Page:The Ancient Scriptures and the Modern Jew (Baron, David).djvu/338

 APPENDIX

(Lev. ix. 24). This fire was carefully preserved in the tabernacle till the time of Solomon. When that king dedicated the Temple and brought sacrifices upon the new altar which he had made, fire came down again from heaven upon the altar (2 Chron. vii. 1-3).

The wonderful manner in which the Divine revelations were made by this oracle may be explained in the following illustra- tion. When Joshua came unto Eleazar the high priest (according to his received commandment, Numb, xxvii. 21) that he might ask counsel for him, according to the judgment of the Urim, before the Lord, the high priest put on his holy pontifical robes, and above it the ephod with the breastplate, which was illumi- nated by the Urim, and had the Thummim joined to it, on the side thereof. The high priest then directed his face towards the Most Holy, entreating the Lord to reveal the guilty individuals, while Joshua presented himself with the twelve elders of the tribes of Israel, in the open court of the tabernacle. Then the high priest put the simple question, " Which of the twelve tribes have sinned ? " He looked upon the illuminated breastplate with its brilliant stones and saw that the first stone in the second row, which bore the name of Judah, was darkened and ceased to shine.

Then he called with a loud voice, " Judah ! " The eleven princes were then dismissed, and the prince of Judah presented himself again with the fathers of the families of his tribe. The priest then again put the question, " Which family has sinned ? " He looked again upon the breastplate and found that the family of the Zarchites was taken. But as this name is composed of four different letters,, PI, 1 T. which were not to be found complete in any of the twelve names of the breastplate, he found these different letters in different names. Thus he had to look over all the stones. He then saw, first, that the letter T. in the name jSlST (Zebulun), was taken (viz., darkened) ; he next saw that the letter >, in the name pixn (Reuben), was taken. And when he saw no more letters upon the breastplate taken, and could make nothing of the two letters, 1, T. which he had already got, he looked upon the Thummim on the right side of the breastplate and found that of its four letters the letter Pi was taken. But no name was yet completed. He therefore looked once more upon the twelve stones, and found that the letter , in the name Joseph, was taken. Now he had a complete name, ^mt (Zarchi) ; he therefore called aloud that " Zarchi " was taken. In the same manner, when the family of the Zarchites appeared man by man, and when the priest asked,

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