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Archive for July 29, 2009, 10:51 am

Auger Dice the Way to YHWH

Exodus 28:15-30

Here is where the real priestly bling comes into play.  The Breastplate is made entirely of gold and the full body length robe is made blue the yarn.  Now the robe may not sound like much yet, but you’ll just have to wait until I describe it to see how gaudy it really is.  The turban and the sash are nothing truly exciting but then there is the undergarments as well. 

The Breastplate was made of pure gold and was 9×9in (22cmx22cm) in size.  This was hung from the Ephod by the gold chains and attached to the waistband with the same gold chains.  Now before I describe the Breastplate any further, I want to let you know just how much it weighed.  Let us say that it was only 1mm thick (0.039in), it would still have a gold volume of 48.4cm3.  Gold has a density of 19.3 g/cm3; as a result it would weigh 934g, for those of you in the US that is nearly 2.2lbs!  And it was most likely thicker than that because it needed to be able to be tied to the Ephod and have the 12 precious stone inlayed.  You got it, 12 precious stones were spaced within this Breastplate.  These stones represented the 12 tribes and were in order: a ruby, a topaz, a beryl, a turquoise, a sapphire, an emerald, a jacinth, an agate, an amethyst, a chrysolite, an onyx, and a jasper.  These were also place in the birth order of the sons of Jacob Israel.  To top that off each stone was to be engraved with the name of the tribe that it represented.  It’s a dang good thing that the Israelites robbed the Egyptians as they left!  YHWH is certainly not holding back the costs when designing his very first Temple.

Now there is one interesting little tidbit here.  This is the first time the Thummin and the Urim are discussed.  These were auger lots to be thrown like dice to see what YHWH said.  The Thummin were a yes answer and the Urim were a no answer.  There must have been more than one set, because we are told in the Study Notes that one or the other had to “dominate”.  Or if only two “dice” were used it would be a 2 out of 3 or a 4 out of 5 situation.  This is not a complex method of auguring, but this is exactly how Aaron was to communicate with YHWH.  How do like that YHWH communicated the same way as all the other “Gods” by random chance of the dice!  If that is not proof that YHWH does not exist, what more do you need?





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