When the Way to Ask God Questions is Broken

On one of the strangest objects in Judaism (and that's saying something)

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I. In Which You Join Me on My Descent into Madness

Picture the High Priest. Though he wore eight garments total (the four every kohen wore plus four more special garments unique to him), one is focal: his ḥoshen mishpaṭ, his breastplate, upon which were twelve precious stones – one for each tribe of the Jewish people, upon which was engraved their name (Ex. 28:21) – along with the Urim and Thummim, which was placed within the ḥoshen’s fold (Ex. 28:30).

Yet interestingly, across the fourteen (!) verses in Parashat Pikudei in which the Torah describes in detail Betzalel making the ḥoshen (Ex. 39:8–21), the Urim and Thummim is never mentioned. And this seems to be for a very perplexing reason: while Parashat Pikudei describes how Betzalel made the physical ḥoshen – including the twelve engraved stones for each tribe – it was Moshe Rabbenu who placed the Urim and Thummim in the ḥoshen as part of Aharon’s investiture in Parashat Shemini:

Then Moses brought Aaron and his sons forward and washed them with water. … He put the breastplate upon him – and put into the breastplate the Urim and Thummim. (Lev. 8:6, 8).

Now, if you want a peek behind the curtain of Qontroversial Questions on the Parashah, I’m currently not even 200 words in and yet I’ve been writing this for almost an hour because of a question that has never really occurred to me and I still don’t have a good answer to (and my typographical choices are about to clue you into my current state of mind):

WHAT ON EARTH EVEN IS THE URIM AND THUMMIM?!?!

II. The Software Programmed by Moshe

The truth is that, for what I actually wanted to write about, having an answer to this question isn’t imperative – which is good because it turns out no one is truly confident and all the commentators disagree with each other anyway.

Nonetheless, I’ll just briefly touch on a few things here: though the phrase in both Hebrew and English is “Urim and Thummim,” which sounds like it’s two things, there’s a good argument to be made that it’s what’s called a “merism” – a rhetorical device that describes a single thing using two contrasting elements to characterize its whole (the best English example is the phrase “searched high and low” rather than “searched everywhere,” where “high and low” is a merism for “everywhere.”)¹

Assuming (as Rashi does) that ’urim is from the Hebrew word ’or, “light,” and that tummim is from the Hebrew word tam, denoting “completion,” Urim and Thummim probably means something like “complete enlightenment” (though given it’s the formal name for an object, “Urim and Thummim” is still a better term to use.)²

And what exactly the Urim and Thummim was is also unclear. First, I want to give a special shout-out to Ibn Ezra – usually the go-to commentator for a very simple, peshat-oriented understanding – who this time goes absolutely off on one and insists that, not only were the Urim and Thummim two things, but that a proper understanding of them requires an understanding of mystical secrets that he refuses to reveal (Ibn Ezra, Ex. 28:6). He goes as far as to end his comment rather dramatically, insisting:

Now if I wanted to even begin to reveal this secret it would take up more space than the entire commentary which I have composed on this book. For only an individual who has studied works on geometry and the secret of the way the sky works can understand the secret of the ephod.

Ramban (Ex. 28:30) – who disagrees with Ibn Ezra (which is only surprising if this is the first time you’ve encountered Ramban – he basically wrote one of the greatest Torah commentaries ever written just to disagree with Ibn Ezra) sides with Rashi (Ex. 28:30), that the Urim and Thummim was an inscription of God’s ineffable Name inserted into the ḥoshen. A theory that I think works well with the idea that only Moshe himself could place it into the ḥoshen.

But for all the uncertainty over what the Urim and Thummim physically looked like, there’s a bigger problem, still. Because the Torah just assumes that it is something known to the people. Admittedly, the verse that describes it gives some minimal clue as to its purpose:

Inside the breastplate of judgment you shall place the Urim and Thummim, so that it is over Aaron’s heart when he comes before the LORD. Thus Aaron shall carry the instrument of decision for the Israelites over his heart before the LORD at all times. (Ex. 28:30)

And combining the scant information from this verse with both the literal meaning of ḥoshen mishpaṭ, “the breastplate of judgment,” and Ḥazal’s elaboration of its purpose (Yoma 73a–b), we can grasp some sense of how the Urim and Thummim worked within the ḥoshen: when a question was posed to God the Urim and Thummim would cause certain stones upon the ḥoshen mishpaṭ to light up, revealing the answer.

