Onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate.
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George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Onyx, emeralds. (Calmet)
The ephod and the rational. The ephod was the high priests upper vestment; and the rational his breast-plate, in which were twelve gems (Challoner)
Ephod means a kind of girdle or stole, peculiar to priests, or used by others only of the highest distinction, (Calmet) and in religious solemnities. (St. Jerome, ad Marcel.) Josephus (Antiquities ii. 8,) describes it as different from what it was in the days of Moses. Many other alterations had then taken place; the Urim and Thummim were disused The Pallium is in imitation of the high priest's ephod. The rational is so called, because by it the high priest was enabled to give his oracles, chap. xxviii. 15. (Calmet)
The precise import of the Hebrew cheshen, which Protestants render breast plate, is not known. It was certainly fastened on the ephod over the breast, and consisted of 12 stones, on which the names of the 12 patriarchs were engraven. (Haydock)
