What did the twelve emblems/seals of the sons of Israel look like and what was their historical significant?

I am a structured person. I like questions that have answers. I have been an avid church goer my entire life. It is very hard for me to look at the Bible as anything other than fact. So now that I have had a complete mental breakdown over this assignment, I am ready to discuss the book of Exodus. The main question that grabbed at my curiosity was the twelve emblems made of stone. I began to think what would these have looked like? What was the importance of each stone?

In Exodus Ch. 28 verse 17-21, the passages discuss twelve stones of Israel and how they are to be crafted. Verse 21 states: “There are to be twelve stones, one for each of the names of the sons of Israel, each engraved like a seal with the name of one of the twelve tribes.” The passage goes on to say of what material each stone should be made of. It also talks about how each of the stones are to be arranged.

I found a really interesting website with pictures of what each seal might have looked like and their meaning under each seal. The website http://www.templesanjose.org/JudaismInfo/history/12tribes.htm discusses how each of the sons of Jacob lineage develops over the years. Zebulun lines became fishermen. They lived by the coastlines. Judah was a ruling and regal tribe. The list goes on. The information presented is very informative on the meaning of each stone used to make the collections of stones, however; we do not know according to the Bible which stones were used to represent which child.

Another site I used to find out information was John P. Pratt at http://www.johnpratt.com/items/docs/lds/meridian/2005/12stones.html .  Mr. Pratt tries to identify which stone would have been for each child, using birthstones. In this article he uses the birth dates and the birth constellations to identify whose stone is whose. Where he gets the birthdays is anyone’s guess. He justifies this by saying, “that this would have been Jewish tradition for one child to be born each month.” I find this very hard to believe. Jacob was producing babies with four women. It would have been a divine plan that was not mentioned in the Bible to have each child a different month.

Furthermore, I found a blog site called http://www.fisheaters.com/preciousstones.html; which further explained how the breastplate was to set the priest above all earthly kings according to the Jewish dictionary. This being a symbol to man that the priest is the way to God and no man is greater.  I like this site because it gives several different references to not only the Bible scripture but to religious books. This is helpful in explaining the historical value of the breastplate and the stones. It was a prestige thing. People could see the breastplate and know that person was chosen by God to do his work.

I have decided that according to the Jewish dictionary that the breastplate would have been a symbol of higher archery in this day in age would mostly be true. Only the priest and kings would have had this kind of fine jewelry. So as a logic based person, I can rationalize this theory. It was also very interesting to see the symbols used according to the Jewish faith for the son’s of Jacob, but with no proof it is left to the individual to determine what is the correct interpretation. Using the symbols in the Jewish faith for each stone and how it traced the lineage of each of the twelve sons was impressive. I can see the hard work and man hours put in to it. I just need more proof in order to adopt this way of thinking in to my life style.