Breastplate

The breastplate stands in scripture first as a piece of high-priestly tailoring — a foursquare pouch of gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twined linen, set with twelve engraved stones and bound by chains and rings of gold to the shoulder-pieces of the ephod, holding the Urim and the Thummim against Aaron's heart. From that fixed point the figure travels two further directions: outward to the iron-and-fire breastplates of soldiers in apocalyptic vision, and inward to the figurative armor of righteousness, faith, and love that Isaiah and Paul put on the body of Yahweh and the body of his people.

A Breastplate of Judgment

The first appearance of the breastplate names it together with the stones that will adorn it: "onyx stones, and stones to be set, for the ephod, and for the breastplate" (Ex 25:7). Among the holy garments that Aaron and his sons will wear it stands at the head of the list — "a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and a coat of checker work, a turban, and a belt" (Ex 28:4) — and the long set of construction directives opens with it: "And you will make a breastplate of judgment, the work of the skillful workman; like the work of an ephod you will make it; of gold, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, you will make it" (Ex 28:15). The piece is geometric and double-thick: "Foursquare it will be [and] double; a span will be its length, and a span its width" (Ex 28:16).

Into that pouch are set twelve stones in four rows. "And you will set in it settings of stones, four rows of stones: a row of sardius, topaz, and carbuncle will be the first row; and the second row an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond; and the third row a jacinth, an agate, and an amethyst; and the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper: they will be enclosed in gold in their settings" (Ex 28:17-20). Each stone bears a name. "And the stones will be according to the names of the sons of Israel, twelve, according to their names; like the engravings of a signet, every one according to his name, they will be for the twelve tribes" (Ex 28:21).

Bound to the Ephod

The breastplate is not free-standing. Chains and rings of pure gold tie it to the ephod over Aaron's shoulders and at his sides. "And you will make on the breastplate chains like cords, of wreathed work of pure gold. And you will make on the breastplate two rings of gold, and will put the two rings on the two ends of the breastplate. And you will put the two wreathed chains of gold in the two rings at the ends of the breastplate. And the [other] two ends of the two wreathed chains you will put on the two settings, and put them on the shoulder-pieces of the ephod in its forepart" (Ex 28:22-25). The lower binding is matched to the upper. "And you will make two rings of gold, and you will put them on the two ends of the breastplate, on its edge, which is toward the side of the ephod inward. And you will make two rings of gold, and will put them on the two shoulder-pieces of the ephod underneath, in its forepart, close by its coupling, above the skillfully woven band of the ephod. And they will bind the breastplate by its rings to the rings of the ephod with a lace of blue, that it may be on the skillfully woven band of the ephod, and that the breastplate may not be loosed from the ephod" (Ex 28:26-28).

What the binding accomplishes is named in the next verse: the high priest carries the tribes inward with him every time he goes in. "And Aaron will bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breastplate of judgment on his heart, when he goes in to the holy place, for a memorial before Yahweh continually" (Ex 28:29).

The Urim and the Thummim

Within the same breastplate Yahweh places the oracle. "And you will put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim; and they will be on Aaron's heart, when he goes in before Yahweh: and Aaron will bear the judgment of the sons of Israel on his heart before Yahweh continually" (Ex 28:30). When Moses carries out the installation that Yahweh commanded, the same act is recorded in shorter form: "And he placed the breastplate on him: and in the breastplate he put the Urim and the Thummim" (Lev 8:8). The breastplate of judgment is therefore a piece that does two things at once — it bears the names of the tribes outward toward Yahweh, and it holds the means by which Yahweh's judgment will return to the tribes.

Materials, Making, and Vesting

The materials for the breastplate come up the way the rest of the sanctuary comes up — out of a freewill offering. "And the rulers brought the onyx stones, and the stones to be set, for the ephod, and for the breastplate" (Ex 35:27); the same offering-list appears earlier in the same chapter, "and onyx stones, and stones to be set, for the ephod, and for the breastplate" (Ex 35:9). The execution-narrative records the actual making by the skillful workman: "And he made the breastplate, the work of the skillful workman, like the work of an ephod; of gold, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen" (Ex 39:8), and the binding is fastened as it had been commanded: "And they bound the breastplate by its rings to the rings of the ephod with a lace of blue, that it might be on the skillfully woven band of the ephod, and that the breastplate might not be loosed from the ephod; as Yahweh commanded Moses" (Ex 39:21).

The vesting of Aaron is given as a single sequence in which the breastplate is one of the pieces handed up onto his body. "And you will take the garments, and put on Aaron the coat, and the robe of the ephod, and the ephod, and the breastplate, and gird him with the skillfully woven band of the ephod" (Ex 29:5). Sirach's later catalog of the high-priestly garments keeps the same three pieces in the same order: "[With] the holy garments of gold and violet, And purple, the work of the designer; And the breastplate of judgement, and the ephod and belt" (Sir 45:10).

A Breastplate as Soldier's Armor

Outside the sanctuary the breastplate is also a piece of military gear. The Maccabean record describes Judas at the head of his fighting men in this way: "And he got his people great honor, And put on a breastplate as a giant, And girt his warlike armor about him in battles, And protected the camp with the sword" (1Ma 3:3). The enemy is described in the same vocabulary; when Judas brings his men out at Emmaus, "they saw the camp of the nations that it was strong, and the men in breastplates, and the horsemen round about them, and these were trained up to war" (1Ma 4:7). And the temple-treasure of Elymais that Antiochus tries to plunder includes the same item alongside its gold: "And that there was in it a temple, exceedingly rich: and coverings of gold, and breastplates, and shields which King Alexander, the [son] of Philip the Macedonian who reigned first in Greece, had left there" (1Ma 6:2).

The same usage appears in the Apocalypse, where the locust-army that comes up out of the smoke is armored. "And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots, of many horses rushing to war" (Rev 9:9). The cavalry of the sixth trumpet wears a stranger version of the same gear: "And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and those who sat on them, having breastplates [as] of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone: and the heads of the horses are as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths proceeds fire and smoke and brimstone" (Rev 9:17).

The Breastplate of Righteousness

In Isaiah the breastplate is lifted off the priest and placed on Yahweh as he rises to act. "And he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation [by his Speech] on his head; and he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a mantle" (Isa 59:17). The figure that had been a piece of holy tailoring on Aaron's heart and a piece of soldier's gear on the camp of the nations is now the warrior-clothing of Yahweh himself, paired with a helmet, with garments of vengeance, and with a mantle of zeal.

Paul takes the same Isaiah-figure into the armor he tells the Ephesians to wear. "Stand therefore, having girded your⁺ loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness" (Eph 6:14). And to the Thessalonians the figure widens: the breastplate is named for two pieces of the inner life and the helmet for a third. "But let us, since we are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation" (1Th 5:8).

The Garment in One Line

The breastplate is the foursquare pouch of judgment that bears the twelve tribes' names on Aaron's heart and holds the Urim and the Thummim within it; the iron-and-fire armor of soldiers and apocalyptic horsemen; and the figure under which Yahweh rises in righteousness and his people stand in righteousness, faith, love, and the hope of salvation.