EPH'OD (Heb. en/•od, vestment, perhaps from aphah, to clothe). The name of one of the gar ments worn by the high priest (Ex. xxviii. 6-8), but also worn by temple servants in general. Samuel wears one (I. Sam. E. 18), and also the eighty-five priests of Nob (I. Sam. xxii. is). Likewise David wears an ephod when dancing be fore the ark (II. Sam. vi. 14). It may be as sumed that the ordinary ephod made of linen was less ornate than the one used by the high priest, which was made of costly material and of various colors—blue, purple, scarlet, and fine linen, interwoven with gold thread. It was held in place by two shoulder-straps, attached to it behind and passing over the shoulders to the front. On the top of each of the shoulder-pieces was an onyx stone on which the names of the twelve tribes were engraved, six on each stone. The ephod was worn over a blue frock, and on its front was the jeweled breastplate containing the oracle pouch for the Urim and Thummim. Ephod is also used in the Bible for image. Gideon is said to have made himself an ephod of the golden rings taken front the Midianites and to have set it up in Ophrah. It was evidently an object of worship, and since 1700 shekels were spent on it, it is natural to suppose that the ephod was the chief object in the sanctuary. Elsewhere too
the ephod is spoken of in a manner to permit of no doubt that a part of the equipment of a sanctuary is meant. In Judges xvii.-xviii. Micah provides for an ephod, and here and elsewhere the ephod is placed side by side with the teraphim (e.g. Hosea iii. 4), which were small images set up in one's household and used in divination. The ephod -may therefore have been used in con nection with the teraphim.
To reconcile two such divergent uses of the same term various theories have been put for ward. The most probable supposition is that the ephod, from being originally a specific name for an object used in divination ceremonies, was somewhat generalized and came to be applied, first to the garment on which the priest put the portable oracle, and then in a more general way to the garment without the oracle-pouch, worn by the ordinary priest when he came to the sanctuary to seek an oracle. Consult Foote, "The Ephod," in Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. xxi. (1902).