Priestly breastplate
The priestly breastplate ( "ẖošen") was a sacred breastplate worn by the High Priest of the Israelites, according to the Book of Exodus. In the biblical account, the breastplate is termed the "breastplate of judgment" ( - ), because the Urim and Thummim () were placed upon it.(). These elements of the breastplate are said in the Exodus verse to carry the judgement () of God concerning the Israelites at all times. Hebrew Bible. According to the description in Exodus, this breastplate was attached to the tunic-like garment known as an ephod by gold chains/cords tied to the gold rings on the  ephod's shoulder straps, and by blue ribbon tied to the gold rings at the belt of the ephod. The biblical description states that the breastplate was also to be made from the same material as the Ephod—embroidery of 3 colors of dyed wool and linen—and was to be of a cubit squared, two layers thick, and with four rows of three engraved gems embedded in gold settings upon it, one setting for each stone. The description states that the square breastplate was to be formed from one rectangular piece of cloth— of a cubit by of a  cubit, folded so that it formed a pouch to contain the Urim and Thummim. The Hebrew term for the breastplate, ("ḥōšen"), appears to be named from its appearance, The 19th-century German biblical scholar August Dillmann thought that it was likely to be derived from the Hebrew word ("ḥōṣen"), meaning "fold", relating to its function. According to the Talmud, the wearing of the Hoshen atoned for the sin of errors in judgment on the part of the Children of Israel. The jewels. The twelve jewels in the breastplate were each, according to the Biblical description, to be made from specific  minerals, none of them the same as another, and each of them representative of a specific tribe, whose name was to be inscribed on the stone. According to a rabbinic tradition, the names of the twelve tribes were engraved upon the stones with what is called in Hebrew: שמיר = "shamir", which, according to Rashi, was a small, rare creature which could cut through the toughest surfaces, but according to Rabbi David Kimhi and Rabbi Jonah ibn Janah, was a stone stronger than iron (possibly Naxian stone). The word has its equivalent in the Greek, σμήρις ("smeris"). There are different  views in classical rabbinical literature as to the order of the names; the Jerusalem Targum, for example, argued that the names appeared in the order according to which they were born. Maimonides describes the jewel stones arranged in four rows, saying that on the first stone belonging to Reuben were also engraved the names of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, while on the last stone belonging to Benjamin were also engraved the words "the tribes of God"; kabbalistic writers such as Hezekiah ben Manoah and Bahya ben Asher argued that only six letters from each name were present on each stone , together with a few letters from the names of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, or from the phrase "[these are] the tribes of Jeshurun", so that there were 72 letters in total (72 being a very significant number in Kabbalistic thought). There was also a different order for the names inscribed on the two "onyx" stones, carried on the High Priest's shoulders. One opinion suggests that the names of the twelve tribes were arranged in groups after their mothers: Leah's six sons aligned one after the other on one stone, with Judah heading this list, followed by Rachel's  sons with the names of the concubines' sons interposed between the two sons of Rachel. Unfortunately, the meanings of the Hebrew names for the minerals, given by the masoretic text, are not clear, and though the Greek names for them in the Septuagint are more clear, some scholars believe that they cannot be completely relied on for this matter because the breastplate had gone out of use by the time the Septuagint was created, and several Greek names for various gems have changed meaning between the classical era and modern times. However, although classical rabbinical literature argues that the  names were inscribed using a Shamir worm because neither chisels nor paint nor ink were allowed to mark them out, a more naturalistic approach suggests that the jewels must have had comparatively low hardness in order to be engraved upon, and therefore this gives an additional clue to the identity of the minerals. Others suggest that they were engraved with emery, having the similar property of a diamond used in cutting other stones and which was called in Greek σμήρις ("smeris"). Explanation of the symbolic meaning of the jewels generated a great deal of both Jewish and Christian writing, and  was a staple component of the tradition of lapidaries or books on gemology. The jewel stones are as follows (the first item in each row is probably the right hand side, as Hebrew is a right to left script): 12 jewels in the New Testament. In the New Testament Book of Revelation is the description of a "city wall", with each layer of stones in the wall being from a different material; in the original Koine Greek, the layers are given as "iaspis", "sapphiros", "chalcedon", "smaragdos", "sardonyx", "sardion", "chrysolithos", "beryllos", "topazion", "chrysoprason", "yacinthos", "amethystos". This list appears to be based  on the Septuagint's version of the list of jewels in the Breastplate – if the top half of the breastplate was rotated by 180 degrees, and the bottom half turned upside down, with "Onchion" additionally swapping places with "Topazion", the lists become extremely similar; there are only four differences: Pattern. Whether there is any pattern to the choice of gemstones depends on their identity. Taking the majority view of scholars in regard to the identity of the gems, and including the implication from the Book of Revelation that the "onyx" at the end of the fourth row was a "sardonyx , there are four colours – red, green, yellow, and blue – each represented by a clear gem (red – carbuncle, green – heliodor, yellow – chrysolite, blue – amethyst), an opaque gem (red – carnelian/red jasper, green – green jasper, yellow – yellow jasper/yellow serpentine, blue – lapis lazuli), and a striped gem (red – sardonyx, green – malachite, yellow – pale golden agate, blue – sky-blue agate). The four colours of red, green, yellow, and blue, are the first four colours (apart from black and white) distinguished by languages, and are distinguished in all cultures with at least six colour distinctions (the other two being black and white). These colours 	Priestly breastplate
19766087	roughly correspond to the sensitivities of the retinal ganglion cells. (The retinal ganglia process colour by positioning it within a blue to yellow range, and separately positioning it within a red to green range.)