonian Targum, aḥlamah is translated into a term meaning strong drinking, which appears to reference beliefs about amethyst, but in the Jerusalem Targum, it is translated into a term meaning calf's eye. The Midrash Rabba, while describing the stone's colour, says: " similar to clear wine whose redness is not too strong."

  Fourth row

• Taršīš / Chrysolithos – in some other places the Septuagint instead has anthrax where the masoretic reads tarshish. taršīš is thought by scholars to refer to tarshish, in reference to the main source of the mineral being tarshish. Chrysolithos does not refer specifically to chrysolite, which was named much later, but is an adjective which translates as "gold-stone", meaning either that it was golden, as in the Libyan desert glass, or that it contained flecks of gold. With golden flecks it could refer to lapis lazuli, which would fit the Targums' description of the gem being "the colour of the sea". As a golden material if translucent, it could refer to topaz or to amber, and since chrysolithos came to mean topaz in particular by the classical era, some scholars favour this as being the most likely use, though it would be jarring for there to be two different translucent yellow gemstones so close to one another on the breastplate. If an opaque golden material, it could refer to a yellow form of jasper or of serpentine, which were commonly used in Egypt and Babylon. It may even be the case that the Septuagint is mistaken, and the masoretic text's taršīš is a corruption of asshur, referring to Assyria's quintessential exported mineral, flint. The 2nd century Jewish translator, Symmachus, renders the word as yakinthos, meaning "jacinth", or "hyacinth". There is little certainty among scholars in regard to which of these is the most likely to be the jewel in question.
• Šoham / Beryllios – in some other places the Septuagint instead has onychion, or smaragdos, or the phrase leek-green stone, where the masoretic reads šoham; beryllios refers to beryl but earlier to the blue-green colour of the sea, onychion refers to onyx, and smaragdos literally means green stone and refers to a bright columnar crystal. Onyx is an opaque and banded stone, while smaragdos is translucent, and beryl is cloudy, and all these come in several colours. Šoham could be derived from the Assyrian word samtu, meaning dark or cloudy; it could be derived from the Arabic word meaning pale, in which case it fits more with onyx and certain forms of beryl, excluding the emerald, with Heliodor being the form of beryl fitting the leek green description; it could be derived from the Arabic word musahham, meaning striped garment, and therefore very definitely describing something like onyx; or it could be a place name, for example there is a place in Yemen named Soheim. Jewish tradition generally favours leek-green beryl as the likely meaning of šoham, though scholars think it is more likely to be malachite, which can be green enough to be compared to smaragdos and the blue-green colour of the sea, is cloudy enough to be compared to a cloudy form of beryl, and is striped and opaque enough to be confused for a form of onyx. According to Epiphanius’ Treatise on the Twelve Stones, the beryl was "white like a cloud". Scholars point out that the Syriac form of the word is berūlā and/or belūra, the latter evidently going back to a Pahlevi form, and all in turn to the Sanskrit वैडूर्य = vaiḍūrya, the gemstone which is called in English, "cat's eye, beryl", a variety of chalcedonic quartz that has a chatoyant lustre resembling the eye of a cat when cut.
• Yašfeh / Iaspis – in reference to the Septuagint and Josephus, scholars suspect that yasepheh may be the original reading. Although yasepheh and iaspis are cognate to jasper, they do not quite have the same meaning; while jasper is usually red, the mineral which the Greeks called iaspis was generally a richly green one, and scholars think this is most likely to be the colour referred to by yasepheh; the ambiguity of the term is present in the Targums, where the jewel is variously identified as a ruby, as a hyacinth, or as an emerald. In the Babylonian Talmud, one opinion states that the gemstone was the same as kadkhod, a stone described by Bar-Ali as being al-karkahan = الكركھن, "a kind of gemstone from which they cut stones for setting in ouches". Rabbi Saadia Gaon, however, in his Judeo-Arabic translation of Isaiah, translates kadkhod as karkand, a red variety of precious stone. Josephus, quoting from one version of the Septuagint, says that it was a beryl. The Midrash Rabba says that the stone was varicolored, meaning, all of the colours combined were to be found in the yašfeh.

  12 jewels in the New Testament

• Onchion has become sardonyx
• Anthrax has become chalcedon. Anthrax literally means coal, presumably meaning the red colour 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 colour, in earlier times it referred to gems of a yellowish leek-green, such as peridot; chrysoprase literally means golden leek.
• Achates has been replaced by yacinthos. According to classical rabbinical literature, the specific agate was of a sky-blue colour, and though jacinth now refers to a red-tinted clear gem, this was not the case at the time the Book of Revelation was written, and at that time jacinth appears to have referred to a bluish gem; Pliny describes jacinth as a dull and blueish amethyst, while Solinus describes it as a clear blue tinted gem – the modern sapphire.

  Pattern