Two sacred objects kept in the high priest's breastpiece and used to bring questions to God. Scripture tells us far less about them than most sermons do, and that honesty is where the lesson starts.
The Urim and Thummim were sacred objects kept in the high priest's breastpiece and used to bring a question before God. Scripture never tells us what they looked like or exactly how they worked, only that a priest used them to receive a decision, most likely something close to a yes or a no.
They show up in a handful of passages, go quiet in Saul's day, and are gone by the time Israel comes home from Babylon. What replaced them was not a better device. It was a Person, and then the Spirit poured out on all of God's people.
That is the short version. The longer one is worth your time, because most of what people think they know about these objects came from later tradition, and the Bible's silence turns out to be the most interesting thing about them.
The plural of the Hebrew word for light. The standard gloss is simply lights.
The plural of tom, a word for completeness or integrity. Usually rendered perfections.
The plural endings do not tell us how many objects there were. Two is the common assumption. The text never gives a number.
Urim begins with aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Thummim begins with tav, the last. Some have wondered whether that is deliberate. It is an observation, not evidence.
So the names point toward clarity and completeness. Light on a hard question, and an answer you could trust all the way down. That is a beautiful idea, and it tells us nothing about the mechanics. A name is a meaning, not a user manual.
A lot of teaching quietly turns the meaning of the names into a description of the objects. Lights becomes stones that glowed. The Hebrew does not say that.
The names mean something like lights and perfections. They describe what Israel hoped to receive from God, not how the objects worked or what they were made of.
The first mention comes in the instructions for the high priest's clothing in Exodus 28. Over the ephod, a woven garment of gold, blue, purple and scarlet, the priest wore a square breastpiece set with twelve stones, each engraved with the name of a tribe of Israel. I have written separately about what the ephod was.
“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 the LORD: and Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before the LORD continually.”
Exodus 28:30 · KJVNotice two things. First, it is called the breastplate of judgment. That is decision language. Second, the Urim and Thummim are not the twelve stones. You will read online that the stones were the Urim and Thummim, or that the stones held them. Exodus keeps them distinct. The piece was folded double, and many readers take that fold as a pocket. That is a reasonable reading of the text, and it is still a reading. For a related piece, see crystals and the Bible.
Here is the whole explicit record, and not one verse stops to describe the objects.
Placed in the breastpiece, over Aaron's heart, whenever he goes in before the LORD.
Moses does exactly that at Aaron's ordination. No explanation of how they are used.
Joshua will lead, but Eleazar the priest will ask on his behalf by the judgment of the Urim before the LORD.
Moses' blessing over Levi hands the Thummim and the Urim to that tribe, named in that order.
Saul inquires of the LORD and gets nothing back, not by dreams, not by Urim, not by prophets.
After the exile, a question about priestly lineage is shelved until a priest with Urim and Thummim stands up.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
Nobody in the Bible explains the procedure. What we can do is watch the stories.
Joshua does not get a private line to God for military decisions. He goes through the priest. Even Moses' successor had to ask.
Saul asks whether to chase the Philistines and gets no answer that day. He decides someone has sinned and narrows it down by lot. The Greek Septuagint keeps a longer wording of verse 41, where Saul asks God to give Urim for one side and Thummim for the other, as the Jewish Encyclopedia notes. The Hebrew text is shorter.
David, on the run, has the priest Abiathar bring the ephod. Will Saul come down to Keilah? He will. Will the men of Keilah hand me over? They will. The Urim is not named here, but the pattern fits: a plain question and a short answer.
Saul inquires and nothing comes back. Instead of dealing with his own heart, he goes looking for a medium. The story of King Saul is partly a story about a man who wanted answers more than he wanted God.
Put those together and a picture forms. The questions are binary. Go or stay. This side or that side. And sometimes there is no answer at all, a third result: silence.
Two stones drawn from a pouch, flat pieces marked on each side, something else entirely? The text does not say, and anyone who tells you with confidence is guessing. What Scripture does give us is the theology behind every sacred lot in Israel, the same conviction behind casting lots more broadly.
“The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.”
Proverbs 16:33 · KJVWhen a text is silent, people fill it. Some of what they wrote is lovely. It is still tradition, and it should be labeled that way.
The stones on the breastpiece lit up, letter by letter, spelling out God's answer, or blazed with light when He approved.
Objects placed in the breastpiece, a decision received before the LORD, and not one word about light, letters or glowing.
The Jewish historian wrote that stones on the high priest's garments shone when God was present, and that this had stopped about two hundred years before his own time.
Talmudic tradition held that answers came through the letters of the tribal names engraved on the breastpiece. The rabbis also counted the Urim and Thummim, in the Jewish Encyclopedia's summary, “among the five things lacking in the Second Temple.”
Joseph Smith applied the name to an instrument he said he used to translate the Book of Mormon. That claim has no connection to the objects in Exodus, and it is one of several places where Mormon and Christian teaching part ways.
Josephus and the rabbis were serious people wrestling with a gap. But when a sermon tells you the stones glowed, you are hearing Josephus and the Talmud, not Moses. A preacher should say so, even when the story makes a better illustration.
The Urim and Thummim belonged to a covenant arrangement where access to God ran through one man, in one garment, in one place. That was grace for its time. It was also a system built around distance.
