Divination of God: The Obscure Ancient Tool of Prophecy Revealed

LIGHTS AND PERFECTIONS
On the following pages, you'll be reading about an ancient divination tool hidden in the Bible that will enable you to have a more conscious experience of the divine connection we all have to our Creator, and one that I find absolutely fascinating. Over the centuries, the Christian Church has traditionally banned divination instruments of all kinds, labeling them as evil. ("For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry..." I Samuel 15:23) Yet, there is one such instrument that exists in all versions of the Bible that stands out as one of the only direct ways for man to communicate with God, called the Urim and Thummim. The fact that it exists at all and has been there all along is exciting to me. There is an old saying that God gives us everything we need. The problem is we may or may not notice it, or be ready for it. By looking at this ancient tool in new light, we allow our Creator the opportunity to communicate with us with greater clarity than ever before. In Hebrew, Urim means "Lights" and Thummim means "Perfections," which could relate to the illumination or "light" you receive when you have a clear link to your Creator and "perfection" as the correct and profound wisdom of God. I first learned about Urim and Thummim after my book Edgar Cayce's Guide to Gemstones, Minerals, Metals and More had already been published. In that work, I described the stones in the breastplate of the high priest, and unfortunately, was not aware of the special stones that lay just behind the others that the High Priests of Israel used to speak to God. As I mentioned briefly in the introduction, a friend gave me a copy of the beautifully written book The Alchemist, which is a Biblical metaphor about a shepherd boy who travels to Egypt in search of hidden treasure. In the book, he exchanges some of his sheep for two stones called Urim and Thummim used to offer him wisdom and direction in times of need. When I read the passage, a feeling of great knowingness rushed over me and I knew I was going to write a book and show this to people so it would be a more readily accessible tool for a divine connection to God. The Breastplate Before we get into the Urim and Thummim, we should discuss the breastplate and its uses. In Exodus, the Lord commanded Moses to deliver the Israelites from Egypt and gave him the Ten Commandments and other Laws on Mount Sinai, including the exact specifications of how the church, or Tabernacle, was to be constructed, and how it should be decorated. There were also specific instructions about the garments the priests would wear which included a breastplate to be worn initially by Moses' brother Aaron, and all subsequent High Priests of Israel. In my photo on the opposite page, I have depicted a rough sketch of what some would say the mysterious breastplate would have looked like. The breastplate had twelve stones embedded in it, each representing one of the twelve tribes of Israel. As I discussed in the Cayce book, scholars have continually debated on the exact identity of the each of the stones that were used. The truth is that nobody will ever really know for sure what they were. For this writing, I am using the exact stones mentioned in the King James Version of the Bible, and will continue to refer to the King James version for the remainder of the book: "And you shall put settings of stones in it, four rows of stones: The first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle; this shall be the first row, the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond, the third row, a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst, and the forth row, a beryl, an onyx and a jasper. They shall be set in gold settings. And the stones shall have the names of the sons of Israel, twelve according to their names, like the engravings of a signet, each one with its own name; they shall be according to the twelve tribes. Exodus 28:17-21 King James Version In addition to the twelve stones representing the tribes, the priest would also wear engraved onyx stones on his shoulders with each of the tribes names written on them - six tribes per stone: "And thou shalt take two onyx stones, and grave on them the names of the children of Israel: Six of their names on one stone, and the other six names of the rest on the other stone, according to their birth. With the work of an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a signet, shalt thou engrave the two stones with the names of the children of Israel: Thou shalt make them to be set in ouches of gold. And thou shalt put the two stones upon the shoulders of the ephod for stones of memorial unto the children of Israel: and Aaron shall bear their names before the Lord upon his two shoulders for a memorial. Exodus 28:9-12 Nobody knows for sure what these stones did, although some believe the onyx stones were an oracle themselves and would illuminate from time to time. When the right onyx lit up, it indicated God's answer was positive, or 'yes', and when the left was illuminated it indicated a 'no' response. The exact identity of the twelve tribes is also revealed in Exodus: "Now these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan, and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already.   Exodus 1: 1-5 The stones in the breastplate were in and of themselves an oracle, according to one scholar I interviewed. In his interpretation, the stones were carved with letters from the Hebrew alphabet and would occasionally light up and someone would transcribe God's messages to the priest. What those letters were, though is also unknown. Another version of that story is that the twelve stones would light up prior to combat to indicate the Lord's favor and the successful outcome of the battle, but eventually God became displeased as the Children of Israel fell out of favor, so the twelve stones stopped becoming illuminated.