And so, fortunately, after over two hours of writing,³ we find ourselves on firmer footing – the Urim and Thummim, together with the ḥoshen, can be best understood with a very modern analogy: the ḥoshen mishpaṭ was the hardware made by Betzalel for how God could communicate with His people, while Moshe encoded the software within – the Urim and Thummim – to make it work.

III. The Urim and Thummim as a Prophetic Backstop

Curiously, there is one, single example – though it’s worth stressing, only one – within the Torah where the Urim and Thummim are used. God instructs Moshe to select Yehoshua as his successor (Num. 27:18), after which He instructs Moshe to perform a very specific ceremony announcing Yehoshua’s selection.

First, after Moshe lays his hands upon Yehoshua – the formal act of designating him as his successor – he is commanded to “stand before the entire people and commission [Yehoshua] in their sight” and “invest [Yehoshua] with some of your authority, so that the whole Israelite community shall obey” (vv. 19–20).

But then God adds a curious additional step:

But [Yehoshua] shall present himself to Elazar the priest, who shall on his behalf seek the decision of the Urim before the LORD. By such instruction they shall go out and by such instruction they shall come in, he and all the Israelites, the whole community.

As this is taking place after the death of Aharon, Elazar is now High Priest. But rather than simply relying on Moshe to designate Yehoshua as his successor, the Urim (and Thummim)⁴ must now also be invoked to illustrate that Yehoshua has been chosen by God to succeed Moshe.

And I think the reason here is to simply quash any concern that Moshe is playing favorites (after all, Sefer Bamidbar is littered with the people’s complaints about Moshe’s leadership). Had Moshe himself simply told the people that Yehoshua was his successor – even adding that God had instructed him in this regard – he would have opened himself up to accusations of unfairness. Other tribes and other prominent figures might have insisted they be considered for rule. But the Urim and Thummim serves as a miraculous reinforcement of Moshe’s decision. It highlights Yehoshua to make it clear that he is God’s appointed successor to Moshe.

But what’s interesting here is that, not only is this episode unique – it’s the only time in the Torah the Urim and Thummim is invoked – but it sheds light on a possible broader purpose behind the Urim and Thummim. Because, when you think about it, despite God’s own instruction to make the ḥoshen with the Urim and Thummim, there seems little need to use it, not just in the Torah but throughout Tanakh.

Because why would the people ever need to use what seems to be a pretty clunky way to divine God’s will? After all, it doesn’t seem to be able to do much more than light up tribal names and answer other yes/no questions. Compare that to God explicitly communicating to one of His prophets, and the value of the Urim and Thummim seems pretty weak.

And this is why I’d suggest that the Urim and Thummim’s primary purpose was “divine optics.” It prevented a situation in which a leader made decisions impacting the whole people who might then claim in protest that things were rigged against them.

And this is why I think that Ḥazal inserted the Urim and Thummim into a Biblical story in which they aren’t explicitly mentioned: the division of the Land of Israel.

All that Sefer Yehoshua tells us is that the Land of Israel was divvied up amongst the people bĕ-goral naḥalatam, “into portions that fell to them by lot” (Josh. 14:1–2), yet Ḥazal state that it wasn’t a regular luck-based lot but vĕ-lo nitḥalkah ella bĕ-Urim vĕ-Tummim, “[the land] was not divided with anything other than the Urim and Thummim” (Bava Batra 122a).

And I think my theory of the Urim and Thummim’s purpose fits here. Because imagine it was just a regular lot, and you are a member of the tribe of Zevulun who had your heart set on the lovely piece of coastal land that is modern-day Caesarea. But the lot falls on Menashe, instead – all you get is the arid, mountainous area around modern-day Nazareth. It might not take much in the way of conspiracy theories to realize that Menashe is brother-tribes with Ephraim – Yehoshua’s own tribe – and before you know it, you’re claiming everything is rigged against you.⁵⁶

But if it’s the Urim and Thummim that has determined the locations of each and every tribe, then you can’t complain about the lot being rigged – because it’s God who has decided these things.

