Lesson Eleven

Judgment and Justice

1. "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you".--Mt. 7:1,2.

2. "And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron's heart, when he goeth in before Jehovah: and Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before Jehovah continually".-Ex. 28:30.

3. The Urim and Thummim (Lights and Perfections). These were the sacred symbols (worn upon the breastplate of the high priest, upon his heart) by which God gave oracular responses for the guidance of His People in temporal matters. What they were is unknown; they are introduced in Exodus without explanation, as if familiar to the Israelites of that day. Modern Egyptology supplies us with a clue; it tells us that Egyptian high priests in every town, who were also its magistrates, wore round their necks a jeweled gem bearing on one side the image of Truth, and on the other sometimes that of Justice, sometimes that of Light. When the accused was acquitted, the judge held out the image of him to kiss. In the final judgment Osiris wears around his neck the jeweled Justice and Truth. The Septuagint translates Urim and Thummim by "Light and Truth." Some scholars suppose that they were the twelve stones of the breastplate; others that they were two additional stones concealed in its fold. Josephus adds to these the two sardonyx buttons, worn on the shoulders,
which he says emitted luminous rays when the response was favorable; but the precise mode in which the oracles were given is lost in obscurity.--Bible Glossary of Antiquities