Yafo / Jaffa / יפו
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Centaurea Cyanus
Jeremiah 10:9-10
New King James Version
9 Silver is beaten into plates;
It is brought from Tarshish,
And gold from Uphaz,
The work of the craftsman
And of the hands of the metalsmith;
Blue and purple are their clothing;
They are all the work of skillful men.
10 But the Lord is the true God;
He is the living God and the everlasting King.
At His wrath the earth will tremble,
And the nations will not be able to endure His indignation.
D' Unconquerable (Sultan Kudarat) by JBulaong 2019 oil on canvas
#SultanKudarat #JBulaong #Mindanao #CagayandeOro #LakeLanao #Iranun #islandsofgold #Ophir #Philippinehero #kakapboat #Tarshish #oiloncanvas #painting
... I’m not so religious in traditional manner, not serving any of world religious confessions but respect them all. I’m just human been and I believe in God, who created all our world, all around us and, of course, us - humans as well as other live creatures... Unfortunately it’s not so much of justice in our world, that’s why the fate of any person and especially of all population can’t leave us indifferent...
Barrio Santa Crus... It’s the most picturesque and delightful part of the Seville, with narrow winding cobbled streets and whitewashed houses, where you can sit outside a bar, enjoy some tapas and watch the world go by, or wander through centuries-old gardens and relax on beautiful tiled benches. Up to the end of 15th century it was the Jewish quarter; some of the churches were originally synagogues. The covered passageway heading off the Patio de Banderas (part of the Alcázar) called the Judería...
An ancient tradition places Jews in Seville at the time of the destruction of the first Temple (586 BCE). In fact, several influential Jewish families of Seville claim to be descendants of King David. Amazingly, there is even some speculation that Jews settled in this region as far back as the 11th century B.C.E. The source of this belief rests on the identification of Seville with the distant port of Tarshish which is mentioned in the Bible... There is no doubt that a Jewish settlement existed during the period of Visigothic rule in the peninsula. During the Ummayad Caliphate, Seville prospered and the Jews who lived there were engaged in commerce, medicine and the dyeing industry. Under the Almoravides, the Jewish community in Seville was big enough, but as in other parts of Andalusia, the Almohade conquest brought death and destruction. When Seville was reconquered by the Christians (1248), the Jews welcomed them with open arms. They presented Ferdinand III with a key to the city, which has been preserved in the cathedral treasury. For a period of time, the Jewish community was revived. Though they were taxed heavily, they received real estate, and good land for farming. Those who participated in annual fairs and were granted freedom to trade and exemption from taxes. Gradually, as the reconquest succeeded, and the Christians no longer needed money, or help from the Jews, live became increasingly more difficult. An important turning point came with the anti-Jewish activities of archdeacon Martinez, who was the confessor to the child king's mother. Though he was repeatedly ordered to stop his diatribes, Martinez succeeded in arousing passionate hatred among the masses. In 1391, disaster struck in Seville. The entire Jewish community was nearly destroyed and the synagogues were converted to churches. Historians say many Jews converted to Christianity on the spot to save their lives, while women and children were sold as slaves. Once vibrant community never recovered and along with the other Jews of Andalusia, they were exiled in 1483...
Spots of the sunshine, cat on the roof screwing up one’s eyes, bright flowers everywhere - calm, peaceful atmosphere... All is not history in the Juderia. This is a neighborhood which pulses with life. As it was for the Jews for 1000 years, it is still a residential area. The Barrio of Santa Cruz, which encompasses much of the ancient Jewish Quarter, is considered one of the poshest neighborhoods of Seville and only names of the streets and “J” on the walls of houses remind about the people who lived here long time ago...
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Jaffa. The Clock Tower.
It is is the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. It is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus.
It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, as a city opposite the territory given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan, as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple, as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish and again as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem.
Jaffa.
It is is the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. It is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus.
It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, as a city opposite the territory given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan, as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple, as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish and again as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem.Jaffa.
Boats in the Old harbour of Jaffa (Joppa of the Old Testament, where Jonah set sail for Tarshish before his adventure with the Big Fish), near Tel Aviv, Israel
It is then covered with fat, usually fat in the tail. The Mediterranean restaurant also added on top of the kebob to let the juices seep through the meat.
鳳凰，亦稱丹鳥、火鳥、鶤雞、威鳳，是中國古代傳說中的百鳥之王，在中華文化中的地位和龍相同。其羽毛一般被描述為赤紅色，“鳳”為雄性，“凰”為雌性[1]。其圖徽常用來象徵祥瑞。
受中國文化的影響，鳳凰的形象在漢字文化圈各區域中普遍出現。英文稱之為Chinese Phoenix或簡稱Phoenix（實際上Phoenix指的是西方傳說裡的不死鳥）。
在甲骨文中，鳳與風為同字，皆寫為鳳凰之形，而後鳳加上凡聲，之後又將鳳形改為虫形創造出風字，由此可見鳳凰與風的關係
據《爾雅·釋鳥》郭璞注，鳳凰特徵是：「雞頭、燕頷、蛇頸、龜背、魚尾、五彩色，高六尺許」。
《山海經·圖贊》說有五種像字紋：「首文曰德，翼文曰順，背文曰義，腹文曰信，膺文曰仁。」[3]
《廣雅》：「鳳凰，雞頭燕頷，蛇頸鴻身，魚尾骿翼。五色：首文曰德，翼文曰順，背文義，腹文信，膺文仁。雄鳴曰卽卽，雌鳴曰足足，昬鳴曰固常，晨鳴曰發明，晝鳴曰保長，舉鳴曰上翔，集鳴曰歸昌。」
另，《說文》云：「鳳之象也，鴻前麟後，鸛顙鴛腮，龍文龜背，燕頷雞啄，五色備舉。」
鳳是人們心目中的瑞鳥，天下太平的象徵。古人認為時逢太平盛世，便有鳳凰飛來。
鳳凰也是中國皇權的象徵，常和龍一起使用，鳳從屬於龍，用於皇后嬪妃，龍鳳呈祥是最具中國特色的圖騰。民間美術中也有大量的類似造型。鳳也代表陰，儘管鳳凰也分雄雌，更一般的是將其看作陰性。「鳳」、「凰」常見於女性名。宋朝就常使用龍鳳旗，還使用龍鳳作為吉祥標記，使用在物品上，比如龍鳳團茶。
鳳凰被認為是百鳥中最尊貴者，為鳥中之王，有「百鳥朝鳳」之說。
按陰陽五行之說，鳳色赤，五行屬火，是南方七宿朱雀之象。另也為中國民間指的四靈之一（《禮運》，龍、鳳凰、麒麟、龜）。
而鳳凰亦有「愛情」、「夫妻」的意思；語本詩經大雅卷阿：『鳳皇於飛，翽翽其羽。』李白·早夏於將軍叔宅與諸昆季送傅八之江南序：「重傅侯玉潤之德，妻以其子，鳳凰于飛，潘楊之好，斯為睦矣」。因此鳳凰在中國文學中常比喻為「真摯的愛情。」[來源請求]
中華龍鳳文化研究中心主任龐進認為，在中國的象徵文化體系中，鳳凰是完美主義的化身，鳳凰文化的精髓是「和美」。通過研究，龐進發現鳳凰是「合」的神物，它的出現是中國古人對自然界各種生物理解、尊重、敬畏、愛戀、審美的結果，這與道家強調的「天道自然之和」即「天和」相一致。
而凰，古音與光相通，有的研究者[谁？]認為是一種與光有關的鳥，即太陽鳥。
鳳則同風相通，也可理解為「風神」。
鳳亦被視為火神。《初學記》卷三十引緯書《孔演圖》說：「鳳，火精」。
《鶡冠子·度萬第八》：「鳳凰者，鶉火之禽，陽之精也。」
《抱朴子》說：「夫木行為仁，為青。鳳頭上青，故曰戴仁也。金行為義，為白。鳳頸白，故曰纓義也。火行為禮，為赤。鳳嘴赤，故曰負禮也。水行為智，為黑，鳳胸黑，故曰尚知也。土行為信，為黃。鳳足下黃，故曰蹈信也。」——頭部呈青色，頸部呈白色，喙部呈赤色，胸、背部呈黑色，趾、爪呈黃色。
中華民國初期的國旗為五色旗，一說取自鳳凰五色，同時也代表仁，義，禮，智，信五德。[來源請求]
香港中文大學以鳳作為校徽。原因是自漢代以來，鳳即被視為「南方之鳥」，且素為高貴、美麗、忠耿及莊嚴之象徵。以紫與金為校色，取意在紫色象徵熱誠與忠耿，金色象徵堅毅與果敢
楚人尊鳳是由其遠祖拜日、尊鳳的原始信仰衍化而來的，迄今已逾七千多年有文物可考的歷史。楚人的祖先祝融是火神兼雷神。漢代《白虎通》說，祝融「其精為鳥，離為鸞。」《卞鴉·絳鳥》注曰：「鳳凰屬也」。可見，祝融也是鳳的化身。《山海經·大荒北經》中說：「大荒之中，有山名曰北極櫃。海水北注焉。有神九首，人面鳥身，句曰九鳳」。楚文化遺跡中除了龍以外還存在大量人首蛇身、人首鳥身和九頭神鳥的圖騰，開啟了中國傳說文化中「龍鳳呈祥」的文化淵源。從圖騰崇拜在氏族制時期所反映出的突出特點來看，鳳為楚人的祖先，故被楚人作為本氏族的圖騰加以崇拜、尊愛便是必然的事了。
鳳不僅是神鳥，也是楚人、楚國尊嚴的象徵。楚人尊鳳的影響便透到各個領域。如在楚國的文物中，鳳的圖像、繡像和雕像不勝枚舉，楚人衣服上的刺繡圖案也是以鳳為主要內容。此外，還有「鳳鳥雙連環」、「虎座鳳架鼓」、「鳳龍虎繡羅禪衣」等，楚國的鳳紋彩繪可謂千姿百態，無奇不有。
《論衡校釋》：「五鳥之記：『四方中央皆有大鳥，其出，眾鳥皆從，小大毛色類鳳皇。』」；《說文解字》：「五方神鳥：東方發明，南方焦明，西方鷫鷞，北方幽昌，中央鳳皇。」（注：焦明即鷦明。）[7]
《禽經》：「青鳳謂之鶡，赤鳳謂之鶉，黃鳳謂之焉，白鳳謂之肅，紫鳳謂之鷟。
天方國古有不死鳥「菲尼克司」（Phoenix，常見譯名為「鳳凰」），滿五百歲後，集香木自焚，復從死灰中更生，鮮美異常，不再死。郭沫若所作詩歌《鳳凰涅槃》中的鳳凰，即指西方傳說中的不死鳥。古埃及神話中也有一種稱為「貝努」的鳥。古埃及人認為，貝努和鷹一般大小，全身長有金色的羽毛，閃閃發光的翅膀、斑斕的外表、鳴聲悅耳，能給人降福添壽；同時認為世界上只有一隻貝努，而壽命為五百年。在臨死之時，貝努會採集芳香植物的樹枝、香草築成一個巢，然後點火自焚，在熊熊火燄中，一隻幼貝努誕生了。新生的幼貝努就將老貝努的骨灰裝進藥蛋中，在蛋上塗上防腐的香料油，帶著它飛到太陽神那裡，由太陽神將它放在太陽廟的神壇上。
以上所提及的「火鳥」，與中國傳說中的鳳凰有一定的差別，但華人在翻譯與認知上習慣把不死鳥當成鳳凰。然而西方傳說中的火鳥形象上比較像老鷹，東方傳說中的鳳凰在形象上則是較像雞、雉。此外，中國神話傳說並無鳳凰會浴火重生的說法，「凤凰涅槃」此詞是郭沫若所作詩歌《鳳凰涅槃》中歌頌不死鳥所創的詞，混淆了不死鳥與鳳凰。比較相近的是從佛教傳說中會因吞食那伽而自燃而死的迦樓羅（金翅鳥）。不過中國不會把鳳凰與迦樓羅混淆在一起，而且迦樓羅也不會重生。
zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%87%A4%E5%87%B0
Fenghuang:The fenghuang has very positive connotations. It is a symbol of high virtue and grace. The fenghuang also symbolizes the union of yin and yang. Shan Hai Jing's 1st chapter “Nanshang Jing” records each part of fenghuang's body symbolizes a word, the head represents virtue (德), the wing represents duty (義), the back represents propriety (禮), the abdomen says credibility (信) and the chest represents mercy (仁).[4]
Portrait of an empress, possibly Empress Xiaoxianchun, (wife of the Qianlong Emperor) sitting on a chair decorated with Phoenix
In ancient and modern Chinese culture, they can often be found in the decorations for weddings or royalty, along with dragons. This is because the Chinese considered the dragon and phoenix symbolic of blissful relations between husband and wife, another common yang and yin metaphor.
Bowl with dragons, phoenixes, gourds, and characters for happiness, used on Guangxu Emperor's wedding ceremony, from Peabody Essex Museum. In some traditions it appears in good times but hides during times of trouble, while in other traditions it appeared only to mark the beginning of a new era. In China and Japan it was a symbol of the imperial house, and it represented "fire, the sun, justice, obedience, and fidelity.When describing chinoiserie or authentic Asian ceramics and other artworks, English-speaking art historians and antique collectors sometimes refer to it as hoho bird,[6] a name derived from hō-ō, with a second extraneous h added. Hō-ō is simply the Japanese pronunciation of fenghuang. The seemingly vast difference between hō-ō and fenghuang is due to Chinese vowels with ng usually being converted to ō in Go-on reading. The Japanese also use the word fushichō for this image.
Phoenix talons (S:凤爪 T:鳳爪) is a Chinese term for chicken claws in any Chinese dish cooked with them.
Fèng or Fènghuáng is a common element in given names of Chinese women (likewise, "Dragon" is used for men's names).
"Dragon-and-phoenix infants" (S:龙凤胎 T:龍鳳胎) is an expression meaning a set of male and female fraternal twins.
Fenghuang is a common place name throughout China. The best known is Fenghuang county in western Hunan, southern China, formerly a sub-prefecture. Its name is written with the same Chinese characters as the mythological bird.
In Korea, this bird is known as Bong Hwang 봉황, this merely being the Korean pronunciation of fenghuang. An alternate term of Bul Sa Jo 불사조 (不死鳥), or "immortal bird" is used to refer to the type of phoenix that never dies (i.e. the Greek "phoenix"), with bong hwang being reserved for the Asian variety. Bong Hwang is often seen used within the royal emblem (especially for queens - the dragon being the emblem of the king) and appears twice in the current presidential emblem.[citation needed] North Jeolla's football club uses it as its symbol.
The Vermilion Bird, (Suzaku in Japanese) one of the Four Symbols of Chinese myth, sometimes confused with the fenghuang, from which it is a distinct entity.[7]
Phoenix Television (鳳凰衛星電視) is a Hong Kong-based media company
Typhoon Fung-wong has been a meteorological name for three tropical cyclones. The term was contributed by Hong Kong and is the Cantonese pronunciation of fenghuang.A common depiction of fenghuang was of it attacking snakes with its talons and its wings spread. According to the Erya's chapter 17 Shiniao, fenghuang is made up of the beak of a rooster, the face of a swallow, the forehead of a fowl, the neck of a snake, the breast of a goose, the back of a tortoise, the hindquarters of a stag and the tail of a fish.[1] Today, however, it is often described as a composite of many birds including the head of a golden pheasant, the body of a mandarin duck, the tail of a peacock, the legs of a crane, the mouth of a parrot, and the wings of a swallow.
The fenghuang's body symbolizes the celestial bodies: the head is the sky, the eyes are the sun, the back is the moon, the wings are the wind, the feet are the earth, and the tail is the planets.[2] The fenghuang is said to have originated in the sun.[2] Its body contain the five fundamental colors: black, white, red, yellow, and green.[2] It sometimes carries scrolls or a box with sacred books.[2] It is sometimes depicted with a fireball.[2] It is sometimes depicted as having three legs.[citation needed] It is believed that the bird only appears in areas or places that are blessed with utmost peace and prosperity or happiness.
Chinese tradition cites it as living atop the Kunlun Mountains in northern China.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenghuang
The bird is generally thought to be a symbol of freedom.
They can walk on the earth and swim in the sea as humans do but they also have the ability to soar into the sky.
Birds are free to roam to earth and the sky. Many cultures believe that they are a symbol of eternal life; the link between heaven and earth.A comprehensive guide to Peacock Symbol:
Meaning of Peacock symbol
Peacock symbol - Facts
Dream explanation, what is the significance of seeing a Peacock in a dream?Peacock SymbolThere is no exact definition for any symbol; each symbol is open to interpretation and birds are no exception to this. Their symbolism can vary greatly depending on different cultures and religion. The Peacock is a male peafowl and is generally thought to be a symbol of the sun.
It is believed that the round tail of the peacock symbolizes heaven and the markings or 'eyes' on the tail are the stars.
In Buddhism, the 'eyes' in the peacocks tail is a symbol of watchfulness.
Peacock Symbol - Meaning; The definition of a Peacock is a male peafowl; having a crested head and very large fanlike tail marked with iridescent eyes or spots. The peacock is the male of the species and has large colorful feathers which it uses to attract a mate. The female is known as a peahen and unlike the
Peacock feathers are considered to be unlucky, it is thought the 'evil' eye on the feather will be a symbol of bad luck for the owner... The peacock is often used as a symbol of vanity due to its beauty and the way it displays his tail feathers The Hindu god Murugan is a popular Hindu deity among Tamil Hindus. In Tolkāppiyam literature, Murugan, is described as being "the red god seated on the blue peacock, who is ever young and resplendent," as " the favoured god of the Tamils."Muruga rides a peacock and wields a bow in battle His peacock mount is a symbol of the destruction of the ego... Native Aborigines believed that birds carried stories..The Peacock's beautiful tail feathers are more than a metre in length... Peacocks are always males! The female of the species is called a peahen and lacks the beautiful coloring of the male (as shown in the image below)
Peacock Symbol - Seeing a peacock in your dream is a symbol of spring, birth, and new growth... A Peacock is a symbol of a good omen, signalling prestige and success and contentment with your career
It is also a symbol of your confidence and even arrogance over your success
Peacock Symbol - Christian Significance
The following definition of the peacock is taken from the Easton Bible Dictionary:(Heb. tuk, apparently borrowed from the Tamil tokei). This bird is indigenous to India. It was brought to Solomon by his ships from Tarshish (1 Kings 10:22; 2 Chr. 9:21), which in this case was probably a district on the Malabar coast of India, or in Ceylon. Dream Interpretation - Significance of Bird Symbol..The following explanation of dreams involving birds in general is taken from the book entitled 'Dream Dictionary (10,000 Dreams Interpreted - by Gustavus Hindman Miller)':
It is a favorable symbol in a dream to see birds of beautiful plumage. A wealthy and happy partner is near if a woman has dreams of this nature..Moulting and song less birds, could denote merciless and inhuman treatment of the outcast and fallen by people of wealth... To see a wounded bird, is a symbol of fateful of deep sadness caused by erring offspring
To see flying birds, is a symbol of prosperity to the dreamer. All disagreeable environments will vanish before the wave of prospective good...To catch birds, is not at all bad. To hear them speak, is owning one's inability to perform tasks that demand great clearness of perception.Peacock is a bird that has symbolized different things in different religions and cultures.
Christians associate it with immortality, ancient Mesopotamians associated a symbol of a tree flanked by two peacocks with the dualistic mind, while the bird and its feathers have been used in Hindu religion and mythology. In Buddhism, it represents wisdom.Peacocks are associated with bodhisattvas. Peacocks are capable of eating poisonous plants with out any harmful effect and similarly a Bodhisattva is able to transform ignorance into enlightenment, desire and hatred to positive feelings.
When a person comes across an enlightened thought or bodhichitta his mind opens just like an open tail of a peacock that exhibits all colors. Excatly how a peacock uses poison to nurture his body and become healthy a bodhisattva uses negativity to emerge more beautiful in all colors. They are considered to be a vehicle of Buddha amitabha representing desire and attachment.In Asia, the feathers of the peacock are considered auspicious and protective. However in the early part of the 20th-century in the West, it was considered very bad luck to keep them in the home. Lucky treasure pot from a home in Bhutan.One silly explanation for this superstition is that it was promoted intentionally to prevent people from eating this large, delicious member of the pheasant family. In that way, the bird would be protected from extinction, for many people thought it was rare -- a quintessential rara avis.The reason for the superstition has more to do with the eye-like markings at the tips of the feathers which, around the Mediterranean, recall the dreaded "evil eye"-- the ever watchful and envious glance of the she-demon, Lilith.
She was blamed for otherwise inexplicable deaths of infants, among other misfortunes.Only partly as a result of this association with the evil eye was it believed that the flesh of the peacock is poisonous. But in any case, that is nonsense.
At the height of both the Greek and Roman cultures, the bird was served at formal dinners with its feathers cunningly pasted back on, possibly with a honey mixture used as glue, so that the dramatic beauty concealed the roasted fowl. At the excessive and luxurious banquets of European kings and queens of the Renaissance, there was an epicurean delight consisting of stuffed roast birds one inside the other like the famous Russian wooden mamushka dolls. The outermost shell was the glorious peacock, its many-eyed train stretching the length of the middle of the "groaning board." As Margaret Visser, in Much Depends On Dinner points out: People have always thought that what looks amazing must certainly taste wonderful, too. From the time of Cicero until the Renaissance, no truly sumptuous European feast was held without a dish of peacock, often adorned with the bird's feathered head and fan of tail feathers.
(A dish of swan could also be similarly displayed, the impressive wings taking pride of place instead of the fan.)
According to "Food fashions of the Renaissance" in Food:
The History of Taste, where you can see illustrations of tables set with these extravagant dishes, it was the rapid rise in popularity of the meat of the North American turkey that ended the reign of "peacock supreme."Deities and Royalty..The peacock was associated with the Middle Eastern deity, Tammuz, consort of the goddess, Anat. In Greece, it was sacred to Hera, queen of heaven and lawful wife of Zeus -- a pair of them drew her chariot --, and they were kept at her temples. In the Roman Empire, peacocks were Juno's birds and on coins symbolized the females of the ruling houses, the lineage princesses. In both the Hindu and the Buddhist traditions, the peacock's influence is mainly in the realm of worldly appearance. (This is in contrast to the swan which is a symbol of the higher realms. ) Hence, the Mother-of-Buddhas, Mahamayuri-vidyarajni (Skt.) has a peacock as her vehicle. In Japan, she appears as Kujaku. Skanda (also called Murugan,) one of the two sons of Indian god, Shiva, has a peacock for his mount. Lord of the elements of form, he is also a war god. A standard made of peacock feathers used to indicate the presence of a 19th-century rajah, whose power is worldly.
In the old Chinese bureaucratic system, members of the third highest level displayed a peacock as the insignia of rank. These badges were in the form of large embroidered squares applied to the front of an official's formal gown. (A similar system for indicating status was used in the Byzantine Empire.) Peacocks are considered sacred in India, especially in the north where its feathers may be burnt to ward off disease, and even to cure snakebite. In a Buddhist tale about the travels of some Indian merchants to Baveru or Babylon, we learn that the inhabitants of that great city marvelled at the gorgeous bird which the merchants had brought with them.The motif of two peacocks, one on each side of the Tree of Life, is a well-known feature of Persian decorative arts. A pair of peacocks stands for the "psychic duality of man" similar to the role played by the Gemini in western astrology, says Cirlot (A Dictionary of Symbols.) However it must be said that the notion of two natures -- in man or in the world that surrounds him -- is certainly not a universal one.
Because of that, in the iconography of European alchemy and hermaneutics, the peacock represents the soul. In Christianity, it stands for immortality and the incorruptibility of the soul, as in this XIth-century Byzantine image.
It is an obvious solar symbol, too, because of the resemblance between the rays of the sun and the circular fan of the tail in full display.
J.E. Cirlot points out that in the Ars Symbolica of Hieronymus Bosch this blue-green bird represents the blending of all the colours of the spectrum (rainbow) and hence, the idea of totality. Tibetan culture among many others also views green as the mixture of all hues.
Among the Muslims of Java in Indonesia there is a myth about how the peacock guarding the gates to Paradise ate the devil, and that is how he managed to get inside.
This myth makes a unity of the duality of good and evil, and also explains the bird's mysterious iridescent colour. It also incorporates the Indian notion of the incorruptibility of the peacock.
Purification
As we have seen, in the Hindu tradition the peacock is the vehicle [Skt.: vahana) of, or animal associated with, Kartikkeya, a.k.a. Skanda the 6-armed, 6-headed god of war who is a son of Lord Shiva.
Kumari (Skanda/Subrahamanya's shakti) rides a peacock in the retinue of the Goddess Durga.
Its [[[Wikipedia:Latin|Latin]]] scientific name, pavo, derives from a Sanskrit epithet, Pavana (purity) that refers to the Hindu deity Vayu, the wind who is also the breath of life and the father of the hero Rama's friend, Hanuman.
It is said that at the time of Creation of the universe, when the primordial poison was churned out of the Sea of Milk and transmuted into the amrita of immortality, it was a peacock that absorbed the negative effects. Thus the bird is thought of as a protector, though its flesh is consequently considered to be poisonous.
Since a potentially deadly emotion such as anger is depicted as a serpent, and the peacock is immune, the peacock also symbolizes victory over poisonous tendencies in sentient beings. Hence the title of a well-known text for training the mind, Peacock in the Poison Grove by Dharmarakshita, a Tibetan classic in translation.
In the discourse, The Wheel of Sharp Weapons, another Buddhist treatise by Dharmarakshita, the peacock is credited with an ability to neutralize and use black aconite (aconitum ferox) as a nutriment. This highly toxic plant, also known as “'wolf-bane,” is an important ingredient in traditional Asian medicine including that of Tibet. Mixed with other ingredients, it was used in treatments for mental illness, among other complaints.
Goldenglow
Long ago, Brahmadutta was king of Benares, and he had wealth, treasure and possessions galore. He also had a most beautiful and elegant wife with a face that was lovely beyond compare, and her name was Peerless. This noblewoman was especially dear to the King, and he gladly satisfied her every whim.
At the time, on the southern slope of Kâilâsh, king of mountains, there lived a peacock whose name was Goldenglow, and he ruled a flock of five hundred followers. His limbs and body gleamed and his beak was like a jewel. Everywhere he went, he was acknowledged the grandest of all the peacocks.
One night, within the city of Benares, the call of the peacock-king rang out in the middle of the night and the following day, every one in the city was talking about it. The wife of Brahmadutta happened to be on the her terrace that night, so she asked the king, "Sire, whose stirring and mellifluous voice was that, last night?"
The King answered, "Princess, though I have never seen him, from its remarkable qualities, that voice must belong to Goldenglow, king of the peacocks, who lives on the southern slope of Kâilâsh.
Then the Queen said, "Sire, please have the king of peacocks brought here." The King replied, "But what good is it to see him going through the air?"
But the Queen said, "Sire, if you do not let me see this Suvar.naprabhâsa, I shall surely die."
So the King, who was very much in love with her, gave in saying, "All right, I will send for my huntsmen and fowlers." This he did, and he said to them, "They say that on the southern slope of Kâilâsh, chief of mountains, lives the peacock king, Suvarnaprabhâsa, whose limbs and body are glossy, and whose bill is like a jewel. Go, net or snare him, and bring him back. If you succeed, fine. But if you fail, I will have all of you put to death."
So the hunters and fowlers, in fear of losing their lives, took up their nets and snares and started off for Kâilâsh's southern slope. When they arrived at their destination, they set up their nets and set their traps all over the peacock- king's terrain, but though they waited seven days, they couldn't catch him, and they were all out of provisions, and very hungry.
Finally, out of compassion for them, the king of peacocks appeared and said, "You are hunters. Why do you stay here in this one place when you are starving?"
They replied, "This is the reason, Peacock-king: King Brahmadutta given us orders to 'Go, and with your nets and snares, catch me Suvarna-prabhâsa, the peacock king, whose limbs and body are glossy, whose bill is like a jewel, and who lives with five hundred followers on the southern slope of Kâilâsh, chief of mountains. If you bring him here, well and good, but if you do not, you shall all be put to death;' so in fear of our lives, we have come to try and capture you."
The king of peacocks responded, "Violent Ones, I cannot be taken by means of snares and nets, but if the King of Benares wants to see me, let him have the city swept, sprinkled with scented water, and decorated with flowers. And let him raise white awnings and banners, and burn incense. Let him prepare chariots bedecked with the seven jewels, and then, if in seven days he arrives in the company of his
entire army, I will go back to Benares with him, of my own free will."
So the hunters packed up their nets and snares, and returned to the King and told him everything that had happened, and what Suvarnaprabhâsa had proposed.
King Brahmadatta decided to take the King Peacock up on his offer, and he had the city of Benares prepared as the bird had instructed and then, his chariots ornamented with the seven kinds of precious stones, and surrounded by his cohorts he went off to the southern slope of Kâilâsh, chief of mountains.
The king of the peacocks, Suvarnaprabhâsa, also riding in a chariot decked with seven kinds of precious stones, uttered a cry which was heard by the whole army. King Brahmadatta was thrilled, and such joy filled his heart that he felt impelled to do homage to the bird. He prostrated to him and made offerings; and honouring him, they all went back together to Benares.
When they arrived at the town gates, the peacock again uttered his cry, and it was heard throughout the whole city. From all quarters, men, women, boys and girls all rushed to the gates. Then King Brahmadatta again honoured the peacock king, paying homage, making offerings, and bowing to him.
Once at the palace, he went to get the queen, and said to her, "Princess, the king of the peacocks, Suvarnaprabhâsa, has arrived at your dwelling."
Now King Brahmadatta had undertaken to make daily offerings of fruits and flowers to the great Peacock, but it so happened that there came a day that the King was very busy, and so he thought, "Who can make the proper offerings to Suvarnaprabhâsa?" and it occurred to him that Princess Peerless was both knowledgeable and skillful, and that she could certainly do it.
So King Brahmadatta sent for her and said, "Princess, please make the offerings to the king of the peacocks exactly as I have done," and the King's consort did so.
Time passed, and it so happened that the peerless queen had an affair and found out that she was pregnant. She realized that if she did not want the King to find out her adultery and have her put to death, she would have to silence the bird. So this
woman tried to poison the king of the peacocks by feeding him poisoned food and drink, but the more she gave him, the healthier he appeared -- he became even more lovely and resplendent, and the Queen was amazed.
Then Suvarnaprabhâsa called out, "Shame, shame on you! I know your kind. Because you are carrying another man's child, and this bird knows about it , you think that you can poison me so that the King will not find out from me and put you to death. But you never kill me with poison!
On hearing that, the Queen fainted and lost a great deal of bright blood. She wasted away, and when she finally died, she was born in hell.
"The King of Benares is now Shariputra, and I (Buddha) was Goldenglow, king of the peacocks."
~ Edited from the "Shariputra Sutra" as translated by Wm. Woodville Rockhill (1897.)
Protector and Preserver
One of Green Tara's many epithets is The Peahen ( Skt. Mayuri.)
Mahamayuri is green with 8 arms and 3 heads. Her faces are white, green and blue. Her eight hands display: Right side -- varadamudra, a sword, vajra and jewel; left side -- a bowl, a treasure jar, a bell and a flower. Seated on a lotus throne, she wears all the ornaments and celestial garments of a bodhisattva.
According to the Mahamayuri Sutra of Pancharaksha, there was a bhikshu in the Buddha's sangha called Svati, who was newly ordained. He was unfortunately bitten by a poisonous snake and fainted. Seeing his condition, Ananda reported this incident to Buddha Shakyamuni. Out of compassion for the newly ordained monk and for the future ones, Lord Buddha disclosed a dharani capable of eliminating poisonous harm and malignant diseases. This is the dharani of Arya Mahamayuri.
