All About Biblical References to Precious Gem Stones

The precious stone mentioned in the earliest biblical reference, Gen. ii, 12, and there translated onyx, is rendered chrysoprase in the Septuagint version, and is by others referred to the emerald on the ground that the land of Havilah, where it is there said to occur, is thought to have been a part of what was later called Scythia, and as such would include the emerald region of the Urals. But the ancient emeralds are now known to have come largely from Upper Egypt, and such vague conjectures are of little use in determining what stone was really meant in this most ancient allusion. Professor Haupt has even suggested that we might translate the Hebrew word shoham used in this passage by "pearl," since he conjectures that one of the four "rivers" surrounding the land of Havilah was the Persian Gulf.

For all attempted identifications of the stones mentioned in the Old Testament, we are principally dependent upon the Greek version of the Seventy. As this was made in the Alexandrian period, not far from the time of Theophrastus, whose work on gems we shall presently mention, the names at that time adopted by the Greek translators may be regarded as fairly correct equivalents of the Hebrew. The difficulty lies more in the translation of the classical names into the English, and arises largely from the unscientific nomenclature of the ancients; the same name being employed for stones that resemble each other to the eye, but which are now well distinguished by chemical and physical differences formerly unknown.

There are some traces in the Bible of the use of precious stones as amulets. In Proverbs xvii, 8, we read that "a gift is like a precious stone in the eyes of the owner; whithersoever he turneth he prospereth." This passage is rendered somewhat differently in the Authorized Version, but the above translation is evidently more correct. The stones of the breastplate were of course amulets in a certain sense, and possibly oracles also, and it is therefore quite probable that the Hebrews shared in the belief common to all the peoples around them, although opposition of the orthodox to all magical practices prevented them from going into particulars in regard to such superstitious fancies.

In support of his theory that the Urim and Thummim of the Hebrew high-priest signified the stones of the breastplate worn on the sacred ephod, and should be rendered "perfectly brilliant," Bellermann cites the passage in Ezekiel (chap. xxviii, verse 14), where he writes of "fiery stones" in treating of the royal splendors of the ruler of the great commercial city of Tyre. As to the oracular utterances of the high-priest when, clad in the ephod and wearing the glittering breastplate, he sought for the counsel of the Almighty, this author rejects the idea that the divine will was revealed by changes in the brilliancy of the stones, by casting of lots, or by a mysterious use of the ineffable name, the Tetragrammaton, J h w h (Jahweh), but believes that the answer to the questions was communicated to the high-priest by an inner voice, an inspiration similar to that vouchsafed to the great prophets of Israel.