Page:The Ancient Scriptures and the Modern Jew (Baron, David).djvu/340

 APPENDIX

and Thummim because of his manifold transgressions (i Sam. xxviii. 6). He therefore betook himself in his despair to the witch of Endor (xxviii. 7-25). When he destroyed the priests of Noph, Abiathar, the son of the slain high priest, escaped and fled unto David, with the ephod and the oracle, Urim and Thummim. This rendered great and important services unto David, for he was instructed by it in all his afflictions and dangers.

David was the first person who consulted it without the taber- nacle and was answered by it, for all the former consultations took place in the tabernacle, or at least before the ark of the covenant. But the Lord was pleased to answer David by this oracle in any place. According to the documents whence we have drawn the above information, this oracle ceased to answer after the death of David. Afterwards there was no other means of receiving instructions than by the prophets. Ezra and Nehe- miah indeed wished that the Urim and Thummim would be restored unto Israel in the second Temple (Ezra ii. 62-64; Neh. vii. 64-66), but neither ark nor cherubim, nor Urim and Thummim, were ever restored unto Israel.

1 Josephus indeed fpeaks of the breastplate occasionally shining during the second Temple, which shining, he says, ceased two hundred years before he commenced his work. But Josephus might have saved himself the trouble of making such an assertion, for we affirm on undeniable authority that neither were Urim and Thummim in the second Temple at all, nor did they in the first Temple return answers by shining, as that historian seems to imagine. Josephus would have acted much more honestly if he had let this matter alone altogether.