Maha-Mayuri became in Japan, a male figure called Kujaku Myo-o. This Buddhist wisdom deity associated with the peacock (whose call is believed to herald the rain) protects against calamity, especially drought. Palden Lhamo, (pron. Penden Hamo, Skt. Shri Devi) the dark blue protector of all Tibetan Buddhist denominations who rides her mule through a burning [with wisdom) sea of blood (life in bodily form] is sheltered by a peacock-feather umbrella.
Lakshmi, wife of the Hindu god, Vishnu, sometimes is depicted with armbands in the form of peacocks. The birds are sacred to her since their cries are associated with the rainy season and hence, fertility. The hero of the Indian epic, Mahabharat is called Arjun, a name that refers to the peacock. Also, there is a north Indian/Nepali deity called Janguli who protects against snakebite and poisoning. Described as having 3 faces, 6 arms, her vehicle is, not surprisingly, a peacock.n Nepal, practitioners of Jhankrism, a shamanic tradition pre-dating both Buddhism and Hinduism, wear a tall head-dress of peacock feathers as an essential part of their regalia. Also notice the type of drum that is typical among shamans.
The peacock's beautiful and distinctive colouring is said to be a gift from the god, Indra. One day the King of Gods was doing battle with Ravana, the Demon King. The peacock, which in those days resembled his plain brown hen, took pity on Indra and raised its tail to form a blind or screen behind which Indra could hide himself. As a reward for this act of compassion, the bird was honored with the jewel-like blue-green plumage that it bears to this day.
Krishna, the avatar of Vishnu who is God-as-the-one-responding -to-devotion, is also depicted in the company of peacocks. One of Krishna's roles is as the irresistible divine suitor. Perhaps that is the link to the recommendation in The Kama Sutra that, if a man wishes to appear attractive to others, he can wear a peacock's bone covered in gold tied to his right hand.
Amitabha
The association of this jewel-tone bird with its sun-like fan of a tail evocative of the Wheel of Dharma -- the Buddha's teachings; its connection to the ideas of immortality and compassion, and the unification of views or opposites, as well as the correspondence with the Garden which is the Pure Land, demonstrates in Mahayana Buddhism the archetypical nature of the relationship between the peacock and Amitabha.
In the depiction of this Buddha of Eternal Light, he is seated under a tree; we see its flowers and leaves peeking through the pavilion. Tenga Rinpoche says, " . . . birds, in particular, have strong desire and craving, so, as a symbol of craving transformed into discriminating wisdom, Amitabha's throne is supported by peacocks."
There are actually eight peacocks that support his throne, one at each corner of the base. They stand for the idea that no matter the misdeeds committed during one's lifetime[s], rebirth is possible in Sukhavati, the Pure Land of Great Bliss that is the Western Paradise of Opameh (Tibetan for Amitabha). Any and all evil-doing is eventually absorbed.
Six peacock feathers arranged as a fan ornament the vase (bumpa) and sprinkling utensil used for distributing the blessing or purifying water in Tibetan Buddhist empowerments and other rituals. In this role they are not only a symbol of compassion, but also a symbol of immortality by virtue of their capacity to absorb and neutralize, and to act as a universal antidote against poisons including the kleshas [imperfections or obscurations) such as anger, greed and ignorance that are inherently human.
Natural History
The peacock is the male of a variety of the pheasant species, pavo cristatus. The female is a peahen; both are known as peafowl. It is native to India and Shri Lanka. A green variety, p. muticus, is found in neighbouring countries of south Asia. The Phoenicians introduced the peafowl to the pharaohs of Egypt, then it made its way to Europe among the spoils of Alexander of Macedon's returning army.
Each mature male may keep a harem of around 5 hens which it wins in fierce competition with other males. Screeching, preening, displaying [strutting and raising and lowering the "fan"] and a vigorous rustling of the tail-feathers are some elements in the courtship competitions. After the mating, the female lays a clutch of 4 to 6 spotted eggs in a hidden nest.
Peafowl spend most of the day on the ground pecking for food but as evening falls, they roost in the trees. In the spring, and when disturbed, the male can produce a sound very like that of a diesel truck's air horn. These birds are fairly intelligent, and can be trained to come when called. They are very hardy, adapting to fairly extreme temperatures. They are sometimes kept on estates not only as decorative birds, but as reliable "watchdogs."
3rd domestic bird on page is the peafowl. Hear its usual cry.
The peacock flies beautifully, but requires at least a 5-metre "runway" in order to get the lift required for take off. A surreal sequence of a white peacock in flight through lightly falling snow at the beginning of the 1973 Fellini film Amarcord is reason alone to get the dvd.
Two important writers who featured the peacock are Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) who knew them well, and Raymond Carver (1938-1988) in Feathers.
Treasure pot: Buried or kept to attract prosperity or otherwise benefit a dwelling. Read about the Peace Vase Project for the types of contents.rara avis: A Latin expression used to emphasize, often ironically, the exotic singularity of an individual. Of course the peacock is not rare at all and should not be confused with Birds of Paradise, the paradisidae species that are rapidly disappearing from New Guinea due to loss of habitat as well as the demand for gorgeous feathers. Dharmarakshita: Known as Serlingpa in Tibetan, for having come from Sumatra, "the land of gold," he was Atisha's teacher (11th century.) He is the author of Wheel of Sharp Weapons. An earlier monk (ca. 261 BCE) of that name, who some say was a Greek, was invited to India by King Ashoka.Goldenglow: Skt. Suvarnaprabhasa or Suparna, for short. Rockhill calls him "Golden-Sheen." At the time of the Churning: An alternate view is that Lord Shiva's throat is dark because it was He who drank the poison, thus his epithet, Neelakantha. Shiva is also Mahakala, meaning both "Great Dark One" and "Great Time," the embodiment of Impermanence.
www.chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com/en/index.php/Peacock_Sy...
near Spring Street, Downtown Los Angeles, CA
Ezekiel 27:12
“‘Tarshish did business with you because of your great wealth of goods; they exchanged silver, iron, tin and lead for your merchandise.
Jaffa.
It is is the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. It is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus.
It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, as a city opposite the territory given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan, as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple, as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish and again as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem.Jaffa.
Jaffa.
It is is the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. It is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus.
It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, as a city opposite the territory given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan, as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple, as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish and again as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem.Jaffa.
Look for restaurants that offer authentic Turkish cuisine. It means that the ingredients used, cooking methods and recipes are true to Turkish culture. You can research online or ask around for a halal Turkish restaurant in London. Look up the restaurant on review websites like TripAdvisor or Yelp to see what previous customers have to say.
Jaffa.
It is is the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. It is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus.
It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, as a city opposite the territory given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan, as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple, as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish and again as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem.Jaffa.
Jaffa.
It is is the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. It is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus.
It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, as a city opposite the territory given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan, as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple, as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish and again as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem.Jaffa.
Another popular term is the Turkish Mediterranean restaurant diet. This diet is considered healthy because it incorporates the eating habits of the people of the Mediterranean region. People on this continent tend to cook their food with olive oil, which is known to be better for cholesterol and heart health. www.tarshish.co.uk/
May the king’s rule be refreshing like spring rain on freshly cut grass, like the showers that water the earth.
May all the godly flourish during his reign. May there be abundant prosperity until the moon is no more.
May he reign from sea to sea, and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth.
Desert nomads will bow before him; his enemies will fall before him in the dust.
The western kings of Tarshish and other distant lands will bring him tribute. The eastern kings of Sheba and Seba will bring him gifts.
All kings will bow before him, and all nations will serve him.
[Psalm 72:6-11 NLT]
5 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:
1. Like it or not, we are ALL sinners: As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” (Romans 3:10-12 NLT)
2. The punishment for sin is death: When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. (Romans 5:12 NLT)
3. Jesus is our only hope: But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. (Romans 5:8 NLT) For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 NLT)
4. SALVATION is by GRACE through FAITH in JESUS: God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Ephesians 2:8-10 NLT)
The most challenging piece I've worked on until now. It's a collaboration between me and my girlfriend AITCH, made in Holon, a town near Tel Aviv, Israel, during a cultural event called DETOUR, organized by the European Union and many cultural institutes from different countries.
The painting is made on a huge egg-shaped object, and is based on different ideas, intuitions, news - the grey whale which was seen a year ago in the Mediterranean Sea, near the shores of Israel; the story of Jonah who started his journey to Tarshish from Jaffa (now part of Tel Aviv), before he was swallowed by the great fish; the name of Jonah which also means "Pigeon".
Also, the weird drippings are the effect of the humidity - painted during the evening, some parts of the mural started dripping during the night till they almost covered the result of two days' work. It's up to each person who sees it to say if it's a fuck up or an interesting accident.
picture was shot by my dear friend Baqar Nassar ..
I got a message on my Facebook wall from another dear friend Dr Robi Ludwig, she loves turquoise,,as much as I do or more...she wants one for Valentines Day..
Much of the turquoise I have is from Nishapur Iran.
The two big ones on my hand have a strange story, I got one of them the one on the left hand from a Indo-Iranian jewellery fair that was held at Bandra Reclamation..by Nassar of Lucky Hotel ..the guy who sold it to me was called Fairuz Iranian name turquoise ..my name is derived from the Iranian root Firoze.
We became good friends and because of my attire people thronged to his stall, he made a killing and gave me the turquoise stone at a very special price, he also gave me a ruby ring..I too bought a lot of amber from him, Kerba..
The ring on my right hand I found at a stall at Bhendi Bazar its an identical twin, just two shades lighter , normally I would dip my rings in badam oil, to get the depth of color ..and it gives a luster too.
I have a humongous collection of rings, many I have given away to some of my Gurus..
but my favorite are the claws and my set of black Sulaimani Akeek or agate.
I also have a huge rocky turquoise pendant from Tibet.. and two bead turquoise necklaces from Ladakh..
About Turquoise
Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrous phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula CuAl6(PO4)4(OH)8·4H2O. It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gem and ornamental stone for thousands of years owing to its unique hue. In recent times turquoise, like most other opaque gems, has been devalued by the introduction of treatments, imitations, and synthetics onto the market, some difficult to detect even by experts.
The substance has been known by many names, but the word turquoise was derived around 16th century from the French language either from the word for Turkish (Turquois) or dark-blue stone (pierre turquin).[4] This may have arisen from a misconception: turquoise does not occur in Turkey but was traded at Turkish bazaars to Venetian merchants who brought it to Europe.[4] The colour, however, has been employed extensively in the decorative tiles adorning Turkish places of worship and homes for hundreds of years, beginning with the Seljuks, or was derived from the colour of the Mediterranean Sea on the southern Turkish coast and the association quite possibly has caused the name to take root.
Even the finest of turquoise is fracturable, reaching a maximum hardness of just under 6, or slightly more than window glass.[2] Characteristically a cryptocrystalline mineral, turquoise almost never forms single crystals and all of its properties are highly variable. Its crystal system is proven to be triclinic via X-ray diffraction testing. With lower hardness comes lower specific gravity (high 2.90, low 2.60) and greater porosity: These properties are dependent on grain size. The lustre of turquoise is typically waxy to subvitreous, and transparency is usually opaque, but may be semitranslucent in thin sections. Colour is as variable as the mineral's other properties, ranging from white to a powder blue to a sky blue, and from a blue-green to a yellowish green. The blue is attributed to idiochromatic copper while the green may be the result of either iron impurities (replacing aluminium) or dehydration.
The refractive index (as measured by sodium light, 589.3 nm) of turquoise is approximately 1.61 or 1.62; this is a mean value seen as a single reading on a gemmological refractometer, owing to the almost invariably polycrystalline nature of turquoise. A reading of 1.61–1.65 (birefringence 0.040, biaxial positive) has been taken from rare single crystals. An absorption spectrum may also be obtained with a hand-held spectroscope, revealing a line at 432 nanometres and a weak band at 460 nanometres (this is best seen with strong reflected light). Under longwave ultraviolet light, turquoise may occasionally fluoresce green, yellow or bright blue; it is inert under shortwave ultraviolet and X-rays.
Turquoise is insoluble in all but heated hydrochloric acid. Its streak is a pale bluish white and its fracture is conchoidal, leaving a waxy lustre. Despite its low hardness relative to other gems, turquoise takes a good polish. Turquoise may also be peppered with flecks of pyrite or interspersed with dark, spidery limonite veining.
[edit] Formation
As a secondary mineral, turquoise apparently forms by the action of percolating acidic aqueous solutions during the weathering and oxidation of pre-existing minerals. For example, the copper may come from primary copper sulfides such as chalcopyrite or from the secondary carbonates malachite or azurite; the aluminium may derive from feldspar; and the phosphorus from apatite. Climate factors appear to play an important role as turquoise is typically found in arid regions, filling or encrusting cavities and fractures in typically highly altered volcanic rocks, often with associated limonite and other iron oxides. In the American southwest turquoise is almost invariably associated with the weathering products of copper sulfide deposits in or around potassium feldspar bearing porphyritic intrusives. In some occurrences alunite, potassium aluminium sulfate, is a prominent secondary mineral. Typically turquoise mineralization is restricted to a relatively shallow depth of less than 20 m, although it does occur along deeper fracture zones where secondary solutions have greater penetration or the depth to the water table is greater.
Although the features of turquoise occurrences are consistent with a secondary or supergene origin, some sources refer to a hypogene origin. The hypogene hypothesis, which holds that the aqueous solutions originate at significant depth, from hydrothermal processes. Initially at high temperature, these solutions rise upward to surface layers, interacting with and leaching essential elements from pre-existing minerals in the process. As the solutions cool, turquoise precipitates, lining cavities and fractures within the surrounding rock. This hypogene process is applicable to the original copper sulfide deposition; however, it is difficult to account for the many features of turquoise occurrences by a hypogene process. That said, there are reports of two phase fluid inclusions within turquoise grains that give elevated homogenization temperatures of 90 to 190 oC that require explanation.
Turquoise is nearly always cryptocrystalline and massive and assumes no definite external shape. Crystals, even at the microscopic scale, are exceedingly rare. Typically the form is vein or fracture filling, nodular, or botryoidal in habit. Stalactite forms have been reported. Turquoise may also pseudomorphously replace feldspar, apatite, other minerals, or even fossils. Odontolite is fossil bone or ivory that has been traditionally thought to have been altered by turquoise or similar phosphate minerals such as the iron phosphate vivianite. Intergrowth with other secondary copper minerals such as chrysocolla is also common.
[edit] Occurrence
Massive turquoise in matrix with quartz from Mineral Park, Arizona.
Turquoise was among the first gems to be mined, and while many historic sites have been depleted, some are still worked to this day. These are all small-scale, often seasonal operations, owing to the limited scope and remoteness of the deposits. Most are worked by hand with little or no mechanization. However, turquoise is often recovered as a byproduct of large-scale copper mining operations, especially in the United States.
[edit] Iran
Cutting and grinding turquoise in Meshed, Iran. 1973.
For at least 2,000 years, the region once known as Persia, has remained the most important source of turquoise, for it is here that fine material is most consistently recovered. This "perfect colour" deposit, which is blue naturally, and turns green when heated due to dehyration, is restricted to a mine-riddled in Neyshabur,[5][6][7] the 2,012-metre mountain peak of Ali-mersai, which is tens of kilometers from Mashhad, the capital of Khorasan province, Iran. A weathered and broken trachyte is host to the turquoise, which is found both in situ between layers of limonite and sandstone, and amongst the scree at the mountain's base. These workings, together with those of the Sinai Peninsula, are the oldest known.
Iranian turquoise is often found replacing feldspar. Although it is commonly marred by whitish patches, its colour and hardness are considered superior to the production of other localities. Iranian turquoise has been mined and traded abroad for centuries, and was probably the source of the first material to reach Europe.
[edit] Sinai
Since at least the First Dynasty (3000 BCE), and possibly before then, turquoise was used by the Egyptians and was mined by them in the Sinai Peninsula, called "Country of Turquoise" by the native Monitu. There are six mines in the region, all on the southwest coast of the peninsula, covering an area of some 650 km². The two most important of these mines, from a historic perspective, are Serabit el-Khadim and Wadi Maghareh, believed to be among the oldest of known mines. The former mine is situated about 4 kilometres from an ancient temple dedicated to Hathor.
The turquoise is found in sandstone that is, or was originally, overlain by basalt. Copper and iron workings are present in the area. Large-scale turquoise mining is not profitable today, but the deposits are sporadically quarried by Bedouin peoples using homemade gunpowder. In the rainy winter months, miners face a risk from flash flooding; even in the dry season, death from the collapse of the haphazardly exploited sandstone mine walls is not unheard of. The colour of Sinai material is typically greener than Iranian material, but is thought to be stable and fairly durable. Often referred to as Egyptian turquoise, Sinai material is typically the most translucent, and under magnification its surface structure is revealed to be peppered with dark blue discs not seen in material from other localities.
In proximity to nearby Eilat, Israel, an attractive intergrowth of turquoise, malachite, and chrysocolla is found. This rock is called Eilat stone and is often referred to as Israel's national stone: it is worked by local artisans for sale to tourists.
[edit] United States
A selection of Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) turquoise and orange argillite inlay pieces from Chaco Canyon (dated ca. 1020–1140 CE) show the typical colour range and mottling of American turquoise.
Bisbee turquoise commonly has a hard chocolate brown coloured matrix, and is considered some of the finest in the world.
The Southwest United States is a significant source of turquoise; Arizona, California (San Bernardino, Imperial, and Inyo counties), Colorado (Conejos, El Paso, Lake, and Saguache counties), New Mexico (Eddy, Grant, Otero, and Santa Fe counties) and Nevada (Clark, Elko, Esmerelda County, Eureka, Lander, Mineral County and Nye counties) are (or were) especially rich. The deposits of California and New Mexico were mined by pre-Columbian Native Americans using stone tools, some local and some from as far away as central Mexico. Cerrillos, New Mexico is thought to be the location of the oldest mines; prior to the 1920s, the state was the country's largest producer; it is more or less exhausted today. Only one mine in California, located at Apache Canyon, operates at a commercial capacity today.
The turquoise occurs as vein or seam fillings, and as compact nuggets; these are mostly small in size. While quite fine material—rivalling Iranian material in both colour and durability—is sometimes found, most American turquoise is of a low grade (called "chalk turquoise"); high iron levels mean greens and yellows predominate, and a typically friable consistency precludes use in jewellery in the turquoise's untreated state. Arizona is currently the most important producer of turquoise by value, with the vivid Bisbee Blue being a good example of the state's natural endowment; much of the Arizona material is recovered as a byproduct of copper mining. Currently the only two active Turquoise mines in the world exist in the state.[citation needed] The first is the Kingman Turquoise Mine which was started up again on the back of the copper mine in the area. The other is the Sleeping Beauty Mine found near Globe. Both mines work together in order to better pull out the material and both have been finding some of their best material in decades, including material out of the Kingman mine similar to what was once found in the Ithica Peak mine.[citation needed]
Nevada is the country's other major producer, with more than 120 mines which have yielded significant quantities of turquoise. Unlike elsewhere in the US, most Nevada mines have been worked primarily for their gem turquoise and very little has been recovered as a byproduct of other mining operations. Nevada turquoise is found as nuggets, fracture fillings and in breccias as the cement filling interstices between fragments. Because of the geology of the Nevada deposits, a majority of the material produced is hard and dense, being of sufficient quality that no treatment or enhancement is required. While nearly every county in the state has yielded some turquoise, the chief producers are in Lander and Esmerelda Counties. Most of the turquoise deposits in Nevada occur along a wide belt of tectonic activity that coincides with the state's zone of thrust faulting. It strikes about N15E and extends from the northern part of Elko County, southward down to the California border southwest of Tonopah. Nevada has produced a wide diversity of colours and mixes of different matrix patterns, with turquoise from Nevada coming in various shades of blue, blue-green, and green. Nevada produces some unique shades of bright mint to apple to neon yellow green. Some of this unusually coloured turquoise may contain significant zinc and iron, which is the cause of the beautiful bright green to yellow-green shades. Some of the green to green yellow shades may actually be Variscite or Faustite, which are secondary phosphate minerals similar in appearance to turquoise. A significant portion of the Nevada material is also noted for its often attractive brown or black limonite veining, producing what is called "spiderweb matrix". While a number of the Nevada deposits were first worked by Native Americans, the total Nevada turquoise production since the 1870s has been estimated at more than 600 tons, including nearly 400 tons from the Carico Lake mine. In spite of increased costs, small scale mining operations continue at a number of turquoise properties in Nevada, including the Godber, Orvil Jack and Carico Lake Mines in Lander County, the Pilot Mountain Mine in Mineral County, and several properties in the Royston and Candelaria areas of Esmerelda County.[8]
Untreated turquoise, Nevada USA. Rough nuggets from the McGuinness Mine, Austin; Blue and green cabochons showing spiderweb, Bunker Hill Mine, Royston
In 1912, the first deposit of distinct, single-crystal turquoise was discovered in Lynch Station, Campbell County, Virginia. The crystals, forming a druse over the mother rock, are very small; 1 mm (0.04 inches) is considered large. Until the 1980s Virginia was widely thought to be the only source of distinct crystals; there are now at least 27 other localities.[9] The specimens are highly valued by collectors.
In an attempt to recoup profits and meet demand, some American turquoise is treated or enhanced to a certain degree. These treatments include innocuous waxing and more controversial procedures, such as dyeing and impregnation (see Treatments). There are however, some American mines which produce materials of high enough quality that no treatment or alterations are required. Any such treatments which have been performed should be disclosed to the buyer on sale of the material.
[edit] Other sources
China has been a minor source of turquoise for 3,000 years or more. Gem-quality material, in the form of compact nodules, is found in the fractured, silicified limestone of Yunxian and Zhushan, Hubei province. Additionally, Marco Polo reported turquoise found in present-day Sichuan. Most Chinese material is exported, but a few carvings worked in a manner similar to jade exist. In Tibet, gem-quality deposits purportedly exist in the mountains of Derge and Nagari-Khorsum in the east and west of the region respectively.[10]
Other notable localities include: Afghanistan; Australia (Victoria and Queensland); northern Chile (Chuquicamata); Cornwall; Saxony; Silesia; and Turkestan.
[edit] History of its use
Moche turquoise nose ornament. Larco Museum Collection. Lima-Peru
Trade in turquoise crafts, such as this freeform pendant dating from 1000–1040 CE, is believed to have brought the Ancestral Puebloans of the Chaco Canyon great wealth.
The pastel shades of turquoise have endeared it to many great cultures of antiquity: it has adorned the rulers of Ancient Egypt, the Aztecs (and possibly other Pre-Columbian Mesoamericans), Persia, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and to some extent in ancient China since at least the Shang Dynasty.[11] Despite being one of the oldest gems, probably first introduced to Europe (through Turkey) with other Silk Road novelties, turquoise did not become important as an ornamental stone in the West until the 14th century, following a decline in the Roman Catholic Church's influence which allowed the use of turquoise in secular jewellery. It was apparently unknown in India until the Mughal period, and unknown in Japan until the 18th century. A common belief shared by many of these civilizations held that turquoise possessed certain prophylactic qualities; it was thought to change colour with the wearer's health and protect him or her from untoward forces.
The Aztecs inlaid turquoise, together with gold, quartz, malachite, jet, jade, coral, and shells, into provocative (and presumably ceremonial) mosaic objects such as masks (some with a human skull as their base), knives, and shields. Natural resins, bitumen and wax were used to bond the turquoise to the objects' base material; this was usually wood, but bone and shell were also used. Like the Aztecs, the Pueblo, Navajo and Apache tribes cherished turquoise for its amuletic use; the latter tribe believe the stone to afford the archer dead aim. Among these peoples turquoise was used in mosaic inlay, in sculptural works, and was fashioned into toroidal beads and freeform pendants. The Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) of the Chaco Canyon and surrounding region are believed to have prospered greatly from their production and trading of turquoise objects. The distinctive silver jewelry produced by the Navajo and other Southwestern Native American tribes today is a rather modern development, thought to date from circa 1880 as a result of European influences.
In Persia, turquoise was the de facto national stone for millennia, extensively used to decorate objects (from turbans to bridles), mosques, and other important buildings both inside and out, such as the Medresseh-I Shah Husein Mosque of Isfahan. The Persian style and use of turquoise was later brought to India following the establishment of the Mughal Empire there, its influence seen in high purity gold jewellery (together with ruby and diamond) and in such buildings as the Taj Mahal. Persian turquoise was often engraved with devotional words in Arabic script which was then inlaid with gold.
The iconic gold burial mask of Tutankhamun, inlaid with turquoise, lapis lazuli, carnelian and coloured glass.
Cabochons of imported turquoise, along with coral, was (and still is) used extensively in the silver and gold jewellery of Tibet and Mongolia, where a greener hue is said to be preferred. Most of the pieces made today, with turquoise usually roughly polished into irregular cabochons set simply in silver, are meant for inexpensive export to Western markets and are probably not accurate representations of the original style.
The Egyptian use of turquoise stretches back as far as the First Dynasty and possibly earlier; however, probably the most well-known pieces incorporating the gem are those recovered from Tutankhamun's tomb, most notably the Pharaoh's iconic burial mask which was liberally inlaid with the stone. It also adorned rings and great sweeping necklaces called pectorals. Set in gold, the gem was fashioned into beads, used as inlay, and often carved in a scarab motif, accompanied by carnelian, lapis lazuli, and in later pieces, coloured glass. Turquoise, associated with the goddess Hathor, was so liked by the Ancient Egyptians that it became (arguably) the first gemstone to be imitated, the fair structure created by an artificial glazed ceramic product known as faience. (A similar blue ceramic has been recovered from Bronze Age burial sites in the British Isles.)
The French conducted archaeological excavations of Egypt from the mid-19th century through the early 20th. These excavations, including that of Tutankhamun's tomb, created great public interest in the western world, subsequently influencing jewellery, architecture, and art of the time. Turquoise, already favoured for its pastel shades since c. 1810, was a staple of Egyptian Revival pieces. In contemporary Western use, turquoise is most often encountered cut en cabochon in silver rings, bracelets, often in the Native American style, or as tumbled or roughly hewn beads in chunky necklaces. Lesser material may be carved into fetishes, such as those crafted by the Zuni. While strong sky blues remain superior in value, mottled green and yellowish material is popular with artisans. In Western culture, turquoise is also the traditional birthstone for those born in the month of December.
[edit] In Judeo-Christian scripture
Turquoise may have significance in Judeo-Christian scripture: In the Book of Exodus, the construction of a "breastplate of judgment" is described as part of the priestly vestments of Aaron (Exodus 28:15–30). Attached to the ephod, the breastplate (Hoshen) was adorned with twelve gemstones set in gold and arranged in four rows, each stone engraved with the name of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Of the four stones in the third row, the first and second have been translated to be turquoise by various scholars and English bible versions (usually not having both as turquoise at the same time); many others disagree, however.[12]
In regard to the first of these stones, the translation is based on the Septuagint rendering the identity of the stone as chrysolithos (the masoretic text calls it tarshish, which just refers to Tarshish, a place, and gives no clue to the gem in question); at the time it was written chrysolithos did not mean Chrysolite specifically, but only golden stone (chryso-lithos). Chrysolithos is considered by scholars to possibly mean Topaz, Chrysolite, yellow Jasper, yellow Serpentine, or Turquoise - the last of these on the basis that Turquoise contains golden flecks, and that targums identified the stone as being sea coloured. Scholars favour stones which are mostly yellow as being the more likely solution, and opaque stones (Jasper or Serpentine) as more likely than translucent ones, on the consideration of nearby stones in the Hoshen.
In regard to the second of these stones, the masoretic text calls it shoham, and the Septuagint calls it Beryllios (Beryl), though elsewhere it translates shoham as onychion (Onyx), or as smaragdos (green stone). Shoham is of uncertain meaning. Following the Septuagint, some people think the stone should be an onyx (and many more traditional English versions of the Bible take this translation), but scholars think that the stone is actually Malachite (because it is green like beryl and smaragdos, cloudy as beryl can be, and in bands like onyx).
Scholars also disagree as to which tribes of the Israelites each stone is meant to represent; traditional sources are in just as much disagreement.
[edit] Imitations
The Egyptians were the first to produce an artificial imitation of turquoise, in the glazed earthenware product faience. Later glass and enamel were also used, and in modern times more sophisticated ceramics, porcelain, plastics, and various assembled, pressed, bonded, and sintered products (composed of various copper and aluminium compounds) have been developed: examples of the latter include "Viennese turquoise", made from precipitated aluminium phosphate coloured by copper oleate; and "neolith", a mixture of bayerite and copper phosphate. Most of these products differ markedly from natural turquoise in both physical and chemical properties, but in 1972 Pierre Gilson introduced one fairly close to a true synthetic (it does differ in chemical composition owing to a binder used, meaning it is best described as a simulant rather than a synthetic). Gilson turquoise is made in both a uniform colour and with black "spiderweb matrix" veining not unlike the natural Nevada material.
Some natural blue to blue-green materials, such as this botryoidal chrysocolla with quartz drusy, are occasionally confused with, or used to imitate turquoise.
The most common imitation of turquoise encountered today is dyed howlite and magnesite, both white in their natural states, and the former also having natural (and convincing) black veining similar to that of turquoise. Dyed chalcedony, jasper, and marble is less common, and much less convincing. Other natural materials occasionally confused with or used in lieu of turquoise include: variscite and faustite;[13] chrysocolla (especially when impregnating quartz); lazulite; smithsonite; hemimorphite; wardite; and a fossil bone or tooth called odontolite or "bone turquoise", coloured blue naturally by the mineral vivianite. While rarely encountered today, odontolite was once mined in large quantities—specifically for its use as a substitute for turquoise—in southern France.
These fakes are detected by gemmologists using a number of tests, relying primarily on non-destructive, close examination of surface structure under magnification; a featureless, pale blue background peppered by flecks or spots of whitish material is the typical surface appearance of natural turquoise, while manufactured imitations will appear radically different in both colour (usually a uniform dark blue) and texture (usually granular or sugary). Glass and plastic will have a much greater translucency, with bubbles or flow lines often visible just below the surface. Staining between grain boundaries may be visible in dyed imitations.
Some destructive tests may, however, be necessary; for example, the application of diluted hydrochloric acid will cause the carbonates odontolite and magnesite to effervesce and howlite to turn green, while a heated probe may give rise to the pungent smell so indicative of plastic. Differences in specific gravity, refractive index, light absorption (as evident in a material's absorption spectrum), and other physical and optical properties are also considered as means of separation. Imitation turquoise is so prevalent that it likely outnumbers real turquoise by a wide margin. Even material used in authentic Native American and Tibetan jewellery is often fake or, at best, heavily treated.
[edit] Treatments
An early turquoise mine in the Madan village of Khorasan.
Turquoise is treated to enhance both its colour and durability (i.e., increased hardness and decreased porosity). As is so often the case with any precious stones, full disclosure about treatment is frequently not given. It is therefore left to gemologists to detect these treatments in suspect stones using a variety of testing methods—some of which are necessarily destructive. For example, the use of a heated probe applied to an inconspicuous spot will reveal oil, wax, or plastic treatment with certainty.
[edit] Waxing and Oiling
Historically, light waxing and oiling were the first treatments used in ancient times, providing a wetting effect, thereby enhancing the colour and lustre. This treatment is more or less acceptable by tradition, especially because treated turquoise is usually of a higher grade to begin with. Oiled and waxed stones are prone to "sweating" under even gentle heat or if exposed to too much sun, and they may develop a white surface film or bloom over time. (With some skill, oil and wax treatments can be restored.)
[edit] Stabilization
Material treated with plastic or water glass is termed "bonded" or "stabilized" turquoise. This process consists of pressure impregnation of otherwise unsaleable chalky American material by epoxy and plastics (such as polystyrene) and water glass to produce a wetting effect and improve durability. Plastic and water glass treatments are far more permanent and stable than waxing and oiling, and can be applied to material too chemically or physically unstable for oil or wax to provide sufficient improvement. Conversely, stabilization and bonding are rejected by some as too radical an alteration.[14]
The epoxy binding technique was first developed in the 1950s and has been attributed to Colbaugh Processing of Arizona, a company that still operates today. The majority of American material is now treated in this manner although it is a costly process requiring many months to complete. Without such impregnation, most American mining operations would be unprofitable.
