Ephod - Extended Uses

Extended Uses

Besides use as a garment, an Ephod was also used for oracular purposes, in conjunction with Urim and Thummim; the books of Samuel imply that whenever Saul or David wished to question God via oracular methods, they asked a priest for the ephod. Since the oracular process is considered by scholars to have been one of cleromancy, with the Urim and Thummim being the objects which were drawn as lots, the Ephod is considered by scholars to have been some form of container for the Urim and Thummim; to harmonise this with the descriptions of the Ephod as a garment, it is necessary to conclude that the Ephod must have originally been some sort of pocket, which the priests girded to themselves. However, the biblical text states the Urim and Thummim were placed in the breastplate, not the ephod (Leviticus 8:8).

The object at Nob, which must have been somewhat freestanding since another object is kept behind it, and the objects made by Gideon and by Micah, from molten gold, logically cannot have just been garments. The object made by Gideon is plainly described as having been worshipped, and therefore the idol of some deity (possibly of Yahweh), while the object made by Micah is closely associated with a Teraphim, and the Ephod and Teraphim are described interchangeably with the Hebrew terms pesel and massekah, meaning graven image, and molten image, respectively.

Even the ephods used for oracular purposes were not necessarily just pieces of cloth, as they are not described as being worn, but carried (though some translations render 1 Samuel 2:28 as wear an ephod rather than carry an ephod); the Hebrew term used in these passages for carry is nasa, which specifically implies that the Ephod was carried either in the hand or on the shoulder. The conclusion thus is that Ephod, in these cases, referred to a portable idol, which the lots were cast in front of; some scholars have suggested that the connection between the idol and the garment is that the idol was originally clothed in a linen garment, and the term Ephod gradually came to describe the idol as a whole.

Other scholars suggest that the ephod originally refers to a container for the stones used to cast lots and later became associated with many objects that also could contain the stones or were used in divination.

According to the Talmud, the wearing of the ephod atoned for the sin of idolatry on the part of the Children of Israel.