Priestly breastplate

These elements of the breastplate are said in the Exodus verse to carry the judgment (Hebrew: מִשְׁפָּט mišpāṭ) of God concerning the Israelites at all times.

[2] According to the Talmud, the wearing of the Hoshen atoned for the sin of errors in judgment on the part of the Children of Israel.

According to a rabbinic tradition, the names of the twelve tribes were engraved upon the stones with what is called ‮שָׁמִיר‬‎ shamir in Hebrew, which Jewish legend explains to be a small, rare creature which could cut through the toughest surfaces.

[9] Classical rabbinical literature argues that the names were inscribed using shamir because neither chisels nor paint nor ink were allowed to mark them out,[14][15] whereas a more naturalistic approach suggests that the jewels must have had comparatively low hardness to be engraved upon.

[2] Explanations of the symbolic meaning of the jewels generated a great deal of both Jewish and Christian writing and were a staple component of the tradition of lapidaries or books on gemology.

The names and proposed identities of the jewel stones are as follows: In the New Testament Book of Revelation is the description of a city wall, with each layer of stones in the wall being from a different material; in the original Koine Greek, the layers are given as iaspis, sapphiros, chalcedon, smaragdos, sardonyx, sardion, chrysolithos, beryllos, topazion, chrysoprason, yacinthos, amethystos.