And it faded. By Saul's reign the oracle could go quiet. After the exile it was gone. Hebrews 1 says that God, who spoke in many times and ways through the prophets, has in these last days spoken by His Son. Those last days were the writer's own days, the closing years of the old covenant age before the temple fell in AD 70 and the whole priestly system went with it.
Our position at Sound of Heaven is this. The Urim and Thummim were a real means God used to guide Israel under the old covenant, and they are finished. Not lost, finished. Jesus is the high priest who carries His people on His heart, and since Pentecost the Spirit lives in every believer, not in a pocket on one man's chest. We do not need a device, and we do not need a priest to ask on our behalf.
That cuts in two directions. Some Christians have rebuilt the Urim in new clothes: flipping the Bible open and pointing, demanding a fleece for every decision, treating a prophetic word as a coin toss that removes the need to think or pray. That is wrong. It gets used most on anxious people who are terrified of missing some hidden perfect plan.
Others swing the opposite way and say God no longer guides at all beyond what is printed on the page. That is also wrong. Jesus promised the Spirit would guide His followers, the church in Acts heard the Spirit speak as they worshiped (Acts 13:2), and the gifts are active today. We believe prophecy is alive now. We just do not treat it as dice.
One honest note. In Acts 1 the apostles cast lots to replace Judas, and that is the last lot in the New Testament. It happens before Pentecost. After Acts 2 the church prays, listens to the Spirit and decides together. That is an argument from silence, so I hold it loosely, but the shift is hard to miss.
“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth”
John 16:13 · KJVWhat happens after the apostles cast lots in Acts 1?
The choice of Matthias is the last recorded lot. From Acts 2 on, direction comes through prayer, Scripture, the counsel of the church and the voice of the Spirit.
Some of you are reading this because you are stuck. A job, a move, a relationship, and you are scared of choosing wrong and stepping outside God's will for good. Breathe. God is not hiding the answer in a pocket and waiting to see whether you guess right.
Ask Him for wisdom, which James 1:5 says He gives generously and without finding fault. Talk to people who love you. Take the next faithful step. If you want someone to pray it through with you, send us a prayer request.
Go back to Exodus 28 one more time. Just before the verse about the Urim and Thummim, verse 29 says Aaron was to bear the names of the children of Israel on the breastpiece over his heart when he went into the holy place. The priest carried the people in before he carried their questions.
That is the picture the book of Hebrews picks up. Jesus is the great high priest who has passed through the heavens, who sympathizes with our weakness, and who always lives to intercede for those who come to God through Him. The old high priest went in once a year on the Day of Atonement with twelve names cut in stone. Jesus carries yours, and He never takes it off.
So when you need direction, you are not waiting like the returned exiles in Ezra for a priest with Urim and Thummim to stand up. That priest has stood up. The guidance you have is not a yes or a no drawn from a pouch. It is a Person who knows you, a Spirit who lives in you, and a church to walk it out with.
For related ground, see discernment in the Bible, what the will of God is, the day of Pentecost, the Aaronic blessing and who Samuel was. And if you are near Deer Park, come worship with us.
The Urim and Thummim were Israel's sacred means of asking God for a decision, their appearance and method are unknown, the glowing stones are later tradition, and the silence they left behind was filled by Jesus our high priest and the Spirit given to all His people.
Tell us what you are facing. Someone at Sound of Heaven will pray with you and help you think it through.
They were sacred objects kept in the high priest's breastpiece. Exodus 28:30 says they were placed over Aaron's heart whenever he went in before the LORD. The priest used them to bring questions to God and receive a decision, usually something close to a yes or a no. Scripture never describes their shape, material or number, and it never explains the procedure. They appear in only a handful of passages, from Exodus through Ezra and Nehemiah.
Urim is the plural of the Hebrew word for light, and Thummim is the plural of a word meaning completeness or integrity, so the common rendering is lights and perfections. The names describe what Israel hoped to receive: clarity on a hard question and an answer that could be trusted. Urim begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and Thummim with the last, which some find suggestive, though that is an observation rather than evidence.
Nobody knows for certain. The stories suggest short answers to clear questions, such as David asking whether Saul would come to Keilah in 1 Samuel 23. The Greek Septuagint of 1 Samuel 14:41 has Saul asking God to give Urim for one outcome and Thummim for the other, which points toward a kind of sacred lot. Sometimes no answer came at all. The popular idea that the stones glowed comes from Josephus and the Talmud, not from Scripture.
The Bible never records their loss. By Saul's reign the oracle could fall silent, as 1 Samuel 28:6 shows, and after the return from Babylon, Ezra 2:63 says a question had to wait until a priest with Urim and Thummim stood up. None ever did. Jewish tradition counted them among the things missing from the Second Temple, and Josephus said the oracle had been silent for about two centuries before his day.
No. They belonged to an old covenant arrangement in which one priest asked on behalf of the people. Jesus is now the high priest who carries His people on His heart, and the Spirit lives in every believer. God still guides, through the Spirit, through Scripture read in the light of Jesus, through wise counsel and through the active gifts of the Spirit. What we should not do is turn Bible flipping, fleeces or prophetic words into dice that replace prayer and thought.