IV. When the Urim and Thummim are Misused

But there is an inherent problem with the entire mechanism with which the Urim and Thummim work: when they aren’t reinforcing a divine decision but the sole resource, problems can arise.

The first example of this is not a negative one. Again, it’s not peshat but an elaboration on Sefer Yehoshua – which I think makes sense because Sefer Yehoshua is the first Biblical book to grapple with a post-Moshe world. In Chapter 7, the Jewish people discover that one of them has sinned, leading to calamitous consequences – but the identity of the sinner is unknown.

Here, in theory, God could just tell Yehoshua who it was – though given my theory on the “politics” of the Urim and Thummim I see why this doesn’t happen. Instead, a ceremony is conducted, first highlighting the tribe of the sinner, followed by the clan, followed by the family, followed by the individual (Josh. 7:16–18).

But Sefer Yehoshua does not tell us how the highlighting took place, simply stating what God said to Yehoshua, vĕ–hayah ha-nilkad ba-ḥērem, “he who is indicated for proscription” (Josh. 7:15), with the term va-yillakhēd, “indicated” being used throughout the rest of the verses.

Rashi, however, explains that it was the Urim and Thummim that did the indicating. Why it had to be solely with this method, I can only speculate – but it offers a case-study in using the Urim and Thummim as the sole method for divining God’s will.

And some other major examples are less significant. When King Saul wants to speak to God we are told that he gets no answer gam ba-ḥalomot, “neither through dreams,” gam ba-urim, “nor through the Urim,” gam ba-nĕvi’im, “nor through prophets” (I Sam. 28:6). Likewise, both Ezra and Neḥemiah report the same decision: to wait until a time when the Urim and Thummim can be consulted to determine the legitimacy of certain people claiming to be priests (Ez. 2:61–63; Neh. 7:63–65).

But there is one fascinating example where we see the use of the Urim and Thummim collapse. Sefer Shofṭim begins by telling us that va-yish’alu bĕnēi yisra’el ba-Shem, “the Jewish people inquired of God,” as to which tribe should be first to attempt the complete conquest of Canaan (Judg. 1:1). While here, again, the text itself does not tell us how this was decided, a strong tradition (quoted by Metzudat David and assumed by many) states that it was via the Urim and Thummim.

Here, the answer is emphatic:

The LORD replied, the tribe of Yehudah shall go up. I now deliver the land into their hands (v. 2).

Yet Yehudah’s response is striking: they turn to the tribe of Shimon and ask them to join them in battle (v. 3), flouting God’s command. And while they are successful, nonetheless, it raises a major question over how the people used the Urim and Thummim.

And here I came across an astonishing perspective by the Biblical scholar Jack M. Sasson, who notes that these opening verses to Sefer Shofṭim are striking in what they don’t contain. There is no request of God for a new leader – or even a tribe to be identified as prime. All there is is the most narrow of requests of God, which tribe must fight, which still goes ignored.

And this sets up the tragic reality of the Urim and Thummim. When the only way to hear God’s responses is through yes/no light-up questions, it can all too easily allow people to selectively engage with God and reinterpret His message.

To extend my analogy a little bit further, the original testing of the software never accounted for this bug. What started as a fascinating way to reinforce prophetic decisions transformed into a broken, corruptible system for selectively determining what God wanted.

1. This explains the seeming grammatical error that has been nagging you, where I write things like “the Urim and Thummim is,” rather than “the Urim and Thummim are” – because the correct way to write “Urim and Thummim” is as a single object and not a plural.

2. Famously, Yale University has the words אורים ותומים written upon their seal/logo with what we can confidently say is an incorrect translation in Latin, Lux Et Veritas, “Light and Truth,” because it assumes it’s two things.

3. I did have to take a break to answer some halakhic questions about Havdalah from someone who I think is a reader of QQotP but I’ll find out based on whether they say something about this footnote.

4. The fact that “Urim and Thummim” is interchangeable with “Urim” lends further credence to the idea that it was one object that could be described either way.

5. I will sometimes ask Siri to toss a coin to decide between Yair and Shai – and Yair is convinced that Siri is rigged against him.

6. Also some joke about Dominion Voting Systems being the company responsible for the original division of the Land of Israel.