[edit] Dyeing
The use of Prussian blue and other dyes (often in conjunction with bonding treatments) to "enhance" – that is, make uniform or completely change – colour is regarded as fraudulent by some purists,[14] especially since some dyes may fade or rub off on the wearer. Dyes have also been used to darken the veins of turquoise.
[edit] Reconstitution
Perhaps the most radical of treatments is "reconstitution", wherein fragments of fine turquoise material, too small to be used individually, are powdered and then bonded to form a solid mass. Much, if not all, of this "reconstituted" material is likely artificial with no natural components, or may have foreign filler material added to it (see Imitations section).
[edit] Irradiation
Not well known, but some turquoise is irradiated to become less "chalky". This treatment is rarely disclosed. Like all irradiated gemstones, it should be tested by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensed laboratory before being sold in the USA.
[edit] Backing
Since finer turquoise is often found as thin seams, it may be glued to a base of stronger foreign material as a means of reinforcement. These stones are termed "Backed" and it is standard practice that all thinly cut turquoise in the Southwestern United States is backed. Native indigenous peoples of this region, because of their considerable use and wearing of turquoise, found that backing increased the durability of thinly cut slabs and cabs of turquoise. They observed that if the stone was not backed it would, for the most part, end up cracking. Early backing materials were the casings of old model T batteries and progressed to old phonograph records and most recently to the use of epoxy steel resins. Backing of turquoise is not known outside of the Native American and Southwestern United States jewelry trade. The value of turquoise of the highest quality is not discounted because it is backed and indeed the process is expected for most thinly cut American commercial gemstones.[citation needed]
[edit] Valuation and care
Slab of turquoise in matrix showing a large variety of different colouration
Hardness and richness of colour are two of the major factors in determining the value of turquoise; while colour is a matter of individual taste, generally speaking, the most desirable is a strong sky to "robin's egg" blue (in reference to the eggs of the American Robin).[15] Whatever the colour, turquoise should not be excessively soft or chalky; even if treated, such lesser material (to which most turquoise belongs) is liable to fade or discolour over time and will not hold up to normal use in jewellery.
The mother rock or matrix in which turquoise is found can often be seen as splotches or a network of brown or black veins running through the stone in a netted pattern; this veining may add value to the stone if the result is complementary, but such a result is uncommon. Such material is sometimes described as "spiderweb matrix"; it is most valued in the Southwest United States and Far East, but is not highly appreciated in the Near East where unblemished and vein-free material is ideal (regardless of how complementary the veining may be). Uniformity of colour is desired, and in finished pieces the quality of workmanship is also a factor; this includes the quality of the polish and the symmetry of the stone. Calibrated stones—that is, stones adhering to standard jewellery setting measurements—may also be more sought after. Like coral and other opaque gems, turquoise is commonly sold at a price according to its physical size in millimetres rather than weight.
Turquoise is treated in many different ways, some more permanent and radical than others. Controversy exists as to whether some of these treatments should be acceptable, but one can be more or less forgiven universally: This is the light waxing or oiling applied to most gem turquoise to improve its colour and lustre; if the material is of high quality to begin with, very little of the wax or oil is absorbed and the turquoise therefore does not "rely" on this impermanent treatment for its beauty. All other factors being equal, untreated turquoise will always command a higher price. Bonded and "reconstituted" material is worth considerably less.
Being a phosphate mineral, turquoise is inherently fragile and sensitive to solvents; perfume and other cosmetics will attack the finish and may alter the colour of turquoise gems, as will skin oils, as will most commercial jewelry cleaning fluids. Prolonged exposure to direct sunlight may also discolour or dehydrate turquoise. Care should therefore be taken when wearing such jewels: cosmetics, including sunscreen and hair spray, should be applied before putting on turquoise jewellery, and they should not be worn to a beach or other sun-bathed environment. After use, turquoise should be gently cleaned with a soft cloth to avoid a build up of residue, and should be stored in its own container to avoid scratching by harder gems. Turquoise can also be adversely affected if stored in an airtight container.
[edit] See also
Jaffa.
It is is the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. It is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus.
It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, as a city opposite the territory given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan, as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple, as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish and again as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem.Jaffa.
You can research online or ask around for a halal Turkish restaurant in London. Look up the restaurant on review websites like TripAdvisor or Yelp to see what previous customers have to say.
Jaffa.
It is is the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. It is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus.
It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, as a city opposite the territory given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan, as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple, as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish and again as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem.Jaffa.
Jaffa.
It is is the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. It is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus.
It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, as a city opposite the territory given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan, as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple, as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish and again as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem.Jaffa.
NOTE: This is a second account that I will be using for photos depicting the cities, beaches, mountains, and nature of the Southeast outside of my home state of Florida. Please see my original Humble Christ Follower account for photos that showcase Florida: www.flickr.com/photos/humblechristfollower/albums
BIBLICAL CONTEXT: Psalm 72:6-11 NLT
(from biblegateway.com)
6 May the king’s rule be refreshing like spring rain on freshly cut grass, like the showers that water the earth.
7 May all the godly flourish during his reign. May there be abundant prosperity until the moon is no more.
8 May he reign from sea to sea, and from the Euphrates River[b] to the ends of the earth.
9 Desert nomads will bow before him; his enemies will fall before him in the dust.
10 The western kings of Tarshish and other distant lands
will bring him tribute. The eastern kings of Sheba and Seba will bring him gifts.
11 All kings will bow before him, and all nations will serve him.
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5 MORE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:
1. Like it or not, we are ALL sinners: As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” (Romans 3:10-12 NLT)
2. The punishment for sin is death: When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. (Romans 5:12 NLT)
3. Jesus is our only hope: But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. (Romans 5:8 NLT) For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 NLT)
4. SALVATION is by GRACE through FAITH in JESUS: God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Ephesians 2:8-10 NLT)
5. Accept Jesus and receive eternal life: If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9 NLT) But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:12 NLT) And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life. (1 John 5:11-12 NLT)
Read the Bible for yourself. Allow the Lord to speak to you through his Word. YOUR ETERNITY IS AT STAKE!
Photos taken from Israeli Navy Sa'ar 4.5 class, missile boat: INS Sufa, Mediterranean Sea. www.facebook.com/photo.xnir
Pieces from the making of the most challenging piece I've worked on until now. It's a collaboration between me and my girlfriend AITCH, made in Holon, a town near Tel Aviv, Israel, during a cultural event called DETOUR, organized by the European Union and many cultural institutes from different countries.
The painting is made on a huge egg-shaped object, and is based on different ideas, intuitions, news - the grey whale which was seen a year ago in the Mediterranean Sea, near the shores of Israel; the story of Jonah who started his journey to Tarshish from Jaffa (now part of Tel Aviv), before he was swallowed by the great fish; the name of Jonah which also means "Pigeon".
Also, the weird drippings are the effect of the humidity - painted during the evening, some parts of the mural started dripping during the night till they almost covered the result of two days' work. It's up to each person who sees it, to say if it's a fuck up or an interesting accident.
inspiks.com/2009/04/07/sign-of-the-times/
Matthew 16:1-4
1 The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him [Jesus] that he would shew them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. 3 And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times? 4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. [Greek name for Jonah] And he left them, and departed.
Note: What is the sign of Jonas? Jonah preached repentance to the wicked city of Nineveh after being swallowed by the whale for refusing to go at first. Later the whale vomited him up on dry land. This passage seems to agree with what Jesus preached," Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!"
Matthew 4:12-17
12 Now when Jesus had heard that John [the Baptist] was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee; 13 And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim: 14 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias [Isaiah] the prophet, saying, 15 The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; 16 The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. 17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Jonah 1:1-3
1 Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, 2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. 3 But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.
Time for cities and nations to repent! Pray for your own city or nation to come to God and turn from wickedness as Nineveh did.
Jaffa.
It is is the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. It is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus.
It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, as a city opposite the territory given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan, as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple, as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish and again as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem.Jaffa.
"After Nineveh was spared, it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.’ And the Lord said, ‘Do you do well to be angry?’
Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, ‘It is better for me to die than to live.’ But God said to Jonah, ‘Do you do well to be angry for the plant?’ And he said, ‘Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.’ And the Lord said, ‘You pity the plant, for which you did not labour, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?’"
– Jonah 4:1-11, which is today's 1st reading at Mass.
This detail of a bronze door is from the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.
With so may images of Tarshish and PhotoShop, the possibilities are endless.
He has really rejuvenated my interest in doing this stuff.
I love his sweet face in this pose.
Most Mediterranean cuisine in London will have their menus posted online. You can check out the menu before you visit the restaurant and see which dishes are popular. www.tarshish.co.uk/
Detail of nativity from Jesse Tree reredos at Christchurch Priory.The Magi, or wise men are recorded in St.Matthew’s gospel, they first visited Jerusalem to enquire about Him who had been born King of the Jews. Eventually their caravan arrives in Bethlehem the town prophesied as the birthplace of the messiah. They are depicted in this touching carving with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. This traditional scene, so well known by popular Christmas cards is called “Adoration of the Magi.” The Magi are sometimes represented in visual art as Kings because of a passage in the Psalms which reads “The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents…all kings shall bow down before him, all nations shall serve him.” (Psalm 72:10,11).
The church’s season of celebration of this visit is known as Epiphany, which means the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. Although the bible neither mentions their names or number ( only the gifts delivered) they are of ten depicted and known by tradition as Caspar, Melchoir, and Balthasar. Each represents three ages of man, youth, middle age and old age. One of the Magi is usually represented as dark skinned or African, one can see this in various Flemish altar pieces.
This particular reredos although a remarkable survival and comparatively undamaged has only traces of its original paint so we can only speculate as to its original magnificence.
Installation of the Officers of Seguin Chapter No. 261.
banahtorah.blogspot.ca/2006/07/12-tribes-of-israel-banner...
These flags [of the individual tribes of Israel] were published some months ago in Banderas, but I don't have drawings of them, because I think that probably they are a bit fantasious.
Jaume Ollé, 5 May 1998
There is a biblical reference to the tribal flags as well that a friend of mine sent me some months ago, to whit: (Book of Numbers, Chapter 2, Verse 2) "The children of Israel shall encamp every man by his own standard, with the ensigns of their father's houses". The book the Standard Bible Encyclopedia has this and other biblical references under the heading of "Banner" that might be interesting to list members.
Greg Biggs, 5 May 1998
The following article about the Tribes of Israel is taken from a CD on Israeli stamps that was just released (I was one of the philatelic advisors). The CD has full-colour images of all the stamps of Israel plus articles on them (like this one) as well as stationaries, booklets and ATM labels. It costs about US$ 80. The stamps were issued in 1955/56 as a definitive series, Scott 105/116, SG 115/126, Yv 97/108, Mi 119/130, Bale 118/119.
This set of stamps features the emblems of the 12 tribes of Israel. Each stamp bears a single tribal emblem, part of them in combination with other motifs. The symbols of the tribes are by no means fixed as different interpretations may be given to the biblical texts describing the sons of Jacob.
The 12 tribes of the House of Israel are the descendants of the Patriarch Jacob and his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and his two concubines, Zilpah and Bilhah. Leah had six sons — Reuben, Simon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. Each of the other women had two sons each. Rachel's were Joseph and Benjamin; Zilpah's, Gad and Asher; and Bilhah's, Dan and Naphtali.
In Jacob' Blessing (Genesis 49) each of the sons is described allegorically and symbols for the tribes have been derived from these descriptions as well as form other biblical passages. Interesting descriptions of the tribal symbols are found in a rabbinical commentary on the Bible, the Midrash Rabba (c. 3rd century), which describes the flag of each tribe. The emblems of the tribes, however, found no expression in graphic art in earlier ages.
That the number of the tribes bears some relation to the zodiac follows from the hints which accompany different names mentioned in Jacob's Blessing. Simon and Levi, there noted together, are the Twins, Judah is described as a Lion; Dan as Scales, and Benjamin as Wolf. In the Wars of the Jews (4, 5) Flavius Josephus also mentions that the 12 shewbreads in the Temple represented the zodiac.
REUBEN
The mandrakes in Reuben's coat-of-arms are based on the episode related in Gen. 30, where young Reuben brought his mother Leah mandrakes from the field. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:6, "Let Reuben live."
SIMON
Simon was one of the strongest tribes during the wandering in the desert but later became one of the weakest in consequence of losses suffered during the battles for the Promised Land. It was eventually absorbed by mighty Judah. Formerly the city of Shechem was situated within the boundaries of Simon and the gate of the city therefore appears on the tribe's. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:5, "...and the tribes of Israel were gathered together."
LEVI
The Levites "kept the charge of the tabernacles of testimony" (Num. 1:53); they had no territory of their own and were dispersed among the other tribes. Their emblem was the ephod of the High Priest on which were engraved, upon precious stones, the names of all tribes. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:10, "They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law."
JUDAH
The most famous heraldic symbol belongs to the tribe of Judah, which displayed a lion on its shield. This tribe became the most powerful and constituted the Kingdom of Judah. The lion is the symbol of strength and is featured as such in innumerable works throughout the ages. This animal is one those most frequently mentioned in the Bible, appearing about 130 times under 6 different names. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Gen. 49:9, "Judah is a lion's whelp."
DAN
The original area of the tribe of Dan extended from Jaffa southward. Samson was a son of this tribe. As it could not conquer its entire territory, Dan looked to settle elsewhere and the tribe moved north to the source of the Jordan River, captured the city Laish, and settled there. In Jacob's Blessing Dan was promised that he "shall judge his people" (Gen. 49:16), a reference symbolized by the scales of justice on the stamp. The phrase appears on the tab.
NAFTALI
After the conquest of the country, the tribe of Naftali settled in the north where played a central role among the tribes located there. Naftali is represented by a gazelle or running stag. The biblical phrase on the tab is "Naftali is a hind let loose" (Gen. 49:21).
GAD
The tribe of Gad settled in the land of Gilead, east of the Jordan. It did battle against Amon and Moab coming from the south, wandering tribes from the east, and Aram from the north. The emblem resembles a camp in reminiscence of the biblical phrase -on the tab- "Gad, a troop shall overcome him" (Gen. 49:19).
ASHER
The coastal strip from the foot of Mount Carmel up to Sidon was inhabited by Asher, the fertility of whose land was indicated by an olive tree or —as represented on stamps of the Jewish National Fund or in the synagogue of Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany— by ears of corn or fruit. The biblical phrase on the tab is "Out of Asher his bread shall be fat" (Gen. 49:20).
ISSACHAR
Issachar's territory was the plain of Esdraelon, from the sea to the banks of the Jordan. This tribe is frequently mentioned together with Zebulun indicative of their being neighbors and maintaining close relations. The tribe's emblem of sun and stars is derived from the biblical phrase, "And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times" (1 Chron. 12:32), which appears on the tab. Other representations of Issachar reflect the dependence of this tribe on the Phoenicians, in whose products the tribe dealt — as a carrier of loads (see also Menorah stamp), as a donkey (on the Jewish National Fund stamp), or as a laden camel (in the synagogue of Aix-la-Chapelle).
ZEVULUN
Zevulun settled on the country's seaboard and as symbolized by its emblem was engaged in navigation. This idea is conveyed in the biblical phrase, "Zebulun (...) shall be for a haven of ships" (Gen. 49:13).
JOSEPH
Joseph was the principal tribe in central Eretz Israel, which split into Manasseh and Ephraim. The fertility of Joseph's country is symbolized by the sheaf on the stamp. The biblical phrase on the tab reads, "...blessed of the Lord be his land" (Deut. 33:13).
BENJAMIN
The favorite son of Jacob, Benjamin has remained the symbol of the tender youngest child. The tribe of Benjamin, however, was considered particularly warlike and courageous. To this tribe belonged Saul, the first king, and Jonathan, his son. The symbol of the tribe was the wolf, a predatory animal. The biblical phrase on the tab reads, "...in the morning he shall devour the prey" (Gen. 49:27).
Notes:
I disagree to the use of the terms coat-of-arms and heraldic in the article. I believe that heraldry is a well-defined European concept that began more than two millenia after the Tribes of Israel.
There is a confusion about the 12 tribes. Those on the stamps are the sons of Jacob, but there was no tribe of Joseph — only tribes of Menasseh and Ephraiym, his sons. Levi was not regarded as a tribe either because the Levites were the priests and they had no territory of their own.
The Lion of Judah is the origin of the city emblem of Jerusalem that is on the city flag. It is also (in a different design) the emblem of the IDF Central Command which has its HQ in Jerusalem. One of the Command Generals in the 70's had a cage with a live lion there!
Nahum Shereshevsky, 5 May 1998
The emblems of the Tribes are commonly used as decorations in official ceremonies, like the ceremony that closes Memorial Day and opens Independence Day.
Nahum Shereshevsky, 2 June 1998
I scanned stamps of the symbols of the 12 tribes.
Dov Gutterman, 1 June 1999
This Saturday the portion "Bamidbar" (the beginning of the book of Numbers) was read in the synagogue; flags of the tribes of Israel are mentioned there. Exact descriptions are not given in the Biblical text itself, but two commentaries do describe them, and I was pleasantly surprised when my rabbi's short speech today focused on the design of the flags.
In short, one commentary assigns a flag to each of the twelve (or thirteen) tribes (related but somewhat distinct from the emblems described here), while another assigns a flag to each "camp" (a group of three tribes, for a total of four "camps").
Nathan Lamm, 31 May 2003
I went into the biblical texts mentioned by Nathan and found in the St James version of the English translation dating from the early 18th century (Numbers 2 Vers 2) the following:
"Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensigns of his father's house..."..
The revised standard version of the Bible's English translation dating from 1952 renders the same verse as follows:
"The people of Israel shall encamp each by his own standard, with the ensigns of their father's houses..."
Considering the age when the original Book of Numbers book was likely written (between 1000 and 800 BCE?), I have always thought that this reference to standards and ensigns to be English interpretations of the ancient Hebrew words which might possibly have referred to emblems that we in modern times would term vexilloids. Nathan's mention of rabbinical commentaries providing descriptions of actual flags, would to my mind be an exciting discovery of a very early use of actual flags not encountered in any other historical sources. (According to Whitney Smith, W.G. Perrin et al, the first real flag in the West was probably the Roman vexillum).
Andre Burgers, 1 June 2003
I think one of the commentaries dates to about the year 100, and the other to about the year 200 (but possibly based on much older traditions). So it's entirely possible that the rabbis who wrote them were influenced by Roman flags when interpreting the verse. Of course, as they use the same Hebrew terms as the Biblical text itself, they may simply be referring to the same objects as the Bible- and yet they do seem to be clearly referring to a piece of cloth with a design, hung in whichever way.
Nathan Lamm, 1 June 2003
Here is a scan (part 1, part 2) of the 12 tribal flags according was published in "Banderas".
Jaume Ollé, 1 June 2003
The flags just posted are, I believe, from a ceremony a few decades back in Israel. There are some errors in the transcription (Asher and Simeon are transposed, etc.); furthermore, there are some differences with the original accounts. The two rabbinic commentaries on the flags of the tribes are Numbers Rabbah and Pseudo-Jonathan.
Numbers Rabbah is a Midrash, part of the collection called Midrash Rabbah, the Great Midrash. A Midrash (there are about a hundred) expounds (the meaning of Midrash) on verses in the Bible, whether to determine Jewish law or, on the other hand, history, lore, and so on from them. They were written over a large span of time, from about the first century until about the tenth. (Some collections came out in the next few centuries) Numbers Rabbah was written in about the ninth century. It's in Hebrew, and the translation below is my own.
Pseudo-Jonathan is a Targum, that is, a translation of the Bible (here, the first five books) into Aramaic. There are several Targums, of different style. Some are simple translations with minimal exposition, but Pseudo-Jonathan gives much commentary among its translation- all of what is below is not in the actual Biblical text. (The actual Targum Jonathan covers the Prophetic books, not the first five. This is actually the "Jerusalem Targum" [it was written in Israel], but someone mistook the initials "T.J." [actually "T.Y."] for Targum Jonathan, because of the other Targum of that name, and the name stuck, hence the use of the term "Pseudo-Jonathan.) This Targum was written in about the seventh or eighth centuries. The translation from the Aramaic is my own; as my knowledge of Aramaic isn't as good as my knowledge of Hebrew, it's a bit rougher.
An important note: Although the two works date from when I wrote above, each uses sources that were much older, perhaps dating to the first or second centuries. These sources, in turn, may have been based on even older traditions, perhaps dating back to the time of the writing of the Bible and/or the events described therein. Going back that far, one would have to see what the vexillological customs of the ancient Mesopotamians (the place of origin of the Israelites), the ancient Canaanites/Phoenicians (where they had come from and where they were going) and the ancient Egyptians (where they had just come out of) were. Of course, it is hard to tell what portions of these two works have long traditions behind them and what portions do not, and one cannot discount the fact the descriptions of flags here are undoubtedly influenced by flags that existed in the early Middle Ages, when they were written. The word "flags" here may thus mean "banner" or "strip of cloth" or "vexillum" or perhaps even "flag" in our modern sense. However, the original standards, if any, may have been an object (a vexillloid) of some sort. (Note that the Midrash attributes the widespread use of colored cloth flags to the example of the Israelites!)
Numbers Rabbah, 2:7, commenting on Numbers Chapter 2, Verse 2 ("Each man according to his degel ["division", but modern: "flag"] under the otot ["standards"] of their fathers' houses shall the Children of Israel camp..."):
BeOtot ("Under the standards"): Each prince [of each tribe] had symbols, a mapah ["cloth," "spread," hereafter "flag"], and the color of each flag was like the color of the fine stone that was on the heart of Aaron [the High Priest]. [The breastplate of the high priest contained twelve precious stones, one for each tribe. The exact definition of each is not known, so the Hebrew is given here; hints may be taken from the colors and are given as well, but therefore may only match some of the colors given.] From this the kingdoms learned to make flags and a color for each flag. For each tribes' prince, the color of the flag was similar to the color of its stone.
- Reuben's stone was Odem [carnelian? ruby?], and the color of his flag was red, [a picture of] mandrakes was drawn on it. [Mandrakes figure in a story about Reuben, the founder of the tribe, Genesis 30:14.] [I'm not sure where the imagery of a rising son comes from- Reuben being the eldest?]
- Simeon's stone was Pitedah [emerald?], and the color of his flag was green, and [a picture of the city of] Shechem was drawn on it. [Simeon, together with Levi, destroyed that city, Genesis 34.]
- Levi's [stone was] Bareket [topaz? carbuncle? smaragd?], and the color of his flag was a third white, a third black, and a third red [think of a banded stone], and [a picture of] the Urim VeTummim [that is, the twelve-stone breastplate {the Urim VeTummim were within}- a square, four rows of three stones each, usually horizontal but sometimes vertical] was drawn on it. [The priesthood was drawn from the tribe of Levi, and the whole tribe participated in holy service.] [Levi is omitted from the list by some, as he was not counted among the others, with the two tribes of Joseph making up the total of twelve.]
- Judah's [stone was] was Nofekh [carbuncle? topaz?], and the color of his flag was sky blue, and [a picture of] a lion was drawn on it. [Judah, from whom the monarchy descended, is compared to the king of beasts in Genesis 49:9, the blessing of Jacob.]
- Issachar's [stone was] Sapir [sapphire?], and the color of his flag was like azure [some: black], and [a picture of] a sun and a moon was drawn on it, because [as it says in I Chronicles 12:33] "And from the sons of Issachar were those who knew the wisdom of the times [i.e.,astronomy and calendars]". [Jacob's blessing calls Issachar a "laden donkey," and sometimes the symbol is shown as that or as a laden man.]
- Zebulon's [stone was] Yahalom [beryl?], and the color of his flag was white [according to some, like silver {similar to heraldic rules today} because of his wealth], and [a picture of] a ship was drawn on it, because [as it says in Genesis 49:13] "Zebulon shall dwell by the seashore [i.e., engage in trade]."
- Dan's [stone was] Leshem [jacinth?], and the color of his flag was like a sapphire [others: black], and [a picture of] a snake was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 17] "Dan shall be [as] a snake [when he attacks from an ambush]." [As Dan's descendants were judges, scales are sometimes shown as well.]
- Gad's [stone was] Shevo [agate?], and the color of his flag was not white and not black but a mixture of black and white [gray?], and [a picture of] a camp was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 19] "Gad shall camp in troops" [Heb: Gad Yegud Yegudenu, a reference to his fighting strength]. [Sometimes actual troops, not tents, are shown.]
- Naftali's [stone was] Achlamah [amethyst?], and the color of his flag was like diluted wine (whose red [color] was no longer strong), and [a picture of] a deer was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 21] "Naftali shall be as a sent deer [i.e., he was fast]".
- Asher's [stone was] Tarshish [chrysolite?], and the color of his flag was like the expensive stone women decorate themselves with [pearl? opal?] [others: olive, or the light given by olive oil], and [a picture of] an olive tree was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 20] "From Asher will be his rich bread [i.e., he will live in a fertile area]". [Sometimes other signs of agricultural wealth- a cornucopia, say- are shown.]
- Joseph's [stone was] Shoham [onyx?], and the color of his flag[s] was very black, and the [picture] drawn on it for the two princes [of] Ephraim and Menasseh was Egypt [a pyramid?], because they were born in Egypt. And on the flag of Ephraim was drawn an ox, because [as it is written in Deuteronomy 33:17] "His first born is his ox," this is [a reference to] Joshua who was from the tribe of Ephraim [in addition, although the younger brother, Ephraim's was considered the senior tribe, and Genesis 49 calls Joseph an ox as well]. And on the flag of Menasseh was drawn a re'em [a sort of wild ox], because [as it is written Deuteronomy ibid.] "And the horns of the re'em will be [as] his horn," this means Gideon son of Joash who was from the tribe of Menasseh. [There is a question what this means: Was there one black flag with an overall picture of Egypt plus the two animals, or a flag with Egypt for the whole Joseph and a flag for each tribe, or just aflag for each tribe?]
- Benjamin's [stone was] Yashpeh [jasper?], and the color of his flag was like all the colors of the twelve colors, and [a picture of] a wolf was drawn on it, because [as it says Genesis 49:17] "Benjamin is like a scavenging wolf".
Therefore [the word] "BeOtot" [literally "in the signs"] is used, for there were symbols for each prince. [End of Numbers Rabbah translation.]
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads the verse as giving not one flag to each tribe, but one flag for each "camp"- that is, each of the four groups of three tribes each. He also sees the stones on the breastplate as being arranged for the tribes not in the order above (by mother, then by age) but according to the camps. Thus his commentary on the following verses:
- Numbers 2:3: "...[the camp of Judah's] Tekes (lit. "troop" [?], here clearly "flag") had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, odem, pitedah, bareket. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Judah- Issachar- Zebulon" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:35] "Arise, Lord, and may Your enemies be scattered, and may those who hate You flee before You!" And there was a picture of a young lion [Genesis 49:9, "Judah is a young lion..."] on it..."
- Numbers 2:10: "...[the camp of Reuben's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, nofekh-sapir-yahalom. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Reuben- Simeon-Gad" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Deuteronomy 6:4] "Hear Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." And there was a picture of a young deer [ram?] [originally to have been a calf, but changed because of the sin of the golden calf, hence the verse, with "rams" symbolizing Israel] on it..."
- Numbers 2:18: "...[the camp of Ephraim's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, leshem-shivo-achlamah. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Ephraim-Menasseh-Benjamin" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:34] "And the cloud of the Lord was above them during the day when they traveled from the camp." And there was a picture of a young boy [Jeremiah 31:19, "Ephraim is my dear son..."] on it..."
- Numbers 2:25: "...[the camp of Dan's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, tarshish-shoma-yashpeh. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Dan- Naftali-Asher" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:36] "Return, Lord, the myriads of thousands of Israel!" And there was a picture of a snake [Genesis 49: 17, "Dan shall be [as] a snake..." {see above}] on it..."
Nathan Lamm, 5 June 2003
In "Modern" Hebrew, the stones are translated as follows:
- Odem: Ruby
- Pitedah: Topaz
- Bareket: Emerald
- Nofekh: Not in use as stone name today
- Sapir: Sapphire
- Yahalom: Diamond
- Leshem: Opal
- Shevo: Not in use as stone name today
- Achlamah: Amethyst
- Tarshish: Not in use as stone name today
- Shoham: Onyx
- Yashpeh: Jasper
Dov Gutterman, 5 June 2003
First of all, while the Twelve Tribes of Israel, or Shivtei Yisrael, as they are known in Hebrew, did indeed have what we might term in contemporary usage heraldic signs and devices, all of which are mentioned repeatedly in the bible. There is no Tanachic record of the Tribes ever actually possessing, much less using flags of any sort. Any such items are purely fictitious in nature, having been invented not earlier than the Protestant Reformation and probably much more recently. Any flag which you have seen which claims (or has claimed for it) that it belonged to any or all of the Twelve Tribes is absolutely, completely, and totally spurious.
Incidentally, the State of Israel has over the years issued several series of postage stamps which depict the heraldic devices of the Twelve Tribes; you can find these illustrated in Scott's Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue or in Stanley Gibbons' Stamps of the World Catalogue. Believe me, if the Twelve Tribes had had any flags the Israelis would have issued postage stamps commemorating the fact.
What might have been the case was that in battle some or all of the tribes may have borne standards containing a depiction of their identifyiong device on a piece of colored cloth. Hoever, none of them would have borne any flag such as you describe.
Ron Lahav, 18 March 2004
The fact is rather the opposite: Symbols of the tribes are mentioned at the end of Genesis, and are merely part of a blessing. On the other hand, flags (of a sort) are explicitely mentioned in Numbers, but the Bible itself does not mention what was on them. The Midrash does, often but not always in line with the blessing in Genesis.
Of course, the "flags" likely did not resemble modern flags at all, and may not even have been made of cloth.
Nathan Lamm, 18 March 2004
I do not think that the Degalim (flags) mentioned in Numbers (Bamidbar) can be considered as true standards or flags. If anything they were Vexilloids.
Ron Lahav, 18 March 2004
You should be aware that the flags of the tribes of israel ARE described, but not in the Torah (Old Testament). Each tribe had a colour with a symbol embroidered on it. The colour of the flag could be from a single colour such as that of Joseph (shared by Ephraim and Menasshe) of black, to that of Benjamin which is described as "many colours" and is taken to mean any colour of the wolf which is the symbol on the flag. It must be noted that use of heraldry began from this source as the Romans did not use flags, and Celts and germanii used carved/hammered symbols on long poles as far as I'm aware.
The stamps do not reflect the colours. The significance of the colours is that they related to the colours of the stones on the breastplate of the High Priest.
Greg Chalik, 5 January 2006
It should be pointed out, though, that "heraldry" originated in coats of arms, not flags, and so can't be traced to the tribes of Israel. In any event, it's not entirely clear that "flags" as we know them are meant here, at least in the Bible itself.
One more point: Some of the flags *are* multi-colored.
Nathan Lamm, 5 January 2006
Jaffa. The Clock Tower.
It is is the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. It is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus.
It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, as a city opposite the territory given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan, as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple, as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish and again as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem.
Jaffa (Hebrew: יָפוֹ) is the southern, oldest part of Tel Aviv-Jaffa (since 1950), an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Solomon, Jonah, and Saint Peter.
Ancient antiquity
Tel Yafo (Jaffa Hill) rises to a height of 40 meters (130 feet) and it offers a commanding view of the coastline. Hence it had a strategic importance in military history. The accumulation of debris and landfill over the centuries made the hill even higher. Archaeological evidence shows that Jaffa was inhabited some 7,500 years BCE. The natural harbor of Jaffa has been in use since the Bronze Age.
Bronze Age
Jaffa is mentioned in an Ancient Egyptian letter from 1440 BCE, glorifying its conquest by Pharaoh Thutmose III, whose general, Djehuty hid armed Egyptian warriors in large baskets and sent the baskets as a present to the Canaanite city's governor.
The city is also mentioned in the Amarna letters under its Egyptian name Ya-Pho, ( Ya-Pu, EA 296, l.33). The city was under Egyptian rule until around 800 BCE.
Jaffa is mentioned four times in the Hebrew Bible, as one of the cities given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan (Book of Joshua 19:46), as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple (2 Chronicles 2:16), as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish (Book of Jonah 1:3) and as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem (Book of Ezra 3:7). Jaffa is mentioned in the Book of Joshua as the territorial border of the Tribe of Dan, hence the modern term "Gush Dan" for the center of the coastal plain. Many descendants of Dan lived along the coast and earned their living from shipmaking and sailing. In the "Song of Deborah" the prophetess asks: "דן למה יגור אוניות": "Why doth Dan dwell in ships?"
After Canaanite and Philistine dominion, King David and his son King Solomon conquered Jaffa and used its port to bring the cedars used in the construction of the First Temple from Tyre.
Iron Age
The city remained in Jewish hands even after the split of the Kingdom of Israel. In 701 BCE, in the days of King Hezekiah (חזקיהו), Sennacherib, king of Assyria, invaded the region from Jaffa. After a period of Babylonian occupation, under Persian rule, Jaffa was governed by Phoenicians from Tyre.
Classic Era
Alexander the Great's troops were stationed in Jaffa. It later became a Seleucid Hellenized port until it was taken over by the Maccabean rebels (1 Maccabees x.76, xiv.5) and the refounded Jewish kingdom.
During the Roman repression of the Jewish Revolt, Jaffa was captured and burned by Cestius Gallus. The Roman Jewish historian Josephus (Jewish War 2.507–509, 3:414–426) writes that 8,400 inhabitants were massacred. Pirates operating from the rebuilt port incurred the wrath of Vespasian, who razed the city and erected a citadel in its place, installing a Roman garrison there.
The New Testament account of St. Peter's resurrection of the widow Tabitha (Dorcas, Gr.) written in Acts 9:36–42 takes place in Jaffa. Acts 10:10–23 relates that while Peter was in Jaffa, he had a vision of a large sheet filled with "clean" and "unclean" animals being lowered from heaven, together with a message from the Holy Spirit to accompany several messengers to Cornelius in Caesaria.
In Midrash Tanna'im in its chapter Deuteronomy 33:19, reference is made to Rav Yosi (2nd century) travelling through Jaffa. Jaffa seems to have attracted serious Jewish scholars in the 4th and 5th century. The Jerusalem Talmud (compiled 4th and 5th century) in Moed Ketan references Rav Acha of Jaffa; and in Pesachim chapter 1 refers to Rav Phineas of Jaffa. The Babylonian Talmud (compiled 5th century) in Megillah 16b mentions Rav Adda Demin of Jaffa. Leviticus Rabbah (compiled between 5th and 7th century) mentions Rav Nachman of Jaffa. The Pesikta Rabbati (written in the 9th century) in chapter 17 mentions R. Tanchum of Jaffa.
A fairly unimportant Roman and Byzantine locality during the first centuries of Christianity, Jaffa had not have a bishop until the fifth century CE.
British Mandate
During the British Mandate, tension between the Jewish and Arab population increased. A wave of Arab attacks during 1920 and 1921 caused many Jewish residents to flee and resettle in Tel Aviv, initially a desolate and marginal Jewish neighbourhood north to Jaffa. The Jaffa riots in 1921, (known in Hebrew as Meoraot Tarpa) began with a May Day parade that turned violent. Arab rioters attacked Jewish residents and buildings. The Hebrew author Yosef Haim Brenner was killed in the riots. At the end of 1922, Jaffa had 32,000 residents and Tel Aviv, 15,000. By 1927, the population of Tel Aviv was up to 38,000.
The 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine inflicted great economic and infrastructural damage on Jaffa. On 19 April 1936, the Arab leadership declared a general strike which paralyzed the economy. The strike began in the Port of Jaffa, which had become a symbol of Arab resistance. Military reinforcements were brought in from Malta and Egypt to subdue the rioting which spread throughout the country. Jaffa's old city, with its maze of homes, winding alleyways and underground sewer system, provided an ideal escape route for the rioters fleeing the British army. In May, municipal services were cut off, the old city was barricaded, and access roads were covered with glass shards and nails. In June, British bombers dropped boxes of leaflets in Arabic requesting the inhabitants to evacuate that same day. On the evening of 17 June 1936, 1,500 British soldiers entered Jaffa and a British warship sealed off escape routes by sea. The British Royal Engineers blew up homes from east to west, leaving an open strip that cut through the heart of the city from end to end. On 29 June, security forces implemented another stage of the plan, carving a swath from north to south. The mandatory authorities claimed the operation was part of a "facelift" of the old city.
In 1945, Jaffa had a population of 101,580, of whom 53,930 were Muslims, 30,820 were Jews and 16,800 were Christians. The Christians were mostly Greek Orthodox and about one sixth of them were Uniate. One of the most prominent members of the Arab Christian community was the Arab Orthodox publisher of Filastin, Issa Daoud El-Issa.
In 1947, the UN Special Commission on Palestine recommended that Jaffa be included in the planned Jewish state. Due to the large Arab majority, however, it was instead designated as part of the Arab state in the 1947 UN Partition Plan.
Following the inter-communal violence which broke out following the passing of the UN partition resolution the mayors of Jaffa and Tel Aviv tried to calm their communities. One of the main concerns for the people of Jaffa was the protection of the citrus fruit export trade which had still not reached its pre-Second World War highs. In February Jaffa's Mayor, Yussuf Haykal, contacted David Ben-Gurion through a British intermediary trying to secure a peace agreement with Tel Aviv. But both Ben Gurion's Haganah and the commander of the militia in Jaffa were opposed.
At the beginning of 1948 Jaffa's defenders consisted of one Brigade of around 400 men organised by the Muslim Brotherhood.
On 4 January 1948 the Lehi detonated a truck bomb outside the 3-storey 'Serrani', Jaffa's Ottoman built Town Hall, killing 26 and injuring hundreds. The driver was reported to be wearing the uniform of the Royal Irish Fusiliers.
On 25 April 1948, Irgun launched an offensive on Jaffa. This began with a mortar bombardment which went on for three days during which twenty tons of high explosive were fired into the town. On 27 April the British Government, fearing a repetition of the mass exodus from Haifa the week before, ordered the British Army to confront the Irgun and their offensive ended. Simultaneously the Haganah had launched Operation Chametz which overran the villages East of Jaffa and cut the town off from the interior.
The population of Jaffa on the eve of the attack was between 50,000 and 60,000, with some 20,000 people having already left the town. By 30 April, there were 15,000–25,000 remaining. In the following days a further 10,000–20,000 people fled by sea. When the Haganah took control of the town on 14 May around 4,000 people were left. The town and harbour's warehouses were extensively looted.
The 3,800 Arabs who remained in Jaffa after the exodus were concentrated in the Ajami district and subject to strict martial law [Wikipedia.org]
Jaffa (Hebrew: יָפוֹ) is the southern, oldest part of Tel Aviv-Jaffa (since 1950), an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Solomon, Jonah, and Saint Peter.
Ancient antiquity
Tel Yafo (Jaffa Hill) rises to a height of 40 meters (130 feet) and it offers a commanding view of the coastline. Hence it had a strategic importance in military history. The accumulation of debris and landfill over the centuries made the hill even higher. Archaeological evidence shows that Jaffa was inhabited some 7,500 years BCE. The natural harbor of Jaffa has been in use since the Bronze Age.
Bronze Age
Jaffa is mentioned in an Ancient Egyptian letter from 1440 BCE, glorifying its conquest by Pharaoh Thutmose III, whose general, Djehuty hid armed Egyptian warriors in large baskets and sent the baskets as a present to the Canaanite city's governor.
The city is also mentioned in the Amarna letters under its Egyptian name Ya-Pho, ( Ya-Pu, EA 296, l.33). The city was under Egyptian rule until around 800 BCE.
Jaffa is mentioned four times in the Hebrew Bible, as one of the cities given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan (Book of Joshua 19:46), as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple (2 Chronicles 2:16), as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish (Book of Jonah 1:3) and as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem (Book of Ezra 3:7). Jaffa is mentioned in the Book of Joshua as the territorial border of the Tribe of Dan, hence the modern term "Gush Dan" for the center of the coastal plain. Many descendants of Dan lived along the coast and earned their living from shipmaking and sailing. In the "Song of Deborah" the prophetess asks: "דן למה יגור אוניות": "Why doth Dan dwell in ships?"
After Canaanite and Philistine dominion, King David and his son King Solomon conquered Jaffa and used its port to bring the cedars used in the construction of the First Temple from Tyre.
Iron Age
The city remained in Jewish hands even after the split of the Kingdom of Israel. In 701 BCE, in the days of King Hezekiah (חזקיהו), Sennacherib, king of Assyria, invaded the region from Jaffa. After a period of Babylonian occupation, under Persian rule, Jaffa was governed by Phoenicians from Tyre.
Classic Era
Alexander the Great's troops were stationed in Jaffa. It later became a Seleucid Hellenized port until it was taken over by the Maccabean rebels (1 Maccabees x.76, xiv.5) and the refounded Jewish kingdom.
During the Roman repression of the Jewish Revolt, Jaffa was captured and burned by Cestius Gallus. The Roman Jewish historian Josephus (Jewish War 2.507–509, 3:414–426) writes that 8,400 inhabitants were massacred. Pirates operating from the rebuilt port incurred the wrath of Vespasian, who razed the city and erected a citadel in its place, installing a Roman garrison there.
The New Testament account of St. Peter's resurrection of the widow Tabitha (Dorcas, Gr.) written in Acts 9:36–42 takes place in Jaffa. Acts 10:10–23 relates that while Peter was in Jaffa, he had a vision of a large sheet filled with "clean" and "unclean" animals being lowered from heaven, together with a message from the Holy Spirit to accompany several messengers to Cornelius in Caesaria.
In Midrash Tanna'im in its chapter Deuteronomy 33:19, reference is made to Rav Yosi (2nd century) travelling through Jaffa. Jaffa seems to have attracted serious Jewish scholars in the 4th and 5th century. The Jerusalem Talmud (compiled 4th and 5th century) in Moed Ketan references Rav Acha of Jaffa; and in Pesachim chapter 1 refers to Rav Phineas of Jaffa. The Babylonian Talmud (compiled 5th century) in Megillah 16b mentions Rav Adda Demin of Jaffa. Leviticus Rabbah (compiled between 5th and 7th century) mentions Rav Nachman of Jaffa. The Pesikta Rabbati (written in the 9th century) in chapter 17 mentions R. Tanchum of Jaffa.
A fairly unimportant Roman and Byzantine locality during the first centuries of Christianity, Jaffa had not have a bishop until the fifth century CE.
British Mandate
During the British Mandate, tension between the Jewish and Arab population increased. A wave of Arab attacks during 1920 and 1921 caused many Jewish residents to flee and resettle in Tel Aviv, initially a desolate and marginal Jewish neighbourhood north to Jaffa. The Jaffa riots in 1921, (known in Hebrew as Meoraot Tarpa) began with a May Day parade that turned violent. Arab rioters attacked Jewish residents and buildings. The Hebrew author Yosef Haim Brenner was killed in the riots. At the end of 1922, Jaffa had 32,000 residents and Tel Aviv, 15,000. By 1927, the population of Tel Aviv was up to 38,000.
The 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine inflicted great economic and infrastructural damage on Jaffa. On 19 April 1936, the Arab leadership declared a general strike which paralyzed the economy. The strike began in the Port of Jaffa, which had become a symbol of Arab resistance. Military reinforcements were brought in from Malta and Egypt to subdue the rioting which spread throughout the country. Jaffa's old city, with its maze of homes, winding alleyways and underground sewer system, provided an ideal escape route for the rioters fleeing the British army. In May, municipal services were cut off, the old city was barricaded, and access roads were covered with glass shards and nails. In June, British bombers dropped boxes of leaflets in Arabic requesting the inhabitants to evacuate that same day. On the evening of 17 June 1936, 1,500 British soldiers entered Jaffa and a British warship sealed off escape routes by sea. The British Royal Engineers blew up homes from east to west, leaving an open strip that cut through the heart of the city from end to end. On 29 June, security forces implemented another stage of the plan, carving a swath from north to south. The mandatory authorities claimed the operation was part of a "facelift" of the old city.
In 1945, Jaffa had a population of 101,580, of whom 53,930 were Muslims, 30,820 were Jews and 16,800 were Christians. The Christians were mostly Greek Orthodox and about one sixth of them were Uniate. One of the most prominent members of the Arab Christian community was the Arab Orthodox publisher of Filastin, Issa Daoud El-Issa.
In 1947, the UN Special Commission on Palestine recommended that Jaffa be included in the planned Jewish state. Due to the large Arab majority, however, it was instead designated as part of the Arab state in the 1947 UN Partition Plan.
Following the inter-communal violence which broke out following the passing of the UN partition resolution the mayors of Jaffa and Tel Aviv tried to calm their communities. One of the main concerns for the people of Jaffa was the protection of the citrus fruit export trade which had still not reached its pre-Second World War highs. In February Jaffa's Mayor, Yussuf Haykal, contacted David Ben-Gurion through a British intermediary trying to secure a peace agreement with Tel Aviv. But both Ben Gurion's Haganah and the commander of the militia in Jaffa were opposed.
At the beginning of 1948 Jaffa's defenders consisted of one Brigade of around 400 men organised by the Muslim Brotherhood.
On 4 January 1948 the Lehi detonated a truck bomb outside the 3-storey 'Serrani', Jaffa's Ottoman built Town Hall, killing 26 and injuring hundreds. The driver was reported to be wearing the uniform of the Royal Irish Fusiliers.
On 25 April 1948, Irgun launched an offensive on Jaffa. This began with a mortar bombardment which went on for three days during which twenty tons of high explosive were fired into the town. On 27 April the British Government, fearing a repetition of the mass exodus from Haifa the week before, ordered the British Army to confront the Irgun and their offensive ended. Simultaneously the Haganah had launched Operation Chametz which overran the villages East of Jaffa and cut the town off from the interior.
The population of Jaffa on the eve of the attack was between 50,000 and 60,000, with some 20,000 people having already left the town. By 30 April, there were 15,000–25,000 remaining. In the following days a further 10,000–20,000 people fled by sea. When the Haganah took control of the town on 14 May around 4,000 people were left. The town and harbour's warehouses were extensively looted.
The 3,800 Arabs who remained in Jaffa after the exodus were concentrated in the Ajami district and subject to strict martial law [Wikipedia.org]
From The Obscure Old Testament Bible Book : Jeremiah 10:1-6 & 8-16
The False Jujus and The True Will of Gravity / Christmas Trees are Bad !
Jeremiah 10 : 1 - 6 ( Tiny Wanda’s Translation )
Let me Tell you The Law Given to The Damp Masses by The Irresistible Force of Gravity; & ElectroMagnetism Speaks its Truth as Well; Abstain from The Lessons of Liberal Arts Majors that are Ignorant of The Ways of The Universe; Whose Truth is Irrefutable !
Do Not become Confused by The Subtleties of Falling Stars, Frogs or Car Keys down Street Grates. These are All Things Natureal to The Eyes of The Moon & Befuddle The Guitar Street Musicians that See The World through The Tines of Salad Forks.
The Mores & Rituals of These Painters & Craftsmyn are for The Exultation & Jubilation of Worthless Vanities; One Rite Consists of Using an Axe to Cut A Tree from The Forest, Then Working it with The Hands of Guileful Cunning.
They Then Decorate Their Handiwork with Silver & Gold, Then Fasten it with A Hammer & Nails to Keep it from Wandering Off or Tipping Over.
It is Then Upright like A Topiary Penguin, GreenMyn or Refrigerator with an Ice Dispenser; But it Does Not Speak Any Human Language, Squeak Like a Mouse or Growl like A Old Tractor. The Tree must be Watered by The Children because it lacks The means to lunge at Cats & Feast on their Blood. Thus; Do Not Fear these Standing Trees, They are Harmless ( Unless they Catch Fire ) & Can Not Perform Evil by their Own Will, Likewise they Can Do No Good, Provide Luck, Protect Your Family from Disease or Scare away Burglars.
Be Mindful of The Warm Glow of The Never Resting Pull of Gravity or Tingling from Magnets.
: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - : o
It’s been suggested that this ‘Process’ of cutting down a Tree with an Axe & ‘The Work of The Hands of The Workman’ refers to The Making of an Idol, but this Passage seems to go a long way around to avoid The Term Idol or Revealing how or What The Tree was being shaped into ( ? ) Certainly — This passage was written long before The Tradition of Christmas Trees was brought into Popular Usage; But it is Not Specifically about Christmas Trees, It’s an Admonition against Worshiping False Idols that are Made, Carved, Decorated or Presented for Veneration — And if A Christmas Tree isn’t an Idol, Symbolic Totem of Veneration; which is Specifically Forbidden in The 2nd Commandment; Then— What is going on here.
: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - : o
Decorations are Also Bad !
Vanities, Boastfulness, Arrogance & Foolishness are Found Amoung those that Worship The Festival of Lights, Roof-Top Decorations & Ostentatious Knitted Sweaters !
Jeremiah 10 : 8 - 16 ( Tiny Wanda’s Translation )
When They ( The Liberal Arts Majors ) Gather together; They Express their Brutish Nature & Foolishness; Their Stock is in The Doctrine of Vanities. They Coat their Plates with Silver from The QuasiMythical Land of Tarshish, Gold from The Faeryland of Uphaz, Then Work Their Creations to A Fine Cunning with Cyan & Fuchsia Fabrics.
But The Force of Gravity will Know The Impotence of their Labors, Great is The Electricity of Spinning Electrons.
Thus we shall Reveal unto The Heathens; Their Efforts are Dust & will Wash Away with a Spring Rain.
The Will of Gravity, The Structure of Quarks & The Light Wind of Leptons are The Foundation of The Heavens; Not The Shiny Gleam of Gold or Silver !
When The Winds of Gravity Shout through The Earth, When Magnets Stick forever to Refrigerators, When Tireless Atoms keep your Rubberbands Snugly around your book Report; This is The Voice of The Universe Ringing in your Ears.
All that The Heathen knows is like a speck of Chocolate in The Eye of a Flea compared to The Wisdom of One Red Giant SuperNova that Blasts away An Entire Solar System.
All that they Strive for will be like a damp napkin discarded with UnOpened Packages of Soy Sauce & Grains of Hard Rice picked from between The Teeth of The Righteous Myn.
All that is Great is Held True by The Sticky Gum of Gravities Desire for Yellow Suns Burning The Breath of The Universe.
Jaffa (Hebrew: יָפוֹ) is the southern, oldest part of Tel Aviv-Jaffa (since 1950), an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Solomon, Jonah, and Saint Peter.
Ancient antiquity
Tel Yafo (Jaffa Hill) rises to a height of 40 meters (130 feet) and it offers a commanding view of the coastline. Hence it had a strategic importance in military history. The accumulation of debris and landfill over the centuries made the hill even higher. Archaeological evidence shows that Jaffa was inhabited some 7,500 years BCE. The natural harbor of Jaffa has been in use since the Bronze Age.
Bronze Age
Jaffa is mentioned in an Ancient Egyptian letter from 1440 BCE, glorifying its conquest by Pharaoh Thutmose III, whose general, Djehuty hid armed Egyptian warriors in large baskets and sent the baskets as a present to the Canaanite city's governor.
The city is also mentioned in the Amarna letters under its Egyptian name Ya-Pho, ( Ya-Pu, EA 296, l.33). The city was under Egyptian rule until around 800 BCE.
Jaffa is mentioned four times in the Hebrew Bible, as one of the cities given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan (Book of Joshua 19:46), as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple (2 Chronicles 2:16), as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish (Book of Jonah 1:3) and as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem (Book of Ezra 3:7). Jaffa is mentioned in the Book of Joshua as the territorial border of the Tribe of Dan, hence the modern term "Gush Dan" for the center of the coastal plain. Many descendants of Dan lived along the coast and earned their living from shipmaking and sailing. In the "Song of Deborah" the prophetess asks: "דן למה יגור אוניות": "Why doth Dan dwell in ships?"
After Canaanite and Philistine dominion, King David and his son King Solomon conquered Jaffa and used its port to bring the cedars used in the construction of the First Temple from Tyre.
Iron Age
The city remained in Jewish hands even after the split of the Kingdom of Israel. In 701 BCE, in the days of King Hezekiah (חזקיהו), Sennacherib, king of Assyria, invaded the region from Jaffa. After a period of Babylonian occupation, under Persian rule, Jaffa was governed by Phoenicians from Tyre.
Classic Era
Alexander the Great's troops were stationed in Jaffa. It later became a Seleucid Hellenized port until it was taken over by the Maccabean rebels (1 Maccabees x.76, xiv.5) and the refounded Jewish kingdom.
During the Roman repression of the Jewish Revolt, Jaffa was captured and burned by Cestius Gallus. The Roman Jewish historian Josephus (Jewish War 2.507–509, 3:414–426) writes that 8,400 inhabitants were massacred. Pirates operating from the rebuilt port incurred the wrath of Vespasian, who razed the city and erected a citadel in its place, installing a Roman garrison there.
The New Testament account of St. Peter's resurrection of the widow Tabitha (Dorcas, Gr.) written in Acts 9:36–42 takes place in Jaffa. Acts 10:10–23 relates that while Peter was in Jaffa, he had a vision of a large sheet filled with "clean" and "unclean" animals being lowered from heaven, together with a message from the Holy Spirit to accompany several messengers to Cornelius in Caesaria.
In Midrash Tanna'im in its chapter Deuteronomy 33:19, reference is made to Rav Yosi (2nd century) travelling through Jaffa. Jaffa seems to have attracted serious Jewish scholars in the 4th and 5th century. The Jerusalem Talmud (compiled 4th and 5th century) in Moed Ketan references Rav Acha of Jaffa; and in Pesachim chapter 1 refers to Rav Phineas of Jaffa. The Babylonian Talmud (compiled 5th century) in Megillah 16b mentions Rav Adda Demin of Jaffa. Leviticus Rabbah (compiled between 5th and 7th century) mentions Rav Nachman of Jaffa. The Pesikta Rabbati (written in the 9th century) in chapter 17 mentions R. Tanchum of Jaffa.
A fairly unimportant Roman and Byzantine locality during the first centuries of Christianity, Jaffa had not have a bishop until the fifth century CE.
British Mandate
During the British Mandate, tension between the Jewish and Arab population increased. A wave of Arab attacks during 1920 and 1921 caused many Jewish residents to flee and resettle in Tel Aviv, initially a desolate and marginal Jewish neighbourhood north to Jaffa. The Jaffa riots in 1921, (known in Hebrew as Meoraot Tarpa) began with a May Day parade that turned violent. Arab rioters attacked Jewish residents and buildings. The Hebrew author Yosef Haim Brenner was killed in the riots. At the end of 1922, Jaffa had 32,000 residents and Tel Aviv, 15,000. By 1927, the population of Tel Aviv was up to 38,000.
The 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine inflicted great economic and infrastructural damage on Jaffa. On 19 April 1936, the Arab leadership declared a general strike which paralyzed the economy. The strike began in the Port of Jaffa, which had become a symbol of Arab resistance. Military reinforcements were brought in from Malta and Egypt to subdue the rioting which spread throughout the country. Jaffa's old city, with its maze of homes, winding alleyways and underground sewer system, provided an ideal escape route for the rioters fleeing the British army. In May, municipal services were cut off, the old city was barricaded, and access roads were covered with glass shards and nails. In June, British bombers dropped boxes of leaflets in Arabic requesting the inhabitants to evacuate that same day. On the evening of 17 June 1936, 1,500 British soldiers entered Jaffa and a British warship sealed off escape routes by sea. The British Royal Engineers blew up homes from east to west, leaving an open strip that cut through the heart of the city from end to end. On 29 June, security forces implemented another stage of the plan, carving a swath from north to south. The mandatory authorities claimed the operation was part of a "facelift" of the old city.
In 1945, Jaffa had a population of 101,580, of whom 53,930 were Muslims, 30,820 were Jews and 16,800 were Christians. The Christians were mostly Greek Orthodox and about one sixth of them were Uniate. One of the most prominent members of the Arab Christian community was the Arab Orthodox publisher of Filastin, Issa Daoud El-Issa.
In 1947, the UN Special Commission on Palestine recommended that Jaffa be included in the planned Jewish state. Due to the large Arab majority, however, it was instead designated as part of the Arab state in the 1947 UN Partition Plan.
Following the inter-communal violence which broke out following the passing of the UN partition resolution the mayors of Jaffa and Tel Aviv tried to calm their communities. One of the main concerns for the people of Jaffa was the protection of the citrus fruit export trade which had still not reached its pre-Second World War highs. In February Jaffa's Mayor, Yussuf Haykal, contacted David Ben-Gurion through a British intermediary trying to secure a peace agreement with Tel Aviv. But both Ben Gurion's Haganah and the commander of the militia in Jaffa were opposed.
At the beginning of 1948 Jaffa's defenders consisted of one Brigade of around 400 men organised by the Muslim Brotherhood.
On 4 January 1948 the Lehi detonated a truck bomb outside the 3-storey 'Serrani', Jaffa's Ottoman built Town Hall, killing 26 and injuring hundreds. The driver was reported to be wearing the uniform of the Royal Irish Fusiliers.
On 25 April 1948, Irgun launched an offensive on Jaffa. This began with a mortar bombardment which went on for three days during which twenty tons of high explosive were fired into the town. On 27 April the British Government, fearing a repetition of the mass exodus from Haifa the week before, ordered the British Army to confront the Irgun and their offensive ended. Simultaneously the Haganah had launched Operation Chametz which overran the villages East of Jaffa and cut the town off from the interior.
The population of Jaffa on the eve of the attack was between 50,000 and 60,000, with some 20,000 people having already left the town. By 30 April, there were 15,000–25,000 remaining. In the following days a further 10,000–20,000 people fled by sea. When the Haganah took control of the town on 14 May around 4,000 people were left. The town and harbour's warehouses were extensively looted.
The 3,800 Arabs who remained in Jaffa after the exodus were concentrated in the Ajami district and subject to strict martial law [Wikipedia.org]
banahtorah.blogspot.ca/2006/07/12-tribes-of-israel-banner...
These flags [of the individual tribes of Israel] were published some months ago in Banderas, but I don't have drawings of them, because I think that probably they are a bit fantasious.
Jaume Ollé, 5 May 1998
There is a biblical reference to the tribal flags as well that a friend of mine sent me some months ago, to whit: (Book of Numbers, Chapter 2, Verse 2) "The children of Israel shall encamp every man by his own standard, with the ensigns of their father's houses". The book the Standard Bible Encyclopedia has this and other biblical references under the heading of "Banner" that might be interesting to list members.
Greg Biggs, 5 May 1998
The following article about the Tribes of Israel is taken from a CD on Israeli stamps that was just released (I was one of the philatelic advisors). The CD has full-colour images of all the stamps of Israel plus articles on them (like this one) as well as stationaries, booklets and ATM labels. It costs about US$ 80. The stamps were issued in 1955/56 as a definitive series, Scott 105/116, SG 115/126, Yv 97/108, Mi 119/130, Bale 118/119.
This set of stamps features the emblems of the 12 tribes of Israel. Each stamp bears a single tribal emblem, part of them in combination with other motifs. The symbols of the tribes are by no means fixed as different interpretations may be given to the biblical texts describing the sons of Jacob.
The 12 tribes of the House of Israel are the descendants of the Patriarch Jacob and his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and his two concubines, Zilpah and Bilhah. Leah had six sons — Reuben, Simon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. Each of the other women had two sons each. Rachel's were Joseph and Benjamin; Zilpah's, Gad and Asher; and Bilhah's, Dan and Naphtali.
In Jacob' Blessing (Genesis 49) each of the sons is described allegorically and symbols for the tribes have been derived from these descriptions as well as form other biblical passages. Interesting descriptions of the tribal symbols are found in a rabbinical commentary on the Bible, the Midrash Rabba (c. 3rd century), which describes the flag of each tribe. The emblems of the tribes, however, found no expression in graphic art in earlier ages.
That the number of the tribes bears some relation to the zodiac follows from the hints which accompany different names mentioned in Jacob's Blessing. Simon and Levi, there noted together, are the Twins, Judah is described as a Lion; Dan as Scales, and Benjamin as Wolf. In the Wars of the Jews (4, 5) Flavius Josephus also mentions that the 12 shewbreads in the Temple represented the zodiac.
REUBEN:
The mandrakes in Reuben's coat-of-arms are based on the episode related in Gen. 30, where young Reuben brought his mother Leah mandrakes from the field. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:6, "Let Reuben live."
SIMON:
Simon was one of the strongest tribes during the wandering in the desert but later became one of the weakest in consequence of losses suffered during the battles for the Promised Land. It was eventually absorbed by mighty Judah. Formerly the city of Shechem was situated within the boundaries of Simon and the gate of the city therefore appears on the tribe's. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:5, "...and the tribes of Israel were gathered together."
LEVI:
The Levites "kept the charge of the tabernacles of testimony" (Num. 1:53); they had no territory of their own and were dispersed among the other tribes. Their emblem was the ephod of the High Priest on which were engraved, upon precious stones, the names of all tribes. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:10, "They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law."
JUDAH:
The most famous heraldic symbol belongs to the tribe of Judah, which displayed a lion on its shield. This tribe became the most powerful and constituted the Kingdom of Judah. The lion is the symbol of strength and is featured as such in innumerable works throughout the ages. This animal is one those most frequently mentioned in the Bible, appearing about 130 times under 6 different names. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Gen. 49:9, "Judah is a lion's whelp."
DAN:
The original area of the tribe of Dan extended from Jaffa southward. Samson was a son of this tribe. As it could not conquer its entire territory, Dan looked to settle elsewhere and the tribe moved north to the source of the Jordan River, captured the city Laish, and settled there. In Jacob's Blessing Dan was promised that he "shall judge his people" (Gen. 49:16), a reference symbolized by the scales of justice on the stamp. The phrase appears on the tab.
:
NAFTALI:
After the conquest of the country, the tribe of Naftali settled in the north where played a central role among the tribes located there. Naftali is represented by a gazelle or running stag. The biblical phrase on the tab is "Naftali is a hind let loose" (Gen. 49:21).
GAD:
The tribe of Gad settled in the land of Gilead, east of the Jordan. It did battle against Amon and Moab coming from the south, wandering tribes from the east, and Aram from the north. The emblem resembles a camp in reminiscence of the biblical phrase -on the tab- "Gad, a troop shall overcome him" (Gen. 49:19).
ASHER:
The coastal strip from the foot of Mount Carmel up to Sidon was inhabited by Asher, the fertility of whose land was indicated by an olive tree or —as represented on stamps of the Jewish National Fund or in the synagogue of Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany— by ears of corn or fruit. The biblical phrase on the tab is "Out of Asher his bread shall be fat" (Gen. 49:20).
ISSACHAR:
Issachar's territory was the plain of Esdraelon, from the sea to the banks of the Jordan. This tribe is frequently mentioned together with Zebulun indicative of their being neighbors and maintaining close relations. The tribe's emblem of sun and stars is derived from the biblical phrase, "And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times" (1 Chron. 12:32), which appears on the tab. Other representations of Issachar reflect the dependence of this tribe on the Phoenicians, in whose products the tribe dealt — as a carrier of loads (see also Menorah stamp), as a donkey (on the Jewish National Fund stamp), or as a laden camel (in the synagogue of Aix-la-Chapelle).
ZEVULUN:
Zevulun settled on the country's seaboard and as symbolized by its emblem was engaged in navigation. This idea is conveyed in the biblical phrase, "Zebulun (...) shall be for a haven of ships" (Gen. 49:13).
JOSEPH:
Joseph was the principal tribe in central Eretz Israel, which split into Manasseh and Ephraim. The fertility of Joseph's country is symbolized by the sheaf on the stamp. The biblical phrase on the tab reads, "...blessed of the Lord be his land" (Deut. 33:13).
BENJAMIN:
The favorite son of Jacob, Benjamin has remained the symbol of the tender youngest child. The tribe of Benjamin, however, was considered particularly warlike and courageous. To this tribe belonged Saul, the first king, and Jonathan, his son. The symbol of the tribe was the wolf, a predatory animal. The biblical phrase on the tab reads, "...in the morning he shall devour the prey" (Gen. 49:27).
Notes:
I disagree to the use of the terms coat-of-arms and heraldic in the article. I believe that heraldry is a well-defined European concept that began more than two millenia after the Tribes of Israel.
There is a confusion about the 12 tribes. Those on the stamps are the sons of Jacob, but there was no tribe of Joseph — only tribes of Menasseh and Ephraiym, his sons. Levi was not regarded as a tribe either because the Levites were the priests and they had no territory of their own.
The Lion of Judah is the origin of the city emblem of Jerusalem that is on the city flag. It is also (in a different design) the emblem of the IDF Central Command which has its HQ in Jerusalem. One of the Command Generals in the 70's had a cage with a live lion there!
Nahum Shereshevsky, 5 May 1998
The emblems of the Tribes are commonly used as decorations in official ceremonies, like the ceremony that closes Memorial Day and opens Independence Day.
Nahum Shereshevsky, 2 June 1998
I scanned stamps of the symbols of the 12 tribes.
Dov Gutterman, 1 June 1999
This Saturday the portion "Bamidbar" (the beginning of the book of Numbers) was read in the synagogue; flags of the tribes of Israel are mentioned there. Exact descriptions are not given in the Biblical text itself, but two commentaries do describe them, and I was pleasantly surprised when my rabbi's short speech today focused on the design of the flags.
In short, one commentary assigns a flag to each of the twelve (or thirteen) tribes (related but somewhat distinct from the emblems described here), while another assigns a flag to each "camp" (a group of three tribes, for a total of four "camps").
Nathan Lamm, 31 May 2003
I went into the biblical texts mentioned by Nathan and found in the St James version of the English translation dating from the early 18th century (Numbers 2 Vers 2) the following:
"Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensigns of his father's house..."..
The revised standard version of the Bible's English translation dating from 1952 renders the same verse as follows:
"The people of Israel shall encamp each by his own standard, with the ensigns of their father's houses..."
Considering the age when the original Book of Numbers book was likely written (between 1000 and 800 BCE?), I have always thought that this reference to standards and ensigns to be English interpretations of the ancient Hebrew words which might possibly have referred to emblems that we in modern times would term vexilloids. Nathan's mention of rabbinical commentaries providing descriptions of actual flags, would to my mind be an exciting discovery of a very early use of actual flags not encountered in any other historical sources. (According to Whitney Smith, W.G. Perrin et al, the first real flag in the West was probably the Roman vexillum).
Andre Burgers, 1 June 2003
I think one of the commentaries dates to about the year 100, and the other to about the year 200 (but possibly based on much older traditions). So it's entirely possible that the rabbis who wrote them were influenced by Roman flags when interpreting the verse. Of course, as they use the same Hebrew terms as the Biblical text itself, they may simply be referring to the same objects as the Bible- and yet they do seem to be clearly referring to a piece of cloth with a design, hung in whichever way.
Nathan Lamm, 1 June 2003
Here is a scan (part 1, part 2) of the 12 tribal flags according was published in "Banderas".
Jaume Ollé, 1 June 2003
The flags just posted are, I believe, from a ceremony a few decades back in Israel. There are some errors in the transcription (Asher and Simeon are transposed, etc.); furthermore, there are some differences with the original accounts. The two rabbinic commentaries on the flags of the tribes are Numbers Rabbah and Pseudo-Jonathan.
Numbers Rabbah is a Midrash, part of the collection called Midrash Rabbah, the Great Midrash. A Midrash (there are about a hundred) expounds (the meaning of Midrash) on verses in the Bible, whether to determine Jewish law or, on the other hand, history, lore, and so on from them. They were written over a large span of time, from about the first century until about the tenth. (Some collections came out in the next few centuries) Numbers Rabbah was written in about the ninth century. It's in Hebrew, and the translation below is my own.
Pseudo-Jonathan is a Targum, that is, a translation of the Bible (here, the first five books) into Aramaic. There are several Targums, of different style. Some are simple translations with minimal exposition, but Pseudo-Jonathan gives much commentary among its translation- all of what is below is not in the actual Biblical text. (The actual Targum Jonathan covers the Prophetic books, not the first five. This is actually the "Jerusalem Targum" [it was written in Israel], but someone mistook the initials "T.J." [actually "T.Y."] for Targum Jonathan, because of the other Targum of that name, and the name stuck, hence the use of the term "Pseudo-Jonathan.) This Targum was written in about the seventh or eighth centuries. The translation from the Aramaic is my own; as my knowledge of Aramaic isn't as good as my knowledge of Hebrew, it's a bit rougher.
An important note: Although the two works date from when I wrote above, each uses sources that were much older, perhaps dating to the first or second centuries. These sources, in turn, may have been based on even older traditions, perhaps dating back to the time of the writing of the Bible and/or the events described therein. Going back that far, one would have to see what the vexillological customs of the ancient Mesopotamians (the place of origin of the Israelites), the ancient Canaanites/Phoenicians (where they had come from and where they were going) and the ancient Egyptians (where they had just come out of) were. Of course, it is hard to tell what portions of these two works have long traditions behind them and what portions do not, and one cannot discount the fact the descriptions of flags here are undoubtedly influenced by flags that existed in the early Middle Ages, when they were written. The word "flags" here may thus mean "banner" or "strip of cloth" or "vexillum" or perhaps even "flag" in our modern sense. However, the original standards, if any, may have been an object (a vexillloid) of some sort. (Note that the Midrash attributes the widespread use of colored cloth flags to the example of the Israelites!)
Numbers Rabbah, 2:7, commenting on Numbers Chapter 2, Verse 2 ("Each man according to his degel ["division", but modern: "flag"] under the otot ["standards"] of their fathers' houses shall the Children of Israel camp..."):
BeOtot ("Under the standards"): Each prince [of each tribe] had symbols, a mapah ["cloth," "spread," hereafter "flag"], and the color of each flag was like the color of the fine stone that was on the heart of Aaron [the High Priest]. [The breastplate of the high priest contained twelve precious stones, one for each tribe. The exact definition of each is not known, so the Hebrew is given here; hints may be taken from the colors and are given as well, but therefore may only match some of the colors given.] From this the kingdoms learned to make flags and a color for each flag. For each tribes' prince, the color of the flag was similar to the color of its stone.
- Reuben's stone was Odem [carnelian? ruby?], and the color of his flag was red, [a picture of] mandrakes was drawn on it. [Mandrakes figure in a story about Reuben, the founder of the tribe, Genesis 30:14.] [I'm not sure where the imagery of a rising son comes from- Reuben being the eldest?]
- Simeon's stone was Pitedah [emerald?], and the color of his flag was green, and [a picture of the city of] Shechem was drawn on it. [Simeon, together with Levi, destroyed that city, Genesis 34.]
- Levi's [stone was] Bareket [topaz? carbuncle? smaragd?], and the color of his flag was a third white, a third black, and a third red [think of a banded stone], and [a picture of] the Urim VeTummim [that is, the twelve-stone breastplate {the Urim VeTummim were within}- a square, four rows of three stones each, usually horizontal but sometimes vertical] was drawn on it. [The priesthood was drawn from the tribe of Levi, and the whole tribe participated in holy service.] [Levi is omitted from the list by some, as he was not counted among the others, with the two tribes of Joseph making up the total of twelve.]
- Judah's [stone was] was Nofekh [carbuncle? topaz?], and the color of his flag was sky blue, and [a picture of] a lion was drawn on it. [Judah, from whom the monarchy descended, is compared to the king of beasts in Genesis 49:9, the blessing of Jacob.]
- Issachar's [stone was] Sapir [sapphire?], and the color of his flag was like azure [some: black], and [a picture of] a sun and a moon was drawn on it, because [as it says in I Chronicles 12:33] "And from the sons of Issachar were those who knew the wisdom of the times [i.e.,astronomy and calendars]". [Jacob's blessing calls Issachar a "laden donkey," and sometimes the symbol is shown as that or as a laden man.]
- Zebulon's [stone was] Yahalom [beryl?], and the color of his flag was white [according to some, like silver {similar to heraldic rules today} because of his wealth], and [a picture of] a ship was drawn on it, because [as it says in Genesis 49:13] "Zebulon shall dwell by the seashore [i.e., engage in trade]."
- Dan's [stone was] Leshem [jacinth?], and the color of his flag was like a sapphire [others: black], and [a picture of] a snake was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 17] "Dan shall be [as] a snake [when he attacks from an ambush]." [As Dan's descendants were judges, scales are sometimes shown as well.]
- Gad's [stone was] Shevo [agate?], and the color of his flag was not white and not black but a mixture of black and white [gray?], and [a picture of] a camp was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 19] "Gad shall camp in troops" [Heb: Gad Yegud Yegudenu, a reference to his fighting strength]. [Sometimes actual troops, not tents, are shown.]
- Naftali's [stone was] Achlamah [amethyst?], and the color of his flag was like diluted wine (whose red [color] was no longer strong), and [a picture of] a deer was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 21] "Naftali shall be as a sent deer [i.e., he was fast]".
- Asher's [stone was] Tarshish [chrysolite?], and the color of his flag was like the expensive stone women decorate themselves with [pearl? opal?] [others: olive, or the light given by olive oil], and [a picture of] an olive tree was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 20] "From Asher will be his rich bread [i.e., he will live in a fertile area]". [Sometimes other signs of agricultural wealth- a cornucopia, say- are shown.]
- Joseph's [stone was] Shoham [onyx?], and the color of his flag[s] was very black, and the [picture] drawn on it for the two princes [of] Ephraim and Menasseh was Egypt [a pyramid?], because they were born in Egypt. And on the flag of Ephraim was drawn an ox, because [as it is written in Deuteronomy 33:17] "His first born is his ox," this is [a reference to] Joshua who was from the tribe of Ephraim [in addition, although the younger brother, Ephraim's was considered the senior tribe, and Genesis 49 calls Joseph an ox as well]. And on the flag of Menasseh was drawn a re'em [a sort of wild ox], because [as it is written Deuteronomy ibid.] "And the horns of the re'em will be [as] his horn," this means Gideon son of Joash who was from the tribe of Menasseh. [There is a question what this means: Was there one black flag with an overall picture of Egypt plus the two animals, or a flag with Egypt for the whole Joseph and a flag for each tribe, or just aflag for each tribe?]
- Benjamin's [stone was] Yashpeh [jasper?], and the color of his flag was like all the colors of the twelve colors, and [a picture of] a wolf was drawn on it, because [as it says Genesis 49:17] "Benjamin is like a scavenging wolf".
Therefore [the word] "BeOtot" [literally "in the signs"] is used, for there were symbols for each prince. [End of Numbers Rabbah translation.]
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads the verse as giving not one flag to each tribe, but one flag for each "camp"- that is, each of the four groups of three tribes each. He also sees the stones on the breastplate as being arranged for the tribes not in the order above (by mother, then by age) but according to the camps. Thus his commentary on the following verses:
- Numbers 2:3: "...[the camp of Judah's] Tekes (lit. "troop" [?], here clearly "flag") had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, odem, pitedah, bareket. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Judah- Issachar- Zebulon" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:35] "Arise, Lord, and may Your enemies be scattered, and may those who hate You flee before You!" And there was a picture of a young lion [Genesis 49:9, "Judah is a young lion..."] on it..."
- Numbers 2:10: "...[the camp of Reuben's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, nofekh-sapir-yahalom. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Reuben- Simeon-Gad" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Deuteronomy 6:4] "Hear Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." And there was a picture of a young deer [ram?] [originally to have been a calf, but changed because of the sin of the golden calf, hence the verse, with "rams" symbolizing Israel] on it..."
- Numbers 2:18: "...[the camp of Ephraim's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, leshem-shivo-achlamah. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Ephraim-Menasseh-Benjamin" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:34] "And the cloud of the Lord was above them during the day when they traveled from the camp." And there was a picture of a young boy [Jeremiah 31:19, "Ephraim is my dear son..."] on it..."
- Numbers 2:25: "...[the camp of Dan's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, tarshish-shoma-yashpeh. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Dan- Naftali-Asher" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:36] "Return, Lord, the myriads of thousands of Israel!" And there was a picture of a snake [Genesis 49: 17, "Dan shall be [as] a snake..." {see above}] on it..."
Nathan Lamm, 5 June 2003
In "Modern" Hebrew, the stones are translated as follows:
- Odem: Ruby
- Pitedah: Topaz
- Bareket: Emerald
- Nofekh: Not in use as stone name today
- Sapir: Sapphire
- Yahalom: Diamond
- Leshem: Opal
- Shevo: Not in use as stone name today
- Achlamah: Amethyst
- Tarshish: Not in use as stone name today
- Shoham: Onyx
- Yashpeh: Jasper
Dov Gutterman, 5 June 2003
First of all, while the Twelve Tribes of Israel, or Shivtei Yisrael, as they are known in Hebrew, did indeed have what we might term in contemporary usage heraldic signs and devices, all of which are mentioned repeatedly in the bible. There is no Tanachic record of the Tribes ever actually possessing, much less using flags of any sort. Any such items are purely fictitious in nature, having been invented not earlier than the Protestant Reformation and probably much more recently. Any flag which you have seen which claims (or has claimed for it) that it belonged to any or all of the Twelve Tribes is absolutely, completely, and totally spurious.
Incidentally, the State of Israel has over the years issued several series of postage stamps which depict the heraldic devices of the Twelve Tribes; you can find these illustrated in Scott's Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue or in Stanley Gibbons' Stamps of the World Catalogue. Believe me, if the Twelve Tribes had had any flags the Israelis would have issued postage stamps commemorating the fact.
What might have been the case was that in battle some or all of the tribes may have borne standards containing a depiction of their identifyiong device on a piece of colored cloth. Hoever, none of them would have borne any flag such as you describe.
Ron Lahav, 18 March 2004
The fact is rather the opposite: Symbols of the tribes are mentioned at the end of Genesis, and are merely part of a blessing. On the other hand, flags (of a sort) are explicitely mentioned in Numbers, but the Bible itself does not mention what was on them. The Midrash does, often but not always in line with the blessing in Genesis.
Of course, the "flags" likely did not resemble modern flags at all, and may not even have been made of cloth.
Nathan Lamm, 18 March 2004
I do not think that the Degalim (flags) mentioned in Numbers (Bamidbar) can be considered as true standards or flags. If anything they were Vexilloids.
Ron Lahav, 18 March 2004
You should be aware that the flags of the tribes of israel ARE described, but not in the Torah (Old Testament). Each tribe had a colour with a symbol embroidered on it. The colour of the flag could be from a single colour such as that of Joseph (shared by Ephraim and Menasshe) of black, to that of Benjamin which is described as "many colours" and is taken to mean any colour of the wolf which is the symbol on the flag. It must be noted that use of heraldry began from this source as the Romans did not use flags, and Celts and germanii used carved/hammered symbols on long poles as far as I'm aware.
The stamps do not reflect the colours. The significance of the colours is that they related to the colours of the stones on the breastplate of the High Priest.
Greg Chalik, 5 January 2006
It should be pointed out, though, that "heraldry" originated in coats of arms, not flags, and so can't be traced to the tribes of Israel. In any event, it's not entirely clear that "flags" as we know them are meant here, at least in the Bible itself.
One more point: Some of the flags *are* multi-colored.
Nathan Lamm, 5 January 2006
Masonic Altar - A place of sacrifice or worship.
Of what importance is the Altar to the Lodge? The Altar is undoubtedly the most important piece of furniture in the Lodge. In all of the religions of antiquity, it was the usage of the priests and the people, to pass around the Altar in the course of the sun, that is to say, from the east, by way of the south, to the west, singing hymns of praise to Deity as part of their worship. See ("Great Paschal Hallel,") or hymn of praise, consisting of Psalms (113 to 118). The most important article of furniture in a Lodge room is the altar, on which rests a copy of the Holy Bible open at an appropriate passage and recognized as the principal light of Masonry. Before this altar the candidate for the mysteries of Masonry bows in prayer; symbolically, he offers up to God the incense of praise, lays on the altar the passions of his heart, and dedicates to God and to the service of Freemasonry his affections and faculties. The presence of the altar in the center of the Lodge room serves as a constant reminder of the religious character and purpose of all Masonic rites and ceremonies. An Illustration of a Masonic Altar.
banahtorah.blogspot.ca/2006/07/12-tribes-of-israel-banner...
These flags [of the individual tribes of Israel] were published some months ago in Banderas, but I don't have drawings of them, because I think that probably they are a bit fantasious.
Jaume Ollé, 5 May 1998
There is a biblical reference to the tribal flags as well that a friend of mine sent me some months ago, to whit: (Book of Numbers, Chapter 2, Verse 2) "The children of Israel shall encamp every man by his own standard, with the ensigns of their father's houses". The book the Standard Bible Encyclopedia has this and other biblical references under the heading of "Banner" that might be interesting to list members.
Greg Biggs, 5 May 1998
The following article about the Tribes of Israel is taken from a CD on Israeli stamps that was just released (I was one of the philatelic advisors). The CD has full-colour images of all the stamps of Israel plus articles on them (like this one) as well as stationaries, booklets and ATM labels. It costs about US$ 80. The stamps were issued in 1955/56 as a definitive series, Scott 105/116, SG 115/126, Yv 97/108, Mi 119/130, Bale 118/119.
This set of stamps features the emblems of the 12 tribes of Israel. Each stamp bears a single tribal emblem, part of them in combination with other motifs. The symbols of the tribes are by no means fixed as different interpretations may be given to the biblical texts describing the sons of Jacob.
The 12 tribes of the House of Israel are the descendants of the Patriarch Jacob and his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and his two concubines, Zilpah and Bilhah. Leah had six sons — Reuben, Simon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. Each of the other women had two sons each. Rachel's were Joseph and Benjamin; Zilpah's, Gad and Asher; and Bilhah's, Dan and Naphtali.
In Jacob' Blessing (Genesis 49) each of the sons is described allegorically and symbols for the tribes have been derived from these descriptions as well as form other biblical passages. Interesting descriptions of the tribal symbols are found in a rabbinical commentary on the Bible, the Midrash Rabba (c. 3rd century), which describes the flag of each tribe. The emblems of the tribes, however, found no expression in graphic art in earlier ages.
That the number of the tribes bears some relation to the zodiac follows from the hints which accompany different names mentioned in Jacob's Blessing. Simon and Levi, there noted together, are the Twins, Judah is described as a Lion; Dan as Scales, and Benjamin as Wolf. In the Wars of the Jews (4, 5) Flavius Josephus also mentions that the 12 shewbreads in the Temple represented the zodiac.
REUBEN
The mandrakes in Reuben's coat-of-arms are based on the episode related in Gen. 30, where young Reuben brought his mother Leah mandrakes from the field. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:6, "Let Reuben live."
SIMON
Simon was one of the strongest tribes during the wandering in the desert but later became one of the weakest in consequence of losses suffered during the battles for the Promised Land. It was eventually absorbed by mighty Judah. Formerly the city of Shechem was situated within the boundaries of Simon and the gate of the city therefore appears on the tribe's. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:5, "...and the tribes of Israel were gathered together."
LEVI
The Levites "kept the charge of the tabernacles of testimony" (Num. 1:53); they had no territory of their own and were dispersed among the other tribes. Their emblem was the ephod of the High Priest on which were engraved, upon precious stones, the names of all tribes. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:10, "They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law."
JUDAH
The most famous heraldic symbol belongs to the tribe of Judah, which displayed a lion on its shield. This tribe became the most powerful and constituted the Kingdom of Judah. The lion is the symbol of strength and is featured as such in innumerable works throughout the ages. This animal is one those most frequently mentioned in the Bible, appearing about 130 times under 6 different names. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Gen. 49:9, "Judah is a lion's whelp."
DAN
The original area of the tribe of Dan extended from Jaffa southward. Samson was a son of this tribe. As it could not conquer its entire territory, Dan looked to settle elsewhere and the tribe moved north to the source of the Jordan River, captured the city Laish, and settled there. In Jacob's Blessing Dan was promised that he "shall judge his people" (Gen. 49:16), a reference symbolized by the scales of justice on the stamp. The phrase appears on the tab.
NAFTALI
After the conquest of the country, the tribe of Naftali settled in the north where played a central role among the tribes located there. Naftali is represented by a gazelle or running stag. The biblical phrase on the tab is "Naftali is a hind let loose" (Gen. 49:21).
GAD
The tribe of Gad settled in the land of Gilead, east of the Jordan. It did battle against Amon and Moab coming from the south, wandering tribes from the east, and Aram from the north. The emblem resembles a camp in reminiscence of the biblical phrase -on the tab- "Gad, a troop shall overcome him" (Gen. 49:19).
ASHER
The coastal strip from the foot of Mount Carmel up to Sidon was inhabited by Asher, the fertility of whose land was indicated by an olive tree or —as represented on stamps of the Jewish National Fund or in the synagogue of Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany— by ears of corn or fruit. The biblical phrase on the tab is "Out of Asher his bread shall be fat" (Gen. 49:20).
ISSACHAR
Issachar's territory was the plain of Esdraelon, from the sea to the banks of the Jordan. This tribe is frequently mentioned together with Zebulun indicative of their being neighbors and maintaining close relations. The tribe's emblem of sun and stars is derived from the biblical phrase, "And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times" (1 Chron. 12:32), which appears on the tab. Other representations of Issachar reflect the dependence of this tribe on the Phoenicians, in whose products the tribe dealt — as a carrier of loads (see also Menorah stamp), as a donkey (on the Jewish National Fund stamp), or as a laden camel (in the synagogue of Aix-la-Chapelle).
ZEVULUN
Zevulun settled on the country's seaboard and as symbolized by its emblem was engaged in navigation. This idea is conveyed in the biblical phrase, "Zebulun (...) shall be for a haven of ships" (Gen. 49:13).
JOSEPH
Joseph was the principal tribe in central Eretz Israel, which split into Manasseh and Ephraim. The fertility of Joseph's country is symbolized by the sheaf on the stamp. The biblical phrase on the tab reads, "...blessed of the Lord be his land" (Deut. 33:13).
BENJAMIN
The favorite son of Jacob, Benjamin has remained the symbol of the tender youngest child. The tribe of Benjamin, however, was considered particularly warlike and courageous. To this tribe belonged Saul, the first king, and Jonathan, his son. The symbol of the tribe was the wolf, a predatory animal. The biblical phrase on the tab reads, "...in the morning he shall devour the prey" (Gen. 49:27).
Notes:
I disagree to the use of the terms coat-of-arms and heraldic in the article. I believe that heraldry is a well-defined European concept that began more than two millenia after the Tribes of Israel.
There is a confusion about the 12 tribes. Those on the stamps are the sons of Jacob, but there was no tribe of Joseph — only tribes of Menasseh and Ephraiym, his sons. Levi was not regarded as a tribe either because the Levites were the priests and they had no territory of their own.
The Lion of Judah is the origin of the city emblem of Jerusalem that is on the city flag. It is also (in a different design) the emblem of the IDF Central Command which has its HQ in Jerusalem. One of the Command Generals in the 70's had a cage with a live lion there!
Nahum Shereshevsky, 5 May 1998
The emblems of the Tribes are commonly used as decorations in official ceremonies, like the ceremony that closes Memorial Day and opens Independence Day.
Nahum Shereshevsky, 2 June 1998
I scanned stamps of the symbols of the 12 tribes.
Dov Gutterman, 1 June 1999
This Saturday the portion "Bamidbar" (the beginning of the book of Numbers) was read in the synagogue; flags of the tribes of Israel are mentioned there. Exact descriptions are not given in the Biblical text itself, but two commentaries do describe them, and I was pleasantly surprised when my rabbi's short speech today focused on the design of the flags.
In short, one commentary assigns a flag to each of the twelve (or thirteen) tribes (related but somewhat distinct from the emblems described here), while another assigns a flag to each "camp" (a group of three tribes, for a total of four "camps").
Nathan Lamm, 31 May 2003
I went into the biblical texts mentioned by Nathan and found in the St James version of the English translation dating from the early 18th century (Numbers 2 Vers 2) the following:
"Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensigns of his father's house..."..
The revised standard version of the Bible's English translation dating from 1952 renders the same verse as follows:
"The people of Israel shall encamp each by his own standard, with the ensigns of their father's houses..."
Considering the age when the original Book of Numbers book was likely written (between 1000 and 800 BCE?), I have always thought that this reference to standards and ensigns to be English interpretations of the ancient Hebrew words which might possibly have referred to emblems that we in modern times would term vexilloids. Nathan's mention of rabbinical commentaries providing descriptions of actual flags, would to my mind be an exciting discovery of a very early use of actual flags not encountered in any other historical sources. (According to Whitney Smith, W.G. Perrin et al, the first real flag in the West was probably the Roman vexillum).
Andre Burgers, 1 June 2003
I think one of the commentaries dates to about the year 100, and the other to about the year 200 (but possibly based on much older traditions). So it's entirely possible that the rabbis who wrote them were influenced by Roman flags when interpreting the verse. Of course, as they use the same Hebrew terms as the Biblical text itself, they may simply be referring to the same objects as the Bible- and yet they do seem to be clearly referring to a piece of cloth with a design, hung in whichever way.
Nathan Lamm, 1 June 2003
Here is a scan (part 1, part 2) of the 12 tribal flags according was published in "Banderas".
Jaume Ollé, 1 June 2003
The flags just posted are, I believe, from a ceremony a few decades back in Israel. There are some errors in the transcription (Asher and Simeon are transposed, etc.); furthermore, there are some differences with the original accounts. The two rabbinic commentaries on the flags of the tribes are Numbers Rabbah and Pseudo-Jonathan.
Numbers Rabbah is a Midrash, part of the collection called Midrash Rabbah, the Great Midrash. A Midrash (there are about a hundred) expounds (the meaning of Midrash) on verses in the Bible, whether to determine Jewish law or, on the other hand, history, lore, and so on from them. They were written over a large span of time, from about the first century until about the tenth. (Some collections came out in the next few centuries) Numbers Rabbah was written in about the ninth century. It's in Hebrew, and the translation below is my own.
Pseudo-Jonathan is a Targum, that is, a translation of the Bible (here, the first five books) into Aramaic. There are several Targums, of different style. Some are simple translations with minimal exposition, but Pseudo-Jonathan gives much commentary among its translation- all of what is below is not in the actual Biblical text. (The actual Targum Jonathan covers the Prophetic books, not the first five. This is actually the "Jerusalem Targum" [it was written in Israel], but someone mistook the initials "T.J." [actually "T.Y."] for Targum Jonathan, because of the other Targum of that name, and the name stuck, hence the use of the term "Pseudo-Jonathan.) This Targum was written in about the seventh or eighth centuries. The translation from the Aramaic is my own; as my knowledge of Aramaic isn't as good as my knowledge of Hebrew, it's a bit rougher.
An important note: Although the two works date from when I wrote above, each uses sources that were much older, perhaps dating to the first or second centuries. These sources, in turn, may have been based on even older traditions, perhaps dating back to the time of the writing of the Bible and/or the events described therein. Going back that far, one would have to see what the vexillological customs of the ancient Mesopotamians (the place of origin of the Israelites), the ancient Canaanites/Phoenicians (where they had come from and where they were going) and the ancient Egyptians (where they had just come out of) were. Of course, it is hard to tell what portions of these two works have long traditions behind them and what portions do not, and one cannot discount the fact the descriptions of flags here are undoubtedly influenced by flags that existed in the early Middle Ages, when they were written. The word "flags" here may thus mean "banner" or "strip of cloth" or "vexillum" or perhaps even "flag" in our modern sense. However, the original standards, if any, may have been an object (a vexillloid) of some sort. (Note that the Midrash attributes the widespread use of colored cloth flags to the example of the Israelites!)
Numbers Rabbah, 2:7, commenting on Numbers Chapter 2, Verse 2 ("Each man according to his degel ["division", but modern: "flag"] under the otot ["standards"] of their fathers' houses shall the Children of Israel camp..."):
BeOtot ("Under the standards"): Each prince [of each tribe] had symbols, a mapah ["cloth," "spread," hereafter "flag"], and the color of each flag was like the color of the fine stone that was on the heart of Aaron [the High Priest]. [The breastplate of the high priest contained twelve precious stones, one for each tribe. The exact definition of each is not known, so the Hebrew is given here; hints may be taken from the colors and are given as well, but therefore may only match some of the colors given.] From this the kingdoms learned to make flags and a color for each flag. For each tribes' prince, the color of the flag was similar to the color of its stone.
- Reuben's stone was Odem [carnelian? ruby?], and the color of his flag was red, [a picture of] mandrakes was drawn on it. [Mandrakes figure in a story about Reuben, the founder of the tribe, Genesis 30:14.] [I'm not sure where the imagery of a rising son comes from- Reuben being the eldest?]
- Simeon's stone was Pitedah [emerald?], and the color of his flag was green, and [a picture of the city of] Shechem was drawn on it. [Simeon, together with Levi, destroyed that city, Genesis 34.]
- Levi's [stone was] Bareket [topaz? carbuncle? smaragd?], and the color of his flag was a third white, a third black, and a third red [think of a banded stone], and [a picture of] the Urim VeTummim [that is, the twelve-stone breastplate {the Urim VeTummim were within}- a square, four rows of three stones each, usually horizontal but sometimes vertical] was drawn on it. [The priesthood was drawn from the tribe of Levi, and the whole tribe participated in holy service.] [Levi is omitted from the list by some, as he was not counted among the others, with the two tribes of Joseph making up the total of twelve.]
- Judah's [stone was] was Nofekh [carbuncle? topaz?], and the color of his flag was sky blue, and [a picture of] a lion was drawn on it. [Judah, from whom the monarchy descended, is compared to the king of beasts in Genesis 49:9, the blessing of Jacob.]
- Issachar's [stone was] Sapir [sapphire?], and the color of his flag was like azure [some: black], and [a picture of] a sun and a moon was drawn on it, because [as it says in I Chronicles 12:33] "And from the sons of Issachar were those who knew the wisdom of the times [i.e.,astronomy and calendars]". [Jacob's blessing calls Issachar a "laden donkey," and sometimes the symbol is shown as that or as a laden man.]
- Zebulon's [stone was] Yahalom [beryl?], and the color of his flag was white [according to some, like silver {similar to heraldic rules today} because of his wealth], and [a picture of] a ship was drawn on it, because [as it says in Genesis 49:13] "Zebulon shall dwell by the seashore [i.e., engage in trade]."
- Dan's [stone was] Leshem [jacinth?], and the color of his flag was like a sapphire [others: black], and [a picture of] a snake was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 17] "Dan shall be [as] a snake [when he attacks from an ambush]." [As Dan's descendants were judges, scales are sometimes shown as well.]
- Gad's [stone was] Shevo [agate?], and the color of his flag was not white and not black but a mixture of black and white [gray?], and [a picture of] a camp was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 19] "Gad shall camp in troops" [Heb: Gad Yegud Yegudenu, a reference to his fighting strength]. [Sometimes actual troops, not tents, are shown.]
- Naftali's [stone was] Achlamah [amethyst?], and the color of his flag was like diluted wine (whose red [color] was no longer strong), and [a picture of] a deer was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 21] "Naftali shall be as a sent deer [i.e., he was fast]".
- Asher's [stone was] Tarshish [chrysolite?], and the color of his flag was like the expensive stone women decorate themselves with [pearl? opal?] [others: olive, or the light given by olive oil], and [a picture of] an olive tree was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 20] "From Asher will be his rich bread [i.e., he will live in a fertile area]". [Sometimes other signs of agricultural wealth- a cornucopia, say- are shown.]
- Joseph's [stone was] Shoham [onyx?], and the color of his flag[s] was very black, and the [picture] drawn on it for the two princes [of] Ephraim and Menasseh was Egypt [a pyramid?], because they were born in Egypt. And on the flag of Ephraim was drawn an ox, because [as it is written in Deuteronomy 33:17] "His first born is his ox," this is [a reference to] Joshua who was from the tribe of Ephraim [in addition, although the younger brother, Ephraim's was considered the senior tribe, and Genesis 49 calls Joseph an ox as well]. And on the flag of Menasseh was drawn a re'em [a sort of wild ox], because [as it is written Deuteronomy ibid.] "And the horns of the re'em will be [as] his horn," this means Gideon son of Joash who was from the tribe of Menasseh. [There is a question what this means: Was there one black flag with an overall picture of Egypt plus the two animals, or a flag with Egypt for the whole Joseph and a flag for each tribe, or just aflag for each tribe?]
- Benjamin's [stone was] Yashpeh [jasper?], and the color of his flag was like all the colors of the twelve colors, and [a picture of] a wolf was drawn on it, because [as it says Genesis 49:17] "Benjamin is like a scavenging wolf".
Therefore [the word] "BeOtot" [literally "in the signs"] is used, for there were symbols for each prince. [End of Numbers Rabbah translation.]
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads the verse as giving not one flag to each tribe, but one flag for each "camp"- that is, each of the four groups of three tribes each. He also sees the stones on the breastplate as being arranged for the tribes not in the order above (by mother, then by age) but according to the camps. Thus his commentary on the following verses:
- Numbers 2:3: "...[the camp of Judah's] Tekes (lit. "troop" [?], here clearly "flag") had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, odem, pitedah, bareket. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Judah- Issachar- Zebulon" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:35] "Arise, Lord, and may Your enemies be scattered, and may those who hate You flee before You!" And there was a picture of a young lion [Genesis 49:9, "Judah is a young lion..."] on it..."
- Numbers 2:10: "...[the camp of Reuben's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, nofekh-sapir-yahalom. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Reuben- Simeon-Gad" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Deuteronomy 6:4] "Hear Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." And there was a picture of a young deer [ram?] [originally to have been a calf, but changed because of the sin of the golden calf, hence the verse, with "rams" symbolizing Israel] on it..."
- Numbers 2:18: "...[the camp of Ephraim's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, leshem-shivo-achlamah. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Ephraim-Menasseh-Benjamin" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:34] "And the cloud of the Lord was above them during the day when they traveled from the camp." And there was a picture of a young boy [Jeremiah 31:19, "Ephraim is my dear son..."] on it..."
- Numbers 2:25: "...[the camp of Dan's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, tarshish-shoma-yashpeh. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Dan- Naftali-Asher" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:36] "Return, Lord, the myriads of thousands of Israel!" And there was a picture of a snake [Genesis 49: 17, "Dan shall be [as] a snake..." {see above}] on it..."
Nathan Lamm, 5 June 2003
In "Modern" Hebrew, the stones are translated as follows:
- Odem: Ruby
- Pitedah: Topaz
- Bareket: Emerald
- Nofekh: Not in use as stone name today
- Sapir: Sapphire
- Yahalom: Diamond
- Leshem: Opal
- Shevo: Not in use as stone name today
- Achlamah: Amethyst
- Tarshish: Not in use as stone name today
- Shoham: Onyx
- Yashpeh: Jasper
Dov Gutterman, 5 June 2003
First of all, while the Twelve Tribes of Israel, or Shivtei Yisrael, as they are known in Hebrew, did indeed have what we might term in contemporary usage heraldic signs and devices, all of which are mentioned repeatedly in the bible. There is no Tanachic record of the Tribes ever actually possessing, much less using flags of any sort. Any such items are purely fictitious in nature, having been invented not earlier than the Protestant Reformation and probably much more recently. Any flag which you have seen which claims (or has claimed for it) that it belonged to any or all of the Twelve Tribes is absolutely, completely, and totally spurious.
Incidentally, the State of Israel has over the years issued several series of postage stamps which depict the heraldic devices of the Twelve Tribes; you can find these illustrated in Scott's Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue or in Stanley Gibbons' Stamps of the World Catalogue. Believe me, if the Twelve Tribes had had any flags the Israelis would have issued postage stamps commemorating the fact.
What might have been the case was that in battle some or all of the tribes may have borne standards containing a depiction of their identifyiong device on a piece of colored cloth. Hoever, none of them would have borne any flag such as you describe.
Ron Lahav, 18 March 2004
The fact is rather the opposite: Symbols of the tribes are mentioned at the end of Genesis, and are merely part of a blessing. On the other hand, flags (of a sort) are explicitely mentioned in Numbers, but the Bible itself does not mention what was on them. The Midrash does, often but not always in line with the blessing in Genesis.
Of course, the "flags" likely did not resemble modern flags at all, and may not even have been made of cloth.
Nathan Lamm, 18 March 2004
I do not think that the Degalim (flags) mentioned in Numbers (Bamidbar) can be considered as true standards or flags. If anything they were Vexilloids.
Ron Lahav, 18 March 2004
You should be aware that the flags of the tribes of israel ARE described, but not in the Torah (Old Testament). Each tribe had a colour with a symbol embroidered on it. The colour of the flag could be from a single colour such as that of Joseph (shared by Ephraim and Menasshe) of black, to that of Benjamin which is described as "many colours" and is taken to mean any colour of the wolf which is the symbol on the flag. It must be noted that use of heraldry began from this source as the Romans did not use flags, and Celts and germanii used carved/hammered symbols on long poles as far as I'm aware.
The stamps do not reflect the colours. The significance of the colours is that they related to the colours of the stones on the breastplate of the High Priest.
Greg Chalik, 5 January 2006
It should be pointed out, though, that "heraldry" originated in coats of arms, not flags, and so can't be traced to the tribes of Israel. In any event, it's not entirely clear that "flags" as we know them are meant here, at least in the Bible itself.
One more point: Some of the flags *are* multi-colored.
Nathan Lamm, 5 January 2006
The ancient port city of Galle is Sri Lanka's fourth largest town, with a population of around 80,000 people and a history that stretches back hundreds of years. Some historians have suggested that Galle might even be the Biblical Tarshish, where King Solomon's ships called to take on gemstones, spices and scented woods. There's nothing to establish the truth of this rather fanciful tale, but it is at least certain that Galle is Sri Lanka's oldest living city, contrasting with the more ancient--but deserted--capitals of Sigiriya, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa.
Located on the south-western shore of the island, about 115km south of Colombo and just 18km south of the popular beach resort of Hikkaduwa, Galle was for centuries Sri Lanka's main port, a position which strengthened during the periods of Portuguese and Dutch colonial rule. Galle only lost its primacy in the late 19th century, when the British expanded and developed the harbour at Colombo to become the island's major port. Today Galle Harbour still handles fishing vessels, a certain amount of container traffic, as well as a few luxury yachts. It's a shadow of its former self, though, and this adds to the mellow, laid-back atmosphere of the place.
Although there is plenty of good accommodation available in Galle, as well as some very passable places to eat, many visitors will prefer to stay at one of the nearby beach resorts of Hikkaduwa, Unawatuna or Weligama. A visit to Galle makes an excellent and enjoyable day trip when it seems time to take a break from beach life and indulge in a little history and culture.
History:
Galle was clearly chosen as a port for excellent strategic reasons. It has a fine natural harbour protected, to the west, by a south-pointing promontory--the next piece of land, literally, is the frozen waste of the Antarctic, over five thousand miles distant.
Perhaps the earliest recorded reference to Galle comes from the great Arab traveller Ibn Battuta, who visited the port--which he calls Qali--in the mid-14th century. The Portuguese first arrived in 1505, when a fleet commanded by Lorenzo de Almeida took shelter from a storm in the lee of the town. Clearly the strategic significance of the harbour impressed the Portuguese, for 82 years later, in 1587, they seized control of the town from the Sinhala kings and began the construction of Galle Fort. This event marked the beginning of almost four centuries of European domination of the city, resulting in the fascinating hybrid--architecturally, culturally and ethnically--which Galle is today.
The Dutch captured the city from the Portuguese in 1640, and immediately began strengthening the fortifications. They remained for almost 150 years, until the city was in turn taken by the British in 1796. Not until 1947, when Ceylon gained its independence from the British, did Galle become, once again, an independent city--and by this time the long years of association with European colonialism had left an indelible stamp on the city which makes it unique in today's Sri Lanka. In recognition of this fact, the Old City of Galle--essentially the fort and its surroundings--was declared a World Heritage Site in 1988.
The Town:
Galle is really a tale of two cities. Inland, to the north of the Colombo-Matara Road, is the modern commercial town characterised by a jumble of bustling stores, warehouses and small restaurants. Here, by the banks of the old Dutch Canal, may be found the railway station, bus station and main bazaar. It's a place to arrive, leave, eat, shop for necessities or change money (though there are also two money-changing facilities within the fort itself). The only building worthy of note is St Mary's Cathedral, built by the British in 1874, and of more interest for the views its provides over the Old Town than for any intrinsic architectural merit. Nevertheless, "New Galle" is the beating commercial heart of the city without which the Old Town would have difficulty surviving, and would lose much of its bucolic charm.
Immediately south of the Colombo-Matara Road, and dividing the commercial sector from the old fort, lies an area of open land which, since 1998, has acquired increasing international fame. Once known simply as The Esplanade, it is now graced with the title Galle International Stadium, an international test cricket venue which continues to grow in stature and reputation alongside the remarkable successes of the Sri Lankan national team [see box below].
Just to the south of the stadium Old Galle begins. Its barriers are unmistakable, as three massive bastions rise up behind the playing field, cutting off the fortified peninsular from the hustle and bustle of commerce--almost, it might seem, from the 21st century.
Galle Fort covers an area of 36 hectares and encloses several museums, a clock tower, churches, mosques, a lighthouse and several hundred private dwellings. Tellingly, there are no major Buddhist temples within the walls--the Dutch may have been gone for more than two centuries, but their cultural influence, best represented by the crumbling Groote Kerk, local seat of the Dutch Reformed Church, remains palpable.
It takes a full day to explore Galle Fort properly, but given this length of time the exploration can be carried out in a leisurely and relaxing manner by foot. The ancient walls, dating in large part from the Dutch establishment of the fort in 1663, are largely intact and make a wonderfully evocative circuitous walk around the fort, especially at dusk when the setting sun illumines the historic western ramparts.
The City Ramparts: Galle's Dutch defenders feared--mistakenly, as it turned out--assault by land from the Sinhala kings more than the threat by sea from their British cousins. Accordingly, three great ramparts were built at tremendous cost in both labour and treasure to isolate the peninsula from "the mainland". Stretching across the peninsula from west to east, these are the Star Bastion, the Moon Bastion and the Sun Bastion. Rising high above the present-day esplanade, these deep, crenellated fortifications must once have appeared all-but-impregnable to the armies of Kandy and Colombo. Today, however--and let the visitor be forewarned--their angular crevices provide privacy for courting couples rather than security for archers and musketeers. Quite seriously, one should approach these outer battlements with discretion for fear of giving offence. Towards dusk there is hardly a recess in the battlements without its pair of cuddling teenagers, often shielded from prying eyes behind a large umbrella!
It takes about two hours for a leisurely stroll around the walls of the Old City. Only once, between the Aurora Bastion and the Main Gate, is it necessary to descend into the fort itself. Yet this is no great hardship, for nearby is the distinguished New Oriental Hotel, built by the Dutch in 1684 as a governorial mansion, where cold beer, lime soda and other more substantial sustenance are readily available.
It's best to make a circuit of the walls clockwise, starting at the New Oriental Hotel. From here it's just a short stroll, beneath great, shady rain trees, to the Aurora Bastion. Continue southwards, with fine views over old Galle Harbour to the east, to reach the 20m-high lighthouse, built by the British in 1934, which dominates Point Utrecht Bastion at the fort's south-eastern corner. The walk continues due west, skirting the Indian Ocean past Triton, Neptune and Clippenburg Bastions--all, more likely than not, with a few courting couples gazing into the setting sunset.
Beyond Clippenburg, as the fortifications turn due north towards Star Bastion and the main northern defences, there is a Sri Lankan Army camp at Aeolus Bastion, which remains off limits to tourists. There's no great sense of military paranoia, but, especially in view of the political instability in the north of the island, it's better to refrain from taking photos at this point. One Sri Lankan army officer, discussing the matter, pointed out that Anton Balasingham, the Tamil Tiger's chief political theoretician, is married to Adele Balasingham, a white Australian militant who figures prominently on the Sri Lankan government's most wanted list. Clearly, being a Westerner is no guarantee of neutrality, so it's always best to exercise discretion near Sri Lankan army bases!
Inside Galle Fort: The real charm of Old Galle lies in the quiet back streets and alleyways of the historic fort, which have changed little--if at all--since colonial times. There are two entries into the fort, the Main Gate, built by the British in 1873 which pierces the main ramparts between the Sun and Moon Bastions, and the more venerable Old Gate, further to the east on Baladaksha Maw (or Customs Road). The latter is distinguished by the British coat of arms carved into its outer stone lintel, while on the inside the initials VOC, flanked by two lions and surmounted by a cock are deeply etched on the inner lintel. This latter inscription is dated 1669, and VOC stands for the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or United East India Company. The cockerel has become a symbol of Galle, and it is even suggested that the name of the city derives from galo, which is "rooster" in Portuguese. Just beyond the Old Gate stands the Zwart Bastion, or Black Fort--the oldest fortification surviving in Galle, and thought to be of Portuguese origin.
With the exception of Zwart Bastion, the interior of Galle Fort is strongly redolent of the Dutch period. Several of the narrow streets still bear Dutch names such as Leyn Baan or "Rope Lane" and Mohrische Kramer Straat or "Street of the Moorish Traders". Beneath the streets an efficient, Dutch-built sewerage system is still flushed out twice daily by the rising tides of the Indian Ocean. Many of the streets are lined with formerly opulent buildings characterised by large rooms, arched verandas and windows protected by heavy, wooden-louvered shutters.
The northern part of the fort is dominated by the British-built Clock Tower and a small roundabout located immediately within the Main Gate. From here Church Street curves away south past the National Cultural Museum (Tue-Sat 9am-5pm; Rs35) with rather poorly displayed exhibits of the city's colonial heritage. The National Maritime Museum on nearby Queen Street (Sun-Thu 9am-5pm; Rs55) is similarly dilapidated, but of more interest than the various fishing and other maritime artefacts is the massively fortified Dutch warehouse in which they are displayed. Old Galle is of much more interest as a "living museum" than for the museums it houses, but it's worth making a quick visit to the Dutch Period Museum on Leyn Baan (daily 8.30am-5.30pm; admission free). This privately-owned establishment houses an astonishing array of Dutch-period artefacts ranging from rare porcelain to obscure bric-a-brac.
Of far more interest than the museums is the dilapidated Groot Kerk or Dutch Reformed Church, located--appropriately enough--on Church Street just south of the New Oriental Hotel. Founded in 1754 by the then Dutch Governor of Galle, Capar de Jong, it's in urgent need of restoration but well worth visiting for the ancient Dutch gravestones, both in the churchyard and within the nave. These are generally distinguished by skulls and skeletons, grim reminders of the tenuous nature of life in 18th century Galle, as well as characteristic of the dour nature of contemporary Dutch Protestantism.
Opposite the Groot Kerk stands the old Dutch Government House, a fine old colonial building bearing the date 1683 and the cockerel crest of Galle over the main entrance. The original Dutch ovens still survive within the building, which is currently used as a commercial office but slated for redevelopment as a luxury hotel; whether this venture will succeed remains to be seen, as the house is generally believed to be haunted.
Further south along Church Street stands the Catholic All Saints Church, built by the British in 1868 and consecrated in 1871. Beyond this, at the southernmost point of the peninsula, a small "Moorish" (Muslim) community still prospers, with a madrassa or Islamic college and two mosques, the most impressive of which is the Meera Masjid. It's fine to enter, but as with similar Christian, Buddhist and Hindu institutions you should be appropriately dressed and respectful of worshippers.
PRACTICALITIES
The best way of getting to Galle from Colombo is by either train or bus. Regular CTB and private buses ply the coastal A2 highway. Air-conditioned express buses cost Rs60 (3 hours) and leave every 15 minutes from Colombo's Bastian Mawatha station. The express buses are preferable to the ordinary buses (Rs40) which can get awfully crowded. All buses pull in at Galle's busy bus station opposite the cricket ground. Ten trains leave either Colombo's Fort or Maradana stations daily for Galle. The journey takes around 2 1/2 hours and both 1st and 2nd class seats are available on most trains. From Galle there's a daily train to Kandy (6-7 hours). Galle railway station is slightly to the west of the bus station on the Colombo Road. Taxis at more than RS3000 a trip between Colombo and Galle are an expensive option.
Installation of the Officers of Seguin Chapter No. 261.
banahtorah.blogspot.ca/2006/07/12-tribes-of-israel-banner...
These flags [of the individual tribes of Israel] were published some months ago in Banderas, but I don't have drawings of them, because I think that probably they are a bit fantasious.
Jaume Ollé, 5 May 1998.
There is a biblical reference to the tribal flags as well that a friend of mine sent me some months ago, to whit: (Book of Numbers, Chapter 2, Verse 2) "The children of Israel shall encamp every man by his own standard, with the ensigns of their father's houses". The book the Standard Bible Encyclopedia has this and other biblical references under the heading of "Banner" that might be interesting to list members.
Greg Biggs, 5 May 1998.
The following article about the Tribes of Israel is taken from a CD on Israeli stamps that was just released (I was one of the philatelic advisors). The CD has full-colour images of all the stamps of Israel plus articles on them (like this one) as well as stationaries, booklets and ATM labels. It costs about US$ 80. The stamps were issued in 1955/56 as a definitive series, Scott 105/116, SG 115/126, Yv 97/108, Mi 119/130, Bale 118/119.
This set of stamps features the emblems of the 12 tribes of Israel. Each stamp bears a single tribal emblem, part of them in combination with other motifs. The symbols of the tribes are by no means fixed as different interpretations may be given to the biblical texts describing the sons of Jacob.
The 12 tribes of the House of Israel are the descendants of the Patriarch Jacob and his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and his two concubines, Zilpah and Bilhah. Leah had six sons — Reuben, Simon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. Each of the other women had two sons each. Rachel's were Joseph and Benjamin; Zilpah's, Gad and Asher; and Bilhah's, Dan and Naphtali.
In Jacob' Blessing (Genesis 49) each of the sons is described allegorically and symbols for the tribes have been derived from these descriptions as well as form other biblical passages. Interesting descriptions of the tribal symbols are found in a rabbinical commentary on the Bible, the Midrash Rabba (c. 3rd century), which describes the flag of each tribe. The emblems of the tribes, however, found no expression in graphic art in earlier ages.
That the number of the tribes bears some relation to the zodiac follows from the hints which accompany different names mentioned in Jacob's Blessing. Simon and Levi, there noted together, are the Twins, Judah is described as a Lion; Dan as Scales, and Benjamin as Wolf. In the Wars of the Jews (4, 5) Flavius Josephus also mentions that the 12 shewbreads in the Temple represented the zodiac.
REUBEN:
The mandrakes in Reuben's coat-of-arms are based on the episode related in Gen. 30, where young Reuben brought his mother Leah mandrakes from the field. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:6, "Let Reuben live."
SIMON:
Simon was one of the strongest tribes during the wandering in the desert but later became one of the weakest in consequence of losses suffered during the battles for the Promised Land. It was eventually absorbed by mighty Judah. Formerly the city of Shechem was situated within the boundaries of Simon and the gate of the city therefore appears on the tribe's. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:5, "...and the tribes of Israel were gathered together."
LEVI:
The Levites "kept the charge of the tabernacles of testimony" (Num. 1:53); they had no territory of their own and were dispersed among the other tribes. Their emblem was the ephod of the High Priest on which were engraved, upon precious stones, the names of all tribes. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:10, "They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law."
JUDAH:
The most famous heraldic symbol belongs to the tribe of Judah, which displayed a lion on its shield. This tribe became the most powerful and constituted the Kingdom of Judah. The lion is the symbol of strength and is featured as such in innumerable works throughout the ages. This animal is one those most frequently mentioned in the Bible, appearing about 130 times under 6 different names. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Gen. 49:9, "Judah is a lion's whelp."
DAN:
The original area of the tribe of Dan extended from Jaffa southward. Samson was a son of this tribe. As it could not conquer its entire territory, Dan looked to settle elsewhere and the tribe moved north to the source of the Jordan River, captured the city Laish, and settled there. In Jacob's Blessing Dan was promised that he "shall judge his people" (Gen. 49:16), a reference symbolized by the scales of justice on the stamp. The phrase appears on the tab.
NAFTALI:
After the conquest of the country, the tribe of Naftali settled in the north where played a central role among the tribes located there. Naftali is represented by a gazelle or running stag. The biblical phrase on the tab is "Naftali is a hind let loose" (Gen. 49:21).
GAD:
The tribe of Gad settled in the land of Gilead, east of the Jordan. It did battle against Amon and Moab coming from the south, wandering tribes from the east, and Aram from the north. The emblem resembles a camp in reminiscence of the biblical phrase -on the tab- "Gad, a troop shall overcome him" (Gen. 49:19).
ASHER:
The coastal strip from the foot of Mount Carmel up to Sidon was inhabited by Asher, the fertility of whose land was indicated by an olive tree or —as represented on stamps of the Jewish National Fund or in the synagogue of Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany— by ears of corn or fruit. The biblical phrase on the tab is "Out of Asher his bread shall be fat" (Gen. 49:20).
ISSACHAR:
Issachar's territory was the plain of Esdraelon, from the sea to the banks of the Jordan. This tribe is frequently mentioned together with Zebulun indicative of their being neighbors and maintaining close relations. The tribe's emblem of sun and stars is derived from the biblical phrase, "And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times" (1 Chron. 12:32), which appears on the tab. Other representations of Issachar reflect the dependence of this tribe on the Phoenicians, in whose products the tribe dealt — as a carrier of loads (see also Menorah stamp), as a donkey (on the Jewish National Fund stamp), or as a laden camel (in the synagogue of Aix-la-Chapelle).
ZEVULUN:
Zevulun settled on the country's seaboard and as symbolized by its emblem was engaged in navigation. This idea is conveyed in the biblical phrase, "Zebulun (...) shall be for a haven of ships" (Gen. 49:13).
JOSEPH:
Joseph was the principal tribe in central Eretz Israel, which split into Manasseh and Ephraim. The fertility of Joseph's country is symbolized by the sheaf on the stamp. The biblical phrase on the tab reads, "...blessed of the Lord be his land" (Deut. 33:13).
BENJAMIN:
The favorite son of Jacob, Benjamin has remained the symbol of the tender youngest child. The tribe of Benjamin, however, was considered particularly warlike and courageous. To this tribe belonged Saul, the first king, and Jonathan, his son. The symbol of the tribe was the wolf, a predatory animal. The biblical phrase on the tab reads, "...in the morning he shall devour the prey" (Gen. 49:27).
Notes:
I disagree to the use of the terms coat-of-arms and heraldic in the article. I believe that heraldry is a well-defined European concept that began more than two millenia after the Tribes of Israel.
There is a confusion about the 12 tribes. Those on the stamps are the sons of Jacob, but there was no tribe of Joseph — only tribes of Menasseh and Ephraiym, his sons. Levi was not regarded as a tribe either because the Levites were the priests and they had no territory of their own.
The Lion of Judah is the origin of the city emblem of Jerusalem that is on the city flag. It is also (in a different design) the emblem of the IDF Central Command which has its HQ in Jerusalem. One of the Command Generals in the 70's had a cage with a live lion there!
Nahum Shereshevsky, 5 May 1998
The emblems of the Tribes are commonly used as decorations in official ceremonies, like the ceremony that closes Memorial Day and opens Independence Day.
Nahum Shereshevsky, 2 June 1998.
I scanned stamps of the symbols of the 12 tribes.
Dov Gutterman, 1 June 1999.
This Saturday the portion "Bamidbar" (the beginning of the book of Numbers) was read in the synagogue; flags of the tribes of Israel are mentioned there. Exact descriptions are not given in the Biblical text itself, but two commentaries do describe them, and I was pleasantly surprised when my rabbi's short speech today focused on the design of the flags.
In short, one commentary assigns a flag to each of the twelve (or thirteen) tribes (related but somewhat distinct from the emblems described here), while another assigns a flag to each "camp" (a group of three tribes, for a total of four "camps").
Nathan Lamm, 31 May 2003.
I went into the biblical texts mentioned by Nathan and found in the St James version of the English translation dating from the early 18th century (Numbers 2 Vers 2) the following:
"Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensigns of his father's house..."..
The revised standard version of the Bible's English translation dating from 1952 renders the same verse as follows:
"The people of Israel shall encamp each by his own standard, with the ensigns of their father's houses..."
Considering the age when the original Book of Numbers book was likely written (between 1000 and 800 BCE?), I have always thought that this reference to standards and ensigns to be English interpretations of the ancient Hebrew words which might possibly have referred to emblems that we in modern times would term vexilloids. Nathan's mention of rabbinical commentaries providing descriptions of actual flags, would to my mind be an exciting discovery of a very early use of actual flags not encountered in any other historical sources. (According to Whitney Smith, W.G. Perrin et al, the first real flag in the West was probably the Roman vexillum).
Andre Burgers, 1 June 2003.
I think one of the commentaries dates to about the year 100, and the other to about the year 200 (but possibly based on much older traditions). So it's entirely possible that the rabbis who wrote them were influenced by Roman flags when interpreting the verse. Of course, as they use the same Hebrew terms as the Biblical text itself, they may simply be referring to the same objects as the Bible- and yet they do seem to be clearly referring to a piece of cloth with a design, hung in whichever way.
Nathan Lamm, 1 June 2003.
Here is a scan (part 1, part 2) of the 12 tribal flags according was published in "Banderas".
Jaume Ollé, 1 June 2003.
The flags just posted are, I believe, from a ceremony a few decades back in Israel. There are some errors in the transcription (Asher and Simeon are transposed, etc.); furthermore, there are some differences with the original accounts. The two rabbinic commentaries on the flags of the tribes are Numbers Rabbah and Pseudo-Jonathan.
Numbers Rabbah is a Midrash, part of the collection called Midrash Rabbah, the Great Midrash. A Midrash (there are about a hundred) expounds (the meaning of Midrash) on verses in the Bible, whether to determine Jewish law or, on the other hand, history, lore, and so on from them. They were written over a large span of time, from about the first century until about the tenth. (Some collections came out in the next few centuries) Numbers Rabbah was written in about the ninth century. It's in Hebrew, and the translation below is my own.
Pseudo-Jonathan is a Targum, that is, a translation of the Bible (here, the first five books) into Aramaic. There are several Targums, of different style. Some are simple translations with minimal exposition, but Pseudo-Jonathan gives much commentary among its translation- all of what is below is not in the actual Biblical text. (The actual Targum Jonathan covers the Prophetic books, not the first five. This is actually the "Jerusalem Targum" [it was written in Israel], but someone mistook the initials "T.J." [actually "T.Y."] for Targum Jonathan, because of the other Targum of that name, and the name stuck, hence the use of the term "Pseudo-Jonathan.) This Targum was written in about the seventh or eighth centuries. The translation from the Aramaic is my own; as my knowledge of Aramaic isn't as good as my knowledge of Hebrew, it's a bit rougher.
An important note: Although the two works date from when I wrote above, each uses sources that were much older, perhaps dating to the first or second centuries. These sources, in turn, may have been based on even older traditions, perhaps dating back to the time of the writing of the Bible and/or the events described therein. Going back that far, one would have to see what the vexillological customs of the ancient Mesopotamians (the place of origin of the Israelites), the ancient Canaanites/Phoenicians (where they had come from and where they were going) and the ancient Egyptians (where they had just come out of) were. Of course, it is hard to tell what portions of these two works have long traditions behind them and what portions do not, and one cannot discount the fact the descriptions of flags here are undoubtedly influenced by flags that existed in the early Middle Ages, when they were written. The word "flags" here may thus mean "banner" or "strip of cloth" or "vexillum" or perhaps even "flag" in our modern sense. However, the original standards, if any, may have been an object (a vexillloid) of some sort. (Note that the Midrash attributes the widespread use of colored cloth flags to the example of the Israelites!)
Numbers Rabbah, 2:7, commenting on Numbers Chapter 2, Verse 2 ("Each man according to his degel ["division", but modern: "flag"] under the otot ["standards"] of their fathers' houses shall the Children of Israel camp..."):
BeOtot ("Under the standards"): Each prince [of each tribe] had symbols, a mapah ["cloth," "spread," hereafter "flag"], and the color of each flag was like the color of the fine stone that was on the heart of Aaron [the High Priest]. [The breastplate of the high priest contained twelve precious stones, one for each tribe. The exact definition of each is not known, so the Hebrew is given here; hints may be taken from the colors and are given as well, but therefore may only match some of the colors given.] From this the kingdoms learned to make flags and a color for each flag. For each tribes' prince, the color of the flag was similar to the color of its stone.
- Reuben's stone was Odem [carnelian? ruby?], and the color of his flag was red, [a picture of] mandrakes was drawn on it. [Mandrakes figure in a story about Reuben, the founder of the tribe, Genesis 30:14.] [I'm not sure where the imagery of a rising son comes from- Reuben being the eldest?]
- Simeon's stone was Pitedah [emerald?], and the color of his flag was green, and [a picture of the city of] Shechem was drawn on it. [Simeon, together with Levi, destroyed that city, Genesis 34.]
- Levi's [stone was] Bareket [topaz? carbuncle? smaragd?], and the color of his flag was a third white, a third black, and a third red [think of a banded stone], and [a picture of] the Urim VeTummim [that is, the twelve-stone breastplate {the Urim VeTummim were within}- a square, four rows of three stones each, usually horizontal but sometimes vertical] was drawn on it. [The priesthood was drawn from the tribe of Levi, and the whole tribe participated in holy service.] [Levi is omitted from the list by some, as he was not counted among the others, with the two tribes of Joseph making up the total of twelve.]
- Judah's [stone was] was Nofekh [carbuncle? topaz?], and the color of his flag was sky blue, and [a picture of] a lion was drawn on it. [Judah, from whom the monarchy descended, is compared to the king of beasts in Genesis 49:9, the blessing of Jacob.]
- Issachar's [stone was] Sapir [sapphire?], and the color of his flag was like azure [some: black], and [a picture of] a sun and a moon was drawn on it, because [as it says in I Chronicles 12:33] "And from the sons of Issachar were those who knew the wisdom of the times [i.e.,astronomy and calendars]". [Jacob's blessing calls Issachar a "laden donkey," and sometimes the symbol is shown as that or as a laden man.]
- Zebulon's [stone was] Yahalom [beryl?], and the color of his flag was white [according to some, like silver {similar to heraldic rules today} because of his wealth], and [a picture of] a ship was drawn on it, because [as it says in Genesis 49:13] "Zebulon shall dwell by the seashore [i.e., engage in trade]."
- Dan's [stone was] Leshem [jacinth?], and the color of his flag was like a sapphire [others: black], and [a picture of] a snake was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 17] "Dan shall be [as] a snake [when he attacks from an ambush]." [As Dan's descendants were judges, scales are sometimes shown as well.]
- Gad's [stone was] Shevo [agate?], and the color of his flag was not white and not black but a mixture of black and white [gray?], and [a picture of] a camp was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 19] "Gad shall camp in troops" [Heb: Gad Yegud Yegudenu, a reference to his fighting strength]. [Sometimes actual troops, not tents, are shown.]
- Naftali's [stone was] Achlamah [amethyst?], and the color of his flag was like diluted wine (whose red [color] was no longer strong), and [a picture of] a deer was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 21] "Naftali shall be as a sent deer [i.e., he was fast]".
- Asher's [stone was] Tarshish [chrysolite?], and the color of his flag was like the expensive stone women decorate themselves with [pearl? opal?] [others: olive, or the light given by olive oil], and [a picture of] an olive tree was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 20] "From Asher will be his rich bread [i.e., he will live in a fertile area]". [Sometimes other signs of agricultural wealth- a cornucopia, say- are shown.]
- Joseph's [stone was] Shoham [onyx?], and the color of his flag[s] was very black, and the [picture] drawn on it for the two princes [of] Ephraim and Menasseh was Egypt [a pyramid?], because they were born in Egypt. And on the flag of Ephraim was drawn an ox, because [as it is written in Deuteronomy 33:17] "His first born is his ox," this is [a reference to] Joshua who was from the tribe of Ephraim [in addition, although the younger brother, Ephraim's was considered the senior tribe, and Genesis 49 calls Joseph an ox as well]. And on the flag of Menasseh was drawn a re'em [a sort of wild ox], because [as it is written Deuteronomy ibid.] "And the horns of the re'em will be [as] his horn," this means Gideon son of Joash who was from the tribe of Menasseh. [There is a question what this means: Was there one black flag with an overall picture of Egypt plus the two animals, or a flag with Egypt for the whole Joseph and a flag for each tribe, or just aflag for each tribe?]
- Benjamin's [stone was] Yashpeh [jasper?], and the color of his flag was like all the colors of the twelve colors, and [a picture of] a wolf was drawn on it, because [as it says Genesis 49:17] "Benjamin is like a scavenging wolf".
Therefore [the word] "BeOtot" [literally "in the signs"] is used, for there were symbols for each prince. [End of Numbers Rabbah translation.]
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads the verse as giving not one flag to each tribe, but one flag for each "camp"- that is, each of the four groups of three tribes each. He also sees the stones on the breastplate as being arranged for the tribes not in the order above (by mother, then by age) but according to the camps. Thus his commentary on the following verses:
- Numbers 2:3: "...[the camp of Judah's] Tekes (lit. "troop" [?], here clearly "flag") had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, odem, pitedah, bareket. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Judah- Issachar- Zebulon" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:35] "Arise, Lord, and may Your enemies be scattered, and may those who hate You flee before You!" And there was a picture of a young lion [Genesis 49:9, "Judah is a young lion..."] on it..."
- Numbers 2:10: "...[the camp of Reuben's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, nofekh-sapir-yahalom. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Reuben- Simeon-Gad" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Deuteronomy 6:4] "Hear Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." And there was a picture of a young deer [ram?] [originally to have been a calf, but changed because of the sin of the golden calf, hence the verse, with "rams" symbolizing Israel] on it..."
- Numbers 2:18: "...[the camp of Ephraim's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, leshem-shivo-achlamah. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Ephraim-Menasseh-Benjamin" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:34] "And the cloud of the Lord was above them during the day when they traveled from the camp." And there was a picture of a young boy [Jeremiah 31:19, "Ephraim is my dear son..."] on it..."
- Numbers 2:25: "...[the camp of Dan's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, tarshish-shoma-yashpeh. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Dan- Naftali-Asher" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:36] "Return, Lord, the myriads of thousands of Israel!" And there was a picture of a snake [Genesis 49: 17, "Dan shall be [as] a snake..." {see above}] on it..."
Nathan Lamm, 5 June 2003.
In "Modern" Hebrew, the stones are translated as follows:
- Odem: Ruby
- Pitedah: Topaz
- Bareket: Emerald
- Nofekh: Not in use as stone name today
- Sapir: Sapphire
- Yahalom: Diamond
- Leshem: Opal
- Shevo: Not in use as stone name today
- Achlamah: Amethyst
- Tarshish: Not in use as stone name today
- Shoham: Onyx
- Yashpeh: Jasper
Dov Gutterman, 5 June 2003
First of all, while the Twelve Tribes of Israel, or Shivtei Yisrael, as they are known in Hebrew, did indeed have what we might term in contemporary usage heraldic signs and devices, all of which are mentioned repeatedly in the bible. There is no Tanachic record of the Tribes ever actually possessing, much less using flags of any sort. Any such items are purely fictitious in nature, having been invented not earlier than the Protestant Reformation and probably much more recently. Any flag which you have seen which claims (or has claimed for it) that it belonged to any or all of the Twelve Tribes is absolutely, completely, and totally spurious.
Incidentally, the State of Israel has over the years issued several series of postage stamps which depict the heraldic devices of the Twelve Tribes; you can find these illustrated in Scott's Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue or in Stanley Gibbons' Stamps of the World Catalogue. Believe me, if the Twelve Tribes had had any flags the Israelis would have issued postage stamps commemorating the fact.
What might have been the case was that in battle some or all of the tribes may have borne standards containing a depiction of their identifyiong device on a piece of colored cloth. Hoever, none of them would have borne any flag such as you describe.
Ron Lahav, 18 March 2004.
The fact is rather the opposite: Symbols of the tribes are mentioned at the end of Genesis, and are merely part of a blessing. On the other hand, flags (of a sort) are explicitely mentioned in Numbers, but the Bible itself does not mention what was on them. The Midrash does, often but not always in line with the blessing in Genesis.
Of course, the "flags" likely did not resemble modern flags at all, and may not even have been made of cloth.
Nathan Lamm, 18 March 2004.
I do not think that the Degalim (flags) mentioned in Numbers (Bamidbar) can be considered as true standards or flags. If anything they were Vexilloids.
Ron Lahav, 18 March 2004.
You should be aware that the flags of the tribes of israel ARE described, but not in the Torah (Old Testament). Each tribe had a colour with a symbol embroidered on it. The colour of the flag could be from a single colour such as that of Joseph (shared by Ephraim and Menasshe) of black, to that of Benjamin which is described as "many colours" and is taken to mean any colour of the wolf which is the symbol on the flag. It must be noted that use of heraldry began from this source as the Romans did not use flags, and Celts and germanii used carved/hammered symbols on long poles as far as I'm aware.
The stamps do not reflect the colours. The significance of the colours is that they related to the colours of the stones on the breastplate of the High Priest.
Greg Chalik, 5 January 2006.
It should be pointed out, though, that "heraldry" originated in coats of arms, not flags, and so can't be traced to the tribes of Israel. In any event, it's not entirely clear that "flags" as we know them are meant here, at least in the Bible itself.
One more point: Some of the flags *are* multi-colored.
Nathan Lamm, 5 January 2006.
Installation of the Officers of Seguin Chapter No. 261.
banahtorah.blogspot.ca/2006/07/12-tribes-of-israel-banner...
These flags [of the individual tribes of Israel] were published some months ago in Banderas, but I don't have drawings of them, because I think that probably they are a bit fantasious.
Jaume Ollé, 5 May 1998.
There is a biblical reference to the tribal flags as well that a friend of mine sent me some months ago, to whit: (Book of Numbers, Chapter 2, Verse 2) "The children of Israel shall encamp every man by his own standard, with the ensigns of their father's houses". The book the Standard Bible Encyclopedia has this and other biblical references under the heading of "Banner" that might be interesting to list members.
Greg Biggs, 5 May 1998.
The following article about the Tribes of Israel is taken from a CD on Israeli stamps that was just released (I was one of the philatelic advisors). The CD has full-colour images of all the stamps of Israel plus articles on them (like this one) as well as stationaries, booklets and ATM labels. It costs about US$ 80. The stamps were issued in 1955/56 as a definitive series, Scott 105/116, SG 115/126, Yv 97/108, Mi 119/130, Bale 118/119.
This set of stamps features the emblems of the 12 tribes of Israel. Each stamp bears a single tribal emblem, part of them in combination with other motifs. The symbols of the tribes are by no means fixed as different interpretations may be given to the biblical texts describing the sons of Jacob.
The 12 tribes of the House of Israel are the descendants of the Patriarch Jacob and his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and his two concubines, Zilpah and Bilhah. Leah had six sons — Reuben, Simon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. Each of the other women had two sons each. Rachel's were Joseph and Benjamin; Zilpah's, Gad and Asher; and Bilhah's, Dan and Naphtali.
In Jacob' Blessing (Genesis 49) each of the sons is described allegorically and symbols for the tribes have been derived from these descriptions as well as form other biblical passages. Interesting descriptions of the tribal symbols are found in a rabbinical commentary on the Bible, the Midrash Rabba (c. 3rd century), which describes the flag of each tribe. The emblems of the tribes, however, found no expression in graphic art in earlier ages.
That the number of the tribes bears some relation to the zodiac follows from the hints which accompany different names mentioned in Jacob's Blessing. Simon and Levi, there noted together, are the Twins, Judah is described as a Lion; Dan as Scales, and Benjamin as Wolf. In the Wars of the Jews (4, 5) Flavius Josephus also mentions that the 12 shewbreads in the Temple represented the zodiac.
REUBEN:
The mandrakes in Reuben's coat-of-arms are based on the episode related in Gen. 30, where young Reuben brought his mother Leah mandrakes from the field. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:6, "Let Reuben live."
SIMON
Simon was one of the strongest tribes during the wandering in the desert but later became one of the weakest in consequence of losses suffered during the battles for the Promised Land. It was eventually absorbed by mighty Judah. Formerly the city of Shechem was situated within the boundaries of Simon and the gate of the city therefore appears on the tribe's. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:5, "...and the tribes of Israel were gathered together."
LEVI:
The Levites "kept the charge of the tabernacles of testimony" (Num. 1:53); they had no territory of their own and were dispersed among the other tribes. Their emblem was the ephod of the High Priest on which were engraved, upon precious stones, the names of all tribes. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:10, "They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law."
JUDAH
The most famous heraldic symbol belongs to the tribe of Judah, which displayed a lion on its shield. This tribe became the most powerful and constituted the Kingdom of Judah. The lion is the symbol of strength and is featured as such in innumerable works throughout the ages. This animal is one those most frequently mentioned in the Bible, appearing about 130 times under 6 different names. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Gen. 49:9, "Judah is a lion's whelp."
DAN
The original area of the tribe of Dan extended from Jaffa southward. Samson was a son of this tribe. As it could not conquer its entire territory, Dan looked to settle elsewhere and the tribe moved north to the source of the Jordan River, captured the city Laish, and settled there. In Jacob's Blessing Dan was promised that he "shall judge his people" (Gen. 49:16), a reference symbolized by the scales of justice on the stamp. The phrase appears on the tab.
NAFTALI
After the conquest of the country, the tribe of Naftali settled in the north where played a central role among the tribes located there. Naftali is represented by a gazelle or running stag. The biblical phrase on the tab is "Naftali is a hind let loose" (Gen. 49:21).
GAD
The tribe of Gad settled in the land of Gilead, east of the Jordan. It did battle against Amon and Moab coming from the south, wandering tribes from the east, and Aram from the north. The emblem resembles a camp in reminiscence of the biblical phrase -on the tab- "Gad, a troop shall overcome him" (Gen. 49:19).
ASHER:
The coastal strip from the foot of Mount Carmel up to Sidon was inhabited by Asher, the fertility of whose land was indicated by an olive tree or —as represented on stamps of the Jewish National Fund or in the synagogue of Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany— by ears of corn or fruit. The biblical phrase on the tab is "Out of Asher his bread shall be fat" (Gen. 49:20).
ISSACHAR:
Issachar's territory was the plain of Esdraelon, from the sea to the banks of the Jordan. This tribe is frequently mentioned together with Zebulun indicative of their being neighbors and maintaining close relations. The tribe's emblem of sun and stars is derived from the biblical phrase, "And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times" (1 Chron. 12:32), which appears on the tab. Other representations of Issachar reflect the dependence of this tribe on the Phoenicians, in whose products the tribe dealt — as a carrier of loads (see also Menorah stamp), as a donkey (on the Jewish National Fund stamp), or as a laden camel (in the synagogue of Aix-la-Chapelle).
ZEVULUN:
Zevulun settled on the country's seaboard and as symbolized by its emblem was engaged in navigation. This idea is conveyed in the biblical phrase, "Zebulun (...) shall be for a haven of ships" (Gen. 49:13).
JOSEPH:
Joseph was the principal tribe in central Eretz Israel, which split into Manasseh and Ephraim. The fertility of Joseph's country is symbolized by the sheaf on the stamp. The biblical phrase on the tab reads, "...blessed of the Lord be his land" (Deut. 33:13).
BENJAMIN:
The favorite son of Jacob, Benjamin has remained the symbol of the tender youngest child. The tribe of Benjamin, however, was considered particularly warlike and courageous. To this tribe belonged Saul, the first king, and Jonathan, his son. The symbol of the tribe was the wolf, a predatory animal. The biblical phrase on the tab reads, "...in the morning he shall devour the prey" (Gen. 49:27).
Notes:
I disagree to the use of the terms coat-of-arms and heraldic in the article. I believe that heraldry is a well-defined European concept that began more than two millenia after the Tribes of Israel.
There is a confusion about the 12 tribes. Those on the stamps are the sons of Jacob, but there was no tribe of Joseph — only tribes of Menasseh and Ephraiym, his sons. Levi was not regarded as a tribe either because the Levites were the priests and they had no territory of their own.
The Lion of Judah is the origin of the city emblem of Jerusalem that is on the city flag. It is also (in a different design) the emblem of the IDF Central Command which has its HQ in Jerusalem. One of the Command Generals in the 70's had a cage with a live lion there!
Nahum Shereshevsky, 5 May 1998.
The emblems of the Tribes are commonly used as decorations in official ceremonies, like the ceremony that closes Memorial Day and opens Independence Day.
Nahum Shereshevsky, 2 June 1998.
I scanned stamps of the symbols of the 12 tribes.
Dov Gutterman, 1 June 1999.
This Saturday the portion "Bamidbar" (the beginning of the book of Numbers) was read in the synagogue; flags of the tribes of Israel are mentioned there. Exact descriptions are not given in the Biblical text itself, but two commentaries do describe them, and I was pleasantly surprised when my rabbi's short speech today focused on the design of the flags.
In short, one commentary assigns a flag to each of the twelve (or thirteen) tribes (related but somewhat distinct from the emblems described here), while another assigns a flag to each "camp" (a group of three tribes, for a total of four "camps").
Nathan Lamm, 31 May 2003.
I went into the biblical texts mentioned by Nathan and found in the St James version of the English translation dating from the early 18th century (Numbers 2 Vers 2) the following:
"Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensigns of his father's house..."..
The revised standard version of the Bible's English translation dating from 1952 renders the same verse as follows:
"The people of Israel shall encamp each by his own standard, with the ensigns of their father's houses..."
Considering the age when the original Book of Numbers book was likely written (between 1000 and 800 BCE?), I have always thought that this reference to standards and ensigns to be English interpretations of the ancient Hebrew words which might possibly have referred to emblems that we in modern times would term vexilloids. Nathan's mention of rabbinical commentaries providing descriptions of actual flags, would to my mind be an exciting discovery of a very early use of actual flags not encountered in any other historical sources. (According to Whitney Smith, W.G. Perrin et al, the first real flag in the West was probably the Roman vexillum).
Andre Burgers, 1 June 2003.
I think one of the commentaries dates to about the year 100, and the other to about the year 200 (but possibly based on much older traditions). So it's entirely possible that the rabbis who wrote them were influenced by Roman flags when interpreting the verse. Of course, as they use the same Hebrew terms as the Biblical text itself, they may simply be referring to the same objects as the Bible- and yet they do seem to be clearly referring to a piece of cloth with a design, hung in whichever way.
Nathan Lamm, 1 June 2003.
Here is a scan (part 1, part 2) of the 12 tribal flags according was published in "Banderas".
Jaume Ollé, 1 June 2003.
The flags just posted are, I believe, from a ceremony a few decades back in Israel. There are some errors in the transcription (Asher and Simeon are transposed, etc.); furthermore, there are some differences with the original accounts. The two rabbinic commentaries on the flags of the tribes are Numbers Rabbah and Pseudo-Jonathan.
Numbers Rabbah is a Midrash, part of the collection called Midrash Rabbah, the Great Midrash. A Midrash (there are about a hundred) expounds (the meaning of Midrash) on verses in the Bible, whether to determine Jewish law or, on the other hand, history, lore, and so on from them. They were written over a large span of time, from about the first century until about the tenth. (Some collections came out in the next few centuries) Numbers Rabbah was written in about the ninth century. It's in Hebrew, and the translation below is my own.
Pseudo-Jonathan is a Targum, that is, a translation of the Bible (here, the first five books) into Aramaic. There are several Targums, of different style. Some are simple translations with minimal exposition, but Pseudo-Jonathan gives much commentary among its translation- all of what is below is not in the actual Biblical text. (The actual Targum Jonathan covers the Prophetic books, not the first five. This is actually the "Jerusalem Targum" [it was written in Israel], but someone mistook the initials "T.J." [actually "T.Y."] for Targum Jonathan, because of the other Targum of that name, and the name stuck, hence the use of the term "Pseudo-Jonathan.) This Targum was written in about the seventh or eighth centuries. The translation from the Aramaic is my own; as my knowledge of Aramaic isn't as good as my knowledge of Hebrew, it's a bit rougher.
An important note: Although the two works date from when I wrote above, each uses sources that were much older, perhaps dating to the first or second centuries. These sources, in turn, may have been based on even older traditions, perhaps dating back to the time of the writing of the Bible and/or the events described therein. Going back that far, one would have to see what the vexillological customs of the ancient Mesopotamians (the place of origin of the Israelites), the ancient Canaanites/Phoenicians (where they had come from and where they were going) and the ancient Egyptians (where they had just come out of) were. Of course, it is hard to tell what portions of these two works have long traditions behind them and what portions do not, and one cannot discount the fact the descriptions of flags here are undoubtedly influenced by flags that existed in the early Middle Ages, when they were written. The word "flags" here may thus mean "banner" or "strip of cloth" or "vexillum" or perhaps even "flag" in our modern sense. However, the original standards, if any, may have been an object (a vexillloid) of some sort. (Note that the Midrash attributes the widespread use of colored cloth flags to the example of the Israelites!)
Numbers Rabbah, 2:7, commenting on Numbers Chapter 2, Verse 2 ("Each man according to his degel ["division", but modern: "flag"] under the otot ["standards"] of their fathers' houses shall the Children of Israel camp..."):
BeOtot ("Under the standards"): Each prince [of each tribe] had symbols, a mapah ["cloth," "spread," hereafter "flag"], and the color of each flag was like the color of the fine stone that was on the heart of Aaron [the High Priest]. [The breastplate of the high priest contained twelve precious stones, one for each tribe. The exact definition of each is not known, so the Hebrew is given here; hints may be taken from the colors and are given as well, but therefore may only match some of the colors given.] From this the kingdoms learned to make flags and a color for each flag. For each tribes' prince, the color of the flag was similar to the color of its stone.
- Reuben's stone was Odem [carnelian? ruby?], and the color of his flag was red, [a picture of] mandrakes was drawn on it. [Mandrakes figure in a story about Reuben, the founder of the tribe, Genesis 30:14.] [I'm not sure where the imagery of a rising son comes from- Reuben being the eldest?]
- Simeon's stone was Pitedah [emerald?], and the color of his flag was green, and [a picture of the city of] Shechem was drawn on it. [Simeon, together with Levi, destroyed that city, Genesis 34.]
- Levi's [stone was] Bareket [topaz? carbuncle? smaragd?], and the color of his flag was a third white, a third black, and a third red [think of a banded stone], and [a picture of] the Urim VeTummim [that is, the twelve-stone breastplate {the Urim VeTummim were within}- a square, four rows of three stones each, usually horizontal but sometimes vertical] was drawn on it. [The priesthood was drawn from the tribe of Levi, and the whole tribe participated in holy service.] [Levi is omitted from the list by some, as he was not counted among the others, with the two tribes of Joseph making up the total of twelve.]
- Judah's [stone was] was Nofekh [carbuncle? topaz?], and the color of his flag was sky blue, and [a picture of] a lion was drawn on it. [Judah, from whom the monarchy descended, is compared to the king of beasts in Genesis 49:9, the blessing of Jacob.]
- Issachar's [stone was] Sapir [sapphire?], and the color of his flag was like azure [some: black], and [a picture of] a sun and a moon was drawn on it, because [as it says in I Chronicles 12:33] "And from the sons of Issachar were those who knew the wisdom of the times [i.e.,astronomy and calendars]". [Jacob's blessing calls Issachar a "laden donkey," and sometimes the symbol is shown as that or as a laden man.]
- Zebulon's [stone was] Yahalom [beryl?], and the color of his flag was white [according to some, like silver {similar to heraldic rules today} because of his wealth], and [a picture of] a ship was drawn on it, because [as it says in Genesis 49:13] "Zebulon shall dwell by the seashore [i.e., engage in trade]."
- Dan's [stone was] Leshem [jacinth?], and the color of his flag was like a sapphire [others: black], and [a picture of] a snake was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 17] "Dan shall be [as] a snake [when he attacks from an ambush]." [As Dan's descendants were judges, scales are sometimes shown as well.]
- Gad's [stone was] Shevo [agate?], and the color of his flag was not white and not black but a mixture of black and white [gray?], and [a picture of] a camp was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 19] "Gad shall camp in troops" [Heb: Gad Yegud Yegudenu, a reference to his fighting strength]. [Sometimes actual troops, not tents, are shown.]
- Naftali's [stone was] Achlamah [amethyst?], and the color of his flag was like diluted wine (whose red [color] was no longer strong), and [a picture of] a deer was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 21] "Naftali shall be as a sent deer [i.e., he was fast]".
- Asher's [stone was] Tarshish [chrysolite?], and the color of his flag was like the expensive stone women decorate themselves with [pearl? opal?] [others: olive, or the light given by olive oil], and [a picture of] an olive tree was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 20] "From Asher will be his rich bread [i.e., he will live in a fertile area]". [Sometimes other signs of agricultural wealth- a cornucopia, say- are shown.]
- Joseph's [stone was] Shoham [onyx?], and the color of his flag[s] was very black, and the [picture] drawn on it for the two princes [of] Ephraim and Menasseh was Egypt [a pyramid?], because they were born in Egypt. And on the flag of Ephraim was drawn an ox, because [as it is written in Deuteronomy 33:17] "His first born is his ox," this is [a reference to] Joshua who was from the tribe of Ephraim [in addition, although the younger brother, Ephraim's was considered the senior tribe, and Genesis 49 calls Joseph an ox as well]. And on the flag of Menasseh was drawn a re'em [a sort of wild ox], because [as it is written Deuteronomy ibid.] "And the horns of the re'em will be [as] his horn," this means Gideon son of Joash who was from the tribe of Menasseh. [There is a question what this means: Was there one black flag with an overall picture of Egypt plus the two animals, or a flag with Egypt for the whole Joseph and a flag for each tribe, or just aflag for each tribe?]
- Benjamin's [stone was] Yashpeh [jasper?], and the color of his flag was like all the colors of the twelve colors, and [a picture of] a wolf was drawn on it, because [as it says Genesis 49:17] "Benjamin is like a scavenging wolf".
Therefore [the word] "BeOtot" [literally "in the signs"] is used, for there were symbols for each prince. [End of Numbers Rabbah translation.]
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads the verse as giving not one flag to each tribe, but one flag for each "camp"- that is, each of the four groups of three tribes each. He also sees the stones on the breastplate as being arranged for the tribes not in the order above (by mother, then by age) but according to the camps. Thus his commentary on the following verses:
- Numbers 2:3: "...[the camp of Judah's] Tekes (lit. "troop" [?], here clearly "flag") had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, odem, pitedah, bareket. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Judah- Issachar- Zebulon" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:35] "Arise, Lord, and may Your enemies be scattered, and may those who hate You flee before You!" And there was a picture of a young lion [Genesis 49:9, "Judah is a young lion..."] on it..."
- Numbers 2:10: "...[the camp of Reuben's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, nofekh-sapir-yahalom. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Reuben- Simeon-Gad" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Deuteronomy 6:4] "Hear Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." And there was a picture of a young deer [ram?] [originally to have been a calf, but changed because of the sin of the golden calf, hence the verse, with "rams" symbolizing Israel] on it..."
- Numbers 2:18: "...[the camp of Ephraim's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, leshem-shivo-achlamah. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Ephraim-Menasseh-Benjamin" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:34] "And the cloud of the Lord was above them during the day when they traveled from the camp." And there was a picture of a young boy [Jeremiah 31:19, "Ephraim is my dear son..."] on it..."
- Numbers 2:25: "...[the camp of Dan's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, tarshish-shoma-yashpeh. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Dan- Naftali-Asher" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:36] "Return, Lord, the myriads of thousands of Israel!" And there was a picture of a snake [Genesis 49: 17, "Dan shall be [as] a snake..." {see above}] on it..."
Nathan Lamm, 5 June 2003.
In "Modern" Hebrew, the stones are translated as follows:
- Odem: Ruby
- Pitedah: Topaz
- Bareket: Emerald
- Nofekh: Not in use as stone name today
- Sapir: Sapphire
- Yahalom: Diamond
- Leshem: Opal
- Shevo: Not in use as stone name today
- Achlamah: Amethyst
- Tarshish: Not in use as stone name today
- Shoham: Onyx
- Yashpeh: Jasper
Dov Gutterman, 5 June 2003.
First of all, while the Twelve Tribes of Israel, or Shivtei Yisrael, as they are known in Hebrew, did indeed have what we might term in contemporary usage heraldic signs and devices, all of which are mentioned repeatedly in the bible. There is no Tanachic record of the Tribes ever actually possessing, much less using flags of any sort. Any such items are purely fictitious in nature, having been invented not earlier than the Protestant Reformation and probably much more recently. Any flag which you have seen which claims (or has claimed for it) that it belonged to any or all of the Twelve Tribes is absolutely, completely, and totally spurious.
Incidentally, the State of Israel has over the years issued several series of postage stamps which depict the heraldic devices of the Twelve Tribes; you can find these illustrated in Scott's Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue or in Stanley Gibbons' Stamps of the World Catalogue. Believe me, if the Twelve Tribes had had any flags the Israelis would have issued postage stamps commemorating the fact.
What might have been the case was that in battle some or all of the tribes may have borne standards containing a depiction of their identifyiong device on a piece of colored cloth. Hoever, none of them would have borne any flag such as you describe.
Ron Lahav, 18 March 2004.
The fact is rather the opposite: Symbols of the tribes are mentioned at the end of Genesis, and are merely part of a blessing. On the other hand, flags (of a sort) are explicitely mentioned in Numbers, but the Bible itself does not mention what was on them. The Midrash does, often but not always in line with the blessing in Genesis.
Of course, the "flags" likely did not resemble modern flags at all, and may not even have been made of cloth.
Nathan Lamm, 18 March 2004.
I do not think that the Degalim (flags) mentioned in Numbers (Bamidbar) can be considered as true standards or flags. If anything they were Vexilloids.
Ron Lahav, 18 March 2004.
You should be aware that the flags of the tribes of israel ARE described, but not in the Torah (Old Testament). Each tribe had a colour with a symbol embroidered on it. The colour of the flag could be from a single colour such as that of Joseph (shared by Ephraim and Menasshe) of black, to that of Benjamin which is described as "many colours" and is taken to mean any colour of the wolf which is the symbol on the flag. It must be noted that use of heraldry began from this source as the Romans did not use flags, and Celts and germanii used carved/hammered symbols on long poles as far as I'm aware.
The stamps do not reflect the colours. The significance of the colours is that they related to the colours of the stones on the breastplate of the High Priest.
Greg Chalik, 5 January 2006.
It should be pointed out, though, that "heraldry" originated in coats of arms, not flags, and so can't be traced to the tribes of Israel. In any event, it's not entirely clear that "flags" as we know them are meant here, at least in the Bible itself.
One more point: Some of the flags *are* multi-colored.
Nathan Lamm, 5 January 2006.
Installation of the Officers of Seguin Chapter No. 261.
banahtorah.blogspot.ca/2006/07/12-tribes-of-israel-banner...
Tribal standards of some of the tribes who left Egypt with Moses.
These flags [of the individual tribes of Israel] were published some months ago in Banderas, but I don't have drawings of them, because I think that probably they are a bit fantasious.
Jaume Ollé, 5 May 1998
There is a biblical reference to the tribal flags as well that a friend of mine sent me some months ago, to whit: (Book of Numbers, Chapter 2, Verse 2) "The children of Israel shall encamp every man by his own standard, with the ensigns of their father's houses". The book the Standard Bible Encyclopedia has this and other biblical references under the heading of "Banner" that might be interesting to list members.
Greg Biggs, 5 May 1998
The following article about the Tribes of Israel is taken from a CD on Israeli stamps that was just released (I was one of the philatelic advisors). The CD has full-colour images of all the stamps of Israel plus articles on them (like this one) as well as stationaries, booklets and ATM labels. It costs about US$ 80. The stamps were issued in 1955/56 as a definitive series, Scott 105/116, SG 115/126, Yv 97/108, Mi 119/130, Bale 118/119.
This set of stamps features the emblems of the 12 tribes of Israel. Each stamp bears a single tribal emblem, part of them in combination with other motifs. The symbols of the tribes are by no means fixed as different interpretations may be given to the biblical texts describing the sons of Jacob.
The 12 tribes of the House of Israel are the descendants of the Patriarch Jacob and his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and his two concubines, Zilpah and Bilhah. Leah had six sons — Reuben, Simon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. Each of the other women had two sons each. Rachel's were Joseph and Benjamin; Zilpah's, Gad and Asher; and Bilhah's, Dan and Naphtali.
In Jacob' Blessing (Genesis 49) each of the sons is described allegorically and symbols for the tribes have been derived from these descriptions as well as form other biblical passages. Interesting descriptions of the tribal symbols are found in a rabbinical commentary on the Bible, the Midrash Rabba (c. 3rd century), which describes the flag of each tribe. The emblems of the tribes, however, found no expression in graphic art in earlier ages.
That the number of the tribes bears some relation to the zodiac follows from the hints which accompany different names mentioned in Jacob's Blessing. Simon and Levi, there noted together, are the Twins, Judah is described as a Lion; Dan as Scales, and Benjamin as Wolf. In the Wars of the Jews (4, 5) Flavius Josephus also mentions that the 12 shewbreads in the Temple represented the zodiac.
REUBEN
The mandrakes in Reuben's coat-of-arms are based on the episode related in Gen. 30, where young Reuben brought his mother Leah mandrakes from the field. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:6, "Let Reuben live."
SIMON
Simon was one of the strongest tribes during the wandering in the desert but later became one of the weakest in consequence of losses suffered during the battles for the Promised Land. It was eventually absorbed by mighty Judah. Formerly the city of Shechem was situated within the boundaries of Simon and the gate of the city therefore appears on the tribe's. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:5, "...and the tribes of Israel were gathered together."
LEVI
The Levites "kept the charge of the tabernacles of testimony" (Num. 1:53); they had no territory of their own and were dispersed among the other tribes. Their emblem was the ephod of the High Priest on which were engraved, upon precious stones, the names of all tribes. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:10, "They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law."
JUDAH
The most famous heraldic symbol belongs to the tribe of Judah, which displayed a lion on its shield. This tribe became the most powerful and constituted the Kingdom of Judah. The lion is the symbol of strength and is featured as such in innumerable works throughout the ages. This animal is one those most frequently mentioned in the Bible, appearing about 130 times under 6 different names. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Gen. 49:9, "Judah is a lion's whelp."
DAN
The original area of the tribe of Dan extended from Jaffa southward. Samson was a son of this tribe. As it could not conquer its entire territory, Dan looked to settle elsewhere and the tribe moved north to the source of the Jordan River, captured the city Laish, and settled there. In Jacob's Blessing Dan was promised that he "shall judge his people" (Gen. 49:16), a reference symbolized by the scales of justice on the stamp. The phrase appears on the tab.
NAFTALI
After the conquest of the country, the tribe of Naftali settled in the north where played a central role among the tribes located there. Naftali is represented by a gazelle or running stag. The biblical phrase on the tab is "Naftali is a hind let loose" (Gen. 49:21).
GAD
The tribe of Gad settled in the land of Gilead, east of the Jordan. It did battle against Amon and Moab coming from the south, wandering tribes from the east, and Aram from the north. The emblem resembles a camp in reminiscence of the biblical phrase -on the tab- "Gad, a troop shall overcome him" (Gen. 49:19).
ASHER
The coastal strip from the foot of Mount Carmel up to Sidon was inhabited by Asher, the fertility of whose land was indicated by an olive tree or —as represented on stamps of the Jewish National Fund or in the synagogue of Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany— by ears of corn or fruit. The biblical phrase on the tab is "Out of Asher his bread shall be fat" (Gen. 49:20).
ISSACHAR
Issachar's territory was the plain of Esdraelon, from the sea to the banks of the Jordan. This tribe is frequently mentioned together with Zebulun indicative of their being neighbors and maintaining close relations. The tribe's emblem of sun and stars is derived from the biblical phrase, "And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times" (1 Chron. 12:32), which appears on the tab. Other representations of Issachar reflect the dependence of this tribe on the Phoenicians, in whose products the tribe dealt — as a carrier of loads (see also Menorah stamp), as a donkey (on the Jewish National Fund stamp), or as a laden camel (in the synagogue of Aix-la-Chapelle).
ZEVULUN
Zevulun settled on the country's seaboard and as symbolized by its emblem was engaged in navigation. This idea is conveyed in the biblical phrase, "Zebulun (...) shall be for a haven of ships" (Gen. 49:13).
JOSEPH
Joseph was the principal tribe in central Eretz Israel, which split into Manasseh and Ephraim. The fertility of Joseph's country is symbolized by the sheaf on the stamp. The biblical phrase on the tab reads, "...blessed of the Lord be his land" (Deut. 33:13).
BENJAMIN
The favorite son of Jacob, Benjamin has remained the symbol of the tender youngest child. The tribe of Benjamin, however, was considered particularly warlike and courageous. To this tribe belonged Saul, the first king, and Jonathan, his son. The symbol of the tribe was the wolf, a predatory animal. The biblical phrase on the tab reads, "...in the morning he shall devour the prey" (Gen. 49:27).
Notes:
I disagree to the use of the terms coat-of-arms and heraldic in the article. I believe that heraldry is a well-defined European concept that began more than two millenia after the Tribes of Israel.
There is a confusion about the 12 tribes. Those on the stamps are the sons of Jacob, but there was no tribe of Joseph — only tribes of Menasseh and Ephraiym, his sons. Levi was not regarded as a tribe either because the Levites were the priests and they had no territory of their own.
The Lion of Judah is the origin of the city emblem of Jerusalem that is on the city flag. It is also (in a different design) the emblem of the IDF Central Command which has its HQ in Jerusalem. One of the Command Generals in the 70's had a cage with a live lion there!
Nahum Shereshevsky, 5 May 1998
The emblems of the Tribes are commonly used as decorations in official ceremonies, like the ceremony that closes Memorial Day and opens Independence Day.
Nahum Shereshevsky, 2 June 1998
I scanned stamps of the symbols of the 12 tribes.
Dov Gutterman, 1 June 1999
This Saturday the portion "Bamidbar" (the beginning of the book of Numbers) was read in the synagogue; flags of the tribes of Israel are mentioned there. Exact descriptions are not given in the Biblical text itself, but two commentaries do describe them, and I was pleasantly surprised when my rabbi's short speech today focused on the design of the flags.
In short, one commentary assigns a flag to each of the twelve (or thirteen) tribes (related but somewhat distinct from the emblems described here), while another assigns a flag to each "camp" (a group of three tribes, for a total of four "camps").
Nathan Lamm, 31 May 2003
I went into the biblical texts mentioned by Nathan and found in the St James version of the English translation dating from the early 18th century (Numbers 2 Vers 2) the following:
"Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensigns of his father's house..."..
The revised standard version of the Bible's English translation dating from 1952 renders the same verse as follows:
"The people of Israel shall encamp each by his own standard, with the ensigns of their father's houses..."
Considering the age when the original Book of Numbers book was likely written (between 1000 and 800 BCE?), I have always thought that this reference to standards and ensigns to be English interpretations of the ancient Hebrew words which might possibly have referred to emblems that we in modern times would term vexilloids. Nathan's mention of rabbinical commentaries providing descriptions of actual flags, would to my mind be an exciting discovery of a very early use of actual flags not encountered in any other historical sources. (According to Whitney Smith, W.G. Perrin et al, the first real flag in the West was probably the Roman vexillum).
Andre Burgers, 1 June 2003
I think one of the commentaries dates to about the year 100, and the other to about the year 200 (but possibly based on much older traditions). So it's entirely possible that the rabbis who wrote them were influenced by Roman flags when interpreting the verse. Of course, as they use the same Hebrew terms as the Biblical text itself, they may simply be referring to the same objects as the Bible- and yet they do seem to be clearly referring to a piece of cloth with a design, hung in whichever way.
Nathan Lamm, 1 June 2003
Here is a scan (part 1, part 2) of the 12 tribal flags according was published in "Banderas".
Jaume Ollé, 1 June 2003
The flags just posted are, I believe, from a ceremony a few decades back in Israel. There are some errors in the transcription (Asher and Simeon are transposed, etc.); furthermore, there are some differences with the original accounts. The two rabbinic commentaries on the flags of the tribes are Numbers Rabbah and Pseudo-Jonathan.
Numbers Rabbah is a Midrash, part of the collection called Midrash Rabbah, the Great Midrash. A Midrash (there are about a hundred) expounds (the meaning of Midrash) on verses in the Bible, whether to determine Jewish law or, on the other hand, history, lore, and so on from them. They were written over a large span of time, from about the first century until about the tenth. (Some collections came out in the next few centuries) Numbers Rabbah was written in about the ninth century. It's in Hebrew, and the translation below is my own.
Pseudo-Jonathan is a Targum, that is, a translation of the Bible (here, the first five books) into Aramaic. There are several Targums, of different style. Some are simple translations with minimal exposition, but Pseudo-Jonathan gives much commentary among its translation- all of what is below is not in the actual Biblical text. (The actual Targum Jonathan covers the Prophetic books, not the first five. This is actually the "Jerusalem Targum" [it was written in Israel], but someone mistook the initials "T.J." [actually "T.Y."] for Targum Jonathan, because of the other Targum of that name, and the name stuck, hence the use of the term "Pseudo-Jonathan.) This Targum was written in about the seventh or eighth centuries. The translation from the Aramaic is my own; as my knowledge of Aramaic isn't as good as my knowledge of Hebrew, it's a bit rougher.
An important note: Although the two works date from when I wrote above, each uses sources that were much older, perhaps dating to the first or second centuries. These sources, in turn, may have been based on even older traditions, perhaps dating back to the time of the writing of the Bible and/or the events described therein. Going back that far, one would have to see what the vexillological customs of the ancient Mesopotamians (the place of origin of the Israelites), the ancient Canaanites/Phoenicians (where they had come from and where they were going) and the ancient Egyptians (where they had just come out of) were. Of course, it is hard to tell what portions of these two works have long traditions behind them and what portions do not, and one cannot discount the fact the descriptions of flags here are undoubtedly influenced by flags that existed in the early Middle Ages, when they were written. The word "flags" here may thus mean "banner" or "strip of cloth" or "vexillum" or perhaps even "flag" in our modern sense. However, the original standards, if any, may have been an object (a vexillloid) of some sort. (Note that the Midrash attributes the widespread use of colored cloth flags to the example of the Israelites!)
Numbers Rabbah, 2:7, commenting on Numbers Chapter 2, Verse 2 ("Each man according to his degel ["division", but modern: "flag"] under the otot ["standards"] of their fathers' houses shall the Children of Israel camp..."):
BeOtot ("Under the standards"): Each prince [of each tribe] had symbols, a mapah ["cloth," "spread," hereafter "flag"], and the color of each flag was like the color of the fine stone that was on the heart of Aaron [the High Priest]. [The breastplate of the high priest contained twelve precious stones, one for each tribe. The exact definition of each is not known, so the Hebrew is given here; hints may be taken from the colors and are given as well, but therefore may only match some of the colors given.] From this the kingdoms learned to make flags and a color for each flag. For each tribes' prince, the color of the flag was similar to the color of its stone.
- Reuben's stone was Odem [carnelian? ruby?], and the color of his flag was red, [a picture of] mandrakes was drawn on it. [Mandrakes figure in a story about Reuben, the founder of the tribe, Genesis 30:14.] [I'm not sure where the imagery of a rising son comes from- Reuben being the eldest?]
- Simeon's stone was Pitedah [emerald?], and the color of his flag was green, and [a picture of the city of] Shechem was drawn on it. [Simeon, together with Levi, destroyed that city, Genesis 34.]
- Levi's [stone was] Bareket [topaz? carbuncle? smaragd?], and the color of his flag was a third white, a third black, and a third red [think of a banded stone], and [a picture of] the Urim VeTummim [that is, the twelve-stone breastplate {the Urim VeTummim were within}- a square, four rows of three stones each, usually horizontal but sometimes vertical] was drawn on it. [The priesthood was drawn from the tribe of Levi, and the whole tribe participated in holy service.] [Levi is omitted from the list by some, as he was not counted among the others, with the two tribes of Joseph making up the total of twelve.]
- Judah's [stone was] was Nofekh [carbuncle? topaz?], and the color of his flag was sky blue, and [a picture of] a lion was drawn on it. [Judah, from whom the monarchy descended, is compared to the king of beasts in Genesis 49:9, the blessing of Jacob.]
- Issachar's [stone was] Sapir [sapphire?], and the color of his flag was like azure [some: black], and [a picture of] a sun and a moon was drawn on it, because [as it says in I Chronicles 12:33] "And from the sons of Issachar were those who knew the wisdom of the times [i.e.,astronomy and calendars]". [Jacob's blessing calls Issachar a "laden donkey," and sometimes the symbol is shown as that or as a laden man.]
- Zebulon's [stone was] Yahalom [beryl?], and the color of his flag was white [according to some, like silver {similar to heraldic rules today} because of his wealth], and [a picture of] a ship was drawn on it, because [as it says in Genesis 49:13] "Zebulon shall dwell by the seashore [i.e., engage in trade]."
- Dan's [stone was] Leshem [jacinth?], and the color of his flag was like a sapphire [others: black], and [a picture of] a snake was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 17] "Dan shall be [as] a snake [when he attacks from an ambush]." [As Dan's descendants were judges, scales are sometimes shown as well.]
- Gad's [stone was] Shevo [agate?], and the color of his flag was not white and not black but a mixture of black and white [gray?], and [a picture of] a camp was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 19] "Gad shall camp in troops" [Heb: Gad Yegud Yegudenu, a reference to his fighting strength]. [Sometimes actual troops, not tents, are shown.]
- Naftali's [stone was] Achlamah [amethyst?], and the color of his flag was like diluted wine (whose red [color] was no longer strong), and [a picture of] a deer was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 21] "Naftali shall be as a sent deer [i.e., he was fast]".
- Asher's [stone was] Tarshish [chrysolite?], and the color of his flag was like the expensive stone women decorate themselves with [pearl? opal?] [others: olive, or the light given by olive oil], and [a picture of] an olive tree was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 20] "From Asher will be his rich bread [i.e., he will live in a fertile area]". [Sometimes other signs of agricultural wealth- a cornucopia, say- are shown.]
- Joseph's [stone was] Shoham [onyx?], and the color of his flag[s] was very black, and the [picture] drawn on it for the two princes [of] Ephraim and Menasseh was Egypt [a pyramid?], because they were born in Egypt. And on the flag of Ephraim was drawn an ox, because [as it is written in Deuteronomy 33:17] "His first born is his ox," this is [a reference to] Joshua who was from the tribe of Ephraim [in addition, although the younger brother, Ephraim's was considered the senior tribe, and Genesis 49 calls Joseph an ox as well]. And on the flag of Menasseh was drawn a re'em [a sort of wild ox], because [as it is written Deuteronomy ibid.] "And the horns of the re'em will be [as] his horn," this means Gideon son of Joash who was from the tribe of Menasseh. [There is a question what this means: Was there one black flag with an overall picture of Egypt plus the two animals, or a flag with Egypt for the whole Joseph and a flag for each tribe, or just aflag for each tribe?]
- Benjamin's [stone was] Yashpeh [jasper?], and the color of his flag was like all the colors of the twelve colors, and [a picture of] a wolf was drawn on it, because [as it says Genesis 49:17] "Benjamin is like a scavenging wolf".
Therefore [the word] "BeOtot" [literally "in the signs"] is used, for there were symbols for each prince. [End of Numbers Rabbah translation.]
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads the verse as giving not one flag to each tribe, but one flag for each "camp"- that is, each of the four groups of three tribes each. He also sees the stones on the breastplate as being arranged for the tribes not in the order above (by mother, then by age) but according to the camps. Thus his commentary on the following verses:
- Numbers 2:3: "...[the camp of Judah's] Tekes (lit. "troop" [?], here clearly "flag") had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, odem, pitedah, bareket. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Judah- Issachar- Zebulon" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:35] "Arise, Lord, and may Your enemies be scattered, and may those who hate You flee before You!" And there was a picture of a young lion [Genesis 49:9, "Judah is a young lion..."] on it..."
- Numbers 2:10: "...[the camp of Reuben's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, nofekh-sapir-yahalom. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Reuben- Simeon-Gad" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Deuteronomy 6:4] "Hear Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." And there was a picture of a young deer [ram?] [originally to have been a calf, but changed because of the sin of the golden calf, hence the verse, with "rams" symbolizing Israel] on it..."
- Numbers 2:18: "...[the camp of Ephraim's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, leshem-shivo-achlamah. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Ephraim-Menasseh-Benjamin" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:34] "And the cloud of the Lord was above them during the day when they traveled from the camp." And there was a picture of a young boy [Jeremiah 31:19, "Ephraim is my dear son..."] on it..."
- Numbers 2:25: "...[the camp of Dan's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, tarshish-shoma-yashpeh. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Dan- Naftali-Asher" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:36] "Return, Lord, the myriads of thousands of Israel!" And there was a picture of a snake [Genesis 49: 17, "Dan shall be [as] a snake..." {see above}] on it..."
Nathan Lamm, 5 June 2003
In "Modern" Hebrew, the stones are translated as follows:
- Odem: Ruby
- Pitedah: Topaz
- Bareket: Emerald
- Nofekh: Not in use as stone name today
- Sapir: Sapphire
- Yahalom: Diamond
- Leshem: Opal
- Shevo: Not in use as stone name today
- Achlamah: Amethyst
- Tarshish: Not in use as stone name today
- Shoham: Onyx
- Yashpeh: Jasper
Dov Gutterman, 5 June 2003
First of all, while the Twelve Tribes of Israel, or Shivtei Yisrael, as they are known in Hebrew, did indeed have what we might term in contemporary usage heraldic signs and devices, all of which are mentioned repeatedly in the bible. There is no Tanachic record of the Tribes ever actually possessing, much less using flags of any sort. Any such items are purely fictitious in nature, having been invented not earlier than the Protestant Reformation and probably much more recently. Any flag which you have seen which claims (or has claimed for it) that it belonged to any or all of the Twelve Tribes is absolutely, completely, and totally spurious.
Incidentally, the State of Israel has over the years issued several series of postage stamps which depict the heraldic devices of the Twelve Tribes; you can find these illustrated in Scott's Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue or in Stanley Gibbons' Stamps of the World Catalogue. Believe me, if the Twelve Tribes had had any flags the Israelis would have issued postage stamps commemorating the fact.
What might have been the case was that in battle some or all of the tribes may have borne standards containing a depiction of their identifyiong device on a piece of colored cloth. Hoever, none of them would have borne any flag such as you describe.
Ron Lahav, 18 March 2004
The fact is rather the opposite: Symbols of the tribes are mentioned at the end of Genesis, and are merely part of a blessing. On the other hand, flags (of a sort) are explicitely mentioned in Numbers, but the Bible itself does not mention what was on them. The Midrash does, often but not always in line with the blessing in Genesis.
Of course, the "flags" likely did not resemble modern flags at all, and may not even have been made of cloth.
Nathan Lamm, 18 March 2004
I do not think that the Degalim (flags) mentioned in Numbers (Bamidbar) can be considered as true standards or flags. If anything they were Vexilloids.
Ron Lahav, 18 March 2004
You should be aware that the flags of the tribes of israel ARE described, but not in the Torah (Old Testament). Each tribe had a colour with a symbol embroidered on it. The colour of the flag could be from a single colour such as that of Joseph (shared by Ephraim and Menasshe) of black, to that of Benjamin which is described as "many colours" and is taken to mean any colour of the wolf which is the symbol on the flag. It must be noted that use of heraldry began from this source as the Romans did not use flags, and Celts and germanii used carved/hammered symbols on long poles as far as I'm aware.
The stamps do not reflect the colours. The significance of the colours is that they related to the colours of the stones on the breastplate of the High Priest.
Greg Chalik, 5 January 2006
It should be pointed out, though, that "heraldry" originated in coats of arms, not flags, and so can't be traced to the tribes of Israel. In any event, it's not entirely clear that "flags" as we know them are meant here, at least in the Bible itself.
One more point: Some of the flags *are* multi-colored.
Nathan Lamm, 5 January 2006
Jaffa.
It is is the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. It is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus.
It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, as a city opposite the territory given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan, as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple, as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish and again as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem.Jaffa.
These flags [of the individual tribes of Israel] were published some months ago in Banderas, but I don't have drawings of them, because I think that probably they are a bit fantasious.
Jaume Ollé, 5 May 1998
There is a biblical reference to the tribal flags as well that a friend of mine sent me some months ago, to whit: (Book of Numbers, Chapter 2, Verse 2) "The children of Israel shall encamp every man by his own standard, with the ensigns of their father's houses". The book the Standard Bible Encyclopedia has this and other biblical references under the heading of "Banner" that might be interesting to list members.
Greg Biggs, 5 May 1998
The following article about the Tribes of Israel is taken from a CD on Israeli stamps that was just released (I was one of the philatelic advisors). The CD has full-colour images of all the stamps of Israel plus articles on them (like this one) as well as stationaries, booklets and ATM labels. It costs about US$ 80. The stamps were issued in 1955/56 as a definitive series, Scott 105/116, SG 115/126, Yv 97/108, Mi 119/130, Bale 118/119.
This set of stamps features the emblems of the 12 tribes of Israel. Each stamp bears a single tribal emblem, part of them in combination with other motifs. The symbols of the tribes are by no means fixed as different interpretations may be given to the biblical texts describing the sons of Jacob.
The 12 tribes of the House of Israel are the descendants of the Patriarch Jacob and his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and his two concubines, Zilpah and Bilhah. Leah had six sons — Reuben, Simon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. Each of the other women had two sons each. Rachel's were Joseph and Benjamin; Zilpah's, Gad and Asher; and Bilhah's, Dan and Naphtali.
In Jacob' Blessing (Genesis 49) each of the sons is described allegorically and symbols for the tribes have been derived from these descriptions as well as form other biblical passages. Interesting descriptions of the tribal symbols are found in a rabbinical commentary on the Bible, the Midrash Rabba (c. 3rd century), which describes the flag of each tribe. The emblems of the tribes, however, found no expression in graphic art in earlier ages.
That the number of the tribes bears some relation to the zodiac follows from the hints which accompany different names mentioned in Jacob's Blessing. Simon and Levi, there noted together, are the Twins, Judah is described as a Lion; Dan as Scales, and Benjamin as Wolf. In the Wars of the Jews (4, 5) Flavius Josephus also mentions that the 12 shewbreads in the Temple represented the zodiac.
REUBEN
The mandrakes in Reuben's coat-of-arms are based on the episode related in Gen. 30, where young Reuben brought his mother Leah mandrakes from the field. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:6, "Let Reuben live."
SIMON
Simon was one of the strongest tribes during the wandering in the desert but later became one of the weakest in consequence of losses suffered during the battles for the Promised Land. It was eventually absorbed by mighty Judah. Formerly the city of Shechem was situated within the boundaries of Simon and the gate of the city therefore appears on the tribe's. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:5, "...and the tribes of Israel were gathered together."
LEVI
The Levites "kept the charge of the tabernacles of testimony" (Num. 1:53); they had no territory of their own and were dispersed among the other tribes. Their emblem was the ephod of the High Priest on which were engraved, upon precious stones, the names of all tribes. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Deut. 33:10, "They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law."
JUDAH
The most famous heraldic symbol belongs to the tribe of Judah, which displayed a lion on its shield. This tribe became the most powerful and constituted the Kingdom of Judah. The lion is the symbol of strength and is featured as such in innumerable works throughout the ages. This animal is one those most frequently mentioned in the Bible, appearing about 130 times under 6 different names. The biblical phrase on the tab is from Gen. 49:9, "Judah is a lion's whelp."
DAN
The original area of the tribe of Dan extended from Jaffa southward. Samson was a son of this tribe. As it could not conquer its entire territory, Dan looked to settle elsewhere and the tribe moved north to the source of the Jordan River, captured the city Laish, and settled there. In Jacob's Blessing Dan was promised that he "shall judge his people" (Gen. 49:16), a reference symbolized by the scales of justice on the stamp. The phrase appears on the tab.
NAFTALI
After the conquest of the country, the tribe of Naftali settled in the north where played a central role among the tribes located there. Naftali is represented by a gazelle or running stag. The biblical phrase on the tab is "Naftali is a hind let loose" (Gen. 49:21).
GAD
The tribe of Gad settled in the land of Gilead, east of the Jordan. It did battle against Amon and Moab coming from the south, wandering tribes from the east, and Aram from the north. The emblem resembles a camp in reminiscence of the biblical phrase -on the tab- "Gad, a troop shall overcome him" (Gen. 49:19).
ASHER
The coastal strip from the foot of Mount Carmel up to Sidon was inhabited by Asher, the fertility of whose land was indicated by an olive tree or —as represented on stamps of the Jewish National Fund or in the synagogue of Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany— by ears of corn or fruit. The biblical phrase on the tab is "Out of Asher his bread shall be fat" (Gen. 49:20).
ISSACHAR
Issachar's territory was the plain of Esdraelon, from the sea to the banks of the Jordan. This tribe is frequently mentioned together with Zebulun indicative of their being neighbors and maintaining close relations. The tribe's emblem of sun and stars is derived from the biblical phrase, "And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times" (1 Chron. 12:32), which appears on the tab. Other representations of Issachar reflect the dependence of this tribe on the Phoenicians, in whose products the tribe dealt — as a carrier of loads (see also Menorah stamp), as a donkey (on the Jewish National Fund stamp), or as a laden camel (in the synagogue of Aix-la-Chapelle).
ZEVULUN
Zevulun settled on the country's seaboard and as symbolized by its emblem was engaged in navigation. This idea is conveyed in the biblical phrase, "Zebulun (...) shall be for a haven of ships" (Gen. 49:13).
JOSEPH
Joseph was the principal tribe in central Eretz Israel, which split into Manasseh and Ephraim. The fertility of Joseph's country is symbolized by the sheaf on the stamp. The biblical phrase on the tab reads, "...blessed of the Lord be his land" (Deut. 33:13).
BENJAMIN
The favorite son of Jacob, Benjamin has remained the symbol of the tender youngest child. The tribe of Benjamin, however, was considered particularly warlike and courageous. To this tribe belonged Saul, the first king, and Jonathan, his son. The symbol of the tribe was the wolf, a predatory animal. The biblical phrase on the tab reads, "...in the morning he shall devour the prey" (Gen. 49:27).
Notes:
I disagree to the use of the terms coat-of-arms and heraldic in the article. I believe that heraldry is a well-defined European concept that began more than two millenia after the Tribes of Israel.
There is a confusion about the 12 tribes. Those on the stamps are the sons of Jacob, but there was no tribe of Joseph — only tribes of Menasseh and Ephraiym, his sons. Levi was not regarded as a tribe either because the Levites were the priests and they had no territory of their own.
The Lion of Judah is the origin of the city emblem of Jerusalem that is on the city flag. It is also (in a different design) the emblem of the IDF Central Command which has its HQ in Jerusalem. One of the Command Generals in the 70's had a cage with a live lion there!
Nahum Shereshevsky, 5 May 1998
The emblems of the Tribes are commonly used as decorations in official ceremonies, like the ceremony that closes Memorial Day and opens Independence Day.
Nahum Shereshevsky, 2 June 1998
I scanned stamps of the symbols of the 12 tribes.
Dov Gutterman, 1 June 1999
This Saturday the portion "Bamidbar" (the beginning of the book of Numbers) was read in the synagogue; flags of the tribes of Israel are mentioned there. Exact descriptions are not given in the Biblical text itself, but two commentaries do describe them, and I was pleasantly surprised when my rabbi's short speech today focused on the design of the flags.
In short, one commentary assigns a flag to each of the twelve (or thirteen) tribes (related but somewhat distinct from the emblems described here), while another assigns a flag to each "camp" (a group of three tribes, for a total of four "camps").
Nathan Lamm, 31 May 2003
I went into the biblical texts mentioned by Nathan and found in the St James version of the English translation dating from the early 18th century (Numbers 2 Vers 2) the following:
"Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensigns of his father's house..."..
The revised standard version of the Bible's English translation dating from 1952 renders the same verse as follows:
"The people of Israel shall encamp each by his own standard, with the ensigns of their father's houses..."
Considering the age when the original Book of Numbers book was likely written (between 1000 and 800 BCE?), I have always thought that this reference to standards and ensigns to be English interpretations of the ancient Hebrew words which might possibly have referred to emblems that we in modern times would term vexilloids. Nathan's mention of rabbinical commentaries providing descriptions of actual flags, would to my mind be an exciting discovery of a very early use of actual flags not encountered in any other historical sources. (According to Whitney Smith, W.G. Perrin et al, the first real flag in the West was probably the Roman vexillum).
Andre Burgers, 1 June 2003
I think one of the commentaries dates to about the year 100, and the other to about the year 200 (but possibly based on much older traditions). So it's entirely possible that the rabbis who wrote them were influenced by Roman flags when interpreting the verse. Of course, as they use the same Hebrew terms as the Biblical text itself, they may simply be referring to the same objects as the Bible- and yet they do seem to be clearly referring to a piece of cloth with a design, hung in whichever way.
Nathan Lamm, 1 June 2003
Here is a scan (part 1, part 2) of the 12 tribal flags according was published in "Banderas".
Jaume Ollé, 1 June 2003
The flags just posted are, I believe, from a ceremony a few decades back in Israel. There are some errors in the transcription (Asher and Simeon are transposed, etc.); furthermore, there are some differences with the original accounts. The two rabbinic commentaries on the flags of the tribes are Numbers Rabbah and Pseudo-Jonathan.
Numbers Rabbah is a Midrash, part of the collection called Midrash Rabbah, the Great Midrash. A Midrash (there are about a hundred) expounds (the meaning of Midrash) on verses in the Bible, whether to determine Jewish law or, on the other hand, history, lore, and so on from them. They were written over a large span of time, from about the first century until about the tenth. (Some collections came out in the next few centuries) Numbers Rabbah was written in about the ninth century. It's in Hebrew, and the translation below is my own.
Pseudo-Jonathan is a Targum, that is, a translation of the Bible (here, the first five books) into Aramaic. There are several Targums, of different style. Some are simple translations with minimal exposition, but Pseudo-Jonathan gives much commentary among its translation- all of what is below is not in the actual Biblical text. (The actual Targum Jonathan covers the Prophetic books, not the first five. This is actually the "Jerusalem Targum" [it was written in Israel], but someone mistook the initials "T.J." [actually "T.Y."] for Targum Jonathan, because of the other Targum of that name, and the name stuck, hence the use of the term "Pseudo-Jonathan.) This Targum was written in about the seventh or eighth centuries. The translation from the Aramaic is my own; as my knowledge of Aramaic isn't as good as my knowledge of Hebrew, it's a bit rougher.
An important note: Although the two works date from when I wrote above, each uses sources that were much older, perhaps dating to the first or second centuries. These sources, in turn, may have been based on even older traditions, perhaps dating back to the time of the writing of the Bible and/or the events described therein. Going back that far, one would have to see what the vexillological customs of the ancient Mesopotamians (the place of origin of the Israelites), the ancient Canaanites/Phoenicians (where they had come from and where they were going) and the ancient Egyptians (where they had just come out of) were. Of course, it is hard to tell what portions of these two works have long traditions behind them and what portions do not, and one cannot discount the fact the descriptions of flags here are undoubtedly influenced by flags that existed in the early Middle Ages, when they were written. The word "flags" here may thus mean "banner" or "strip of cloth" or "vexillum" or perhaps even "flag" in our modern sense. However, the original standards, if any, may have been an object (a vexillloid) of some sort. (Note that the Midrash attributes the widespread use of colored cloth flags to the example of the Israelites!)
Numbers Rabbah, 2:7, commenting on Numbers Chapter 2, Verse 2 ("Each man according to his degel ["division", but modern: "flag"] under the otot ["standards"] of their fathers' houses shall the Children of Israel camp..."):
BeOtot ("Under the standards"): Each prince [of each tribe] had symbols, a mapah ["cloth," "spread," hereafter "flag"], and the color of each flag was like the color of the fine stone that was on the heart of Aaron [the High Priest]. [The breastplate of the high priest contained twelve precious stones, one for each tribe. The exact definition of each is not known, so the Hebrew is given here; hints may be taken from the colors and are given as well, but therefore may only match some of the colors given.] From this the kingdoms learned to make flags and a color for each flag. For each tribes' prince, the color of the flag was similar to the color of its stone.
- Reuben's stone was Odem [carnelian? ruby?], and the color of his flag was red, [a picture of] mandrakes was drawn on it. [Mandrakes figure in a story about Reuben, the founder of the tribe, Genesis 30:14.] [I'm not sure where the imagery of a rising son comes from- Reuben being the eldest?]
- Simeon's stone was Pitedah [emerald?], and the color of his flag was green, and [a picture of the city of] Shechem was drawn on it. [Simeon, together with Levi, destroyed that city, Genesis 34.]
- Levi's [stone was] Bareket [topaz? carbuncle? smaragd?], and the color of his flag was a third white, a third black, and a third red [think of a banded stone], and [a picture of] the Urim VeTummim [that is, the twelve-stone breastplate {the Urim VeTummim were within}- a square, four rows of three stones each, usually horizontal but sometimes vertical] was drawn on it. [The priesthood was drawn from the tribe of Levi, and the whole tribe participated in holy service.] [Levi is omitted from the list by some, as he was not counted among the others, with the two tribes of Joseph making up the total of twelve.]
- Judah's [stone was] was Nofekh [carbuncle? topaz?], and the color of his flag was sky blue, and [a picture of] a lion was drawn on it. [Judah, from whom the monarchy descended, is compared to the king of beasts in Genesis 49:9, the blessing of Jacob.]
- Issachar's [stone was] Sapir [sapphire?], and the color of his flag was like azure [some: black], and [a picture of] a sun and a moon was drawn on it, because [as it says in I Chronicles 12:33] "And from the sons of Issachar were those who knew the wisdom of the times [i.e.,astronomy and calendars]". [Jacob's