U'RIM AND THUM'MIM (Heb. urim. wetummin!). The name given to two objects, perhaps pebbles or stones in the shape of dice, kept in the oracle-pouch that hung upon the breast of the Jewish high priest (Ex. xxviii. 30: see EPHOD). They were used to obtain an oracular decision revealing the Divine will. While we do not know the precise manner in which this de cision was obtained, analogy from similar cue. toms among ancient nations makes it probable that the stones were drawn by lot out of the pouch, and, according to the one drawn, an af firmative or negative answer to a question was given. An entirely satisfactory explanation of the two mysterious names has not yet been fur nished, Nit all the evidence points in favor of a connection with two Babylonian stems (u'uru and tennu), from which arc derived vrtu, eision' (used chiefly of oracular decisions), and tamitu, 'oracle,' which occur in the religious literature of Babylonia. The two words would thus be almost synonymous, and this view is sup ported by the consideration that they are so used in the Old Testament (e.g. Dent. xxxiii. 8, ac cording to the Septuagint text), and that Urim at times is used without Thummim (e.g. Num.
xxvii. 21 and I. Sam. xxviii. 6), which shows that the one word conveyed the idea without the help of the other. The early explanations, such as 'light and perfection' or 'light and truth' (Luther's view), are generally rejected as purely fanciful by critical scholars, who hold that the use of the Urim and Thummim belongs to the realm of primitive religious rites, and that its persistence to so late a period as that of the com pilation of the Priestly Code (Ex. xxviii. 30) is due to the strong hold that it had taken upon the Hebrews. It should be added, however, that the notice in the Priestly Code, where the Urim and Thummim arc described as a part of the high priest's costume, without reference to their practical use, marks the transition to the sym bolical view taken in the later Jewish theology of their significance as tokens of the revelation and guidance granted to Israel through its repre sentative, Aaron. Consult the articles in the Hastings Bible Dictionary and the Encyclopaedia Bibilea, and "The Urim and Thum mini," in the American Journal of Semitic Languages, vol. xvi. (Chicago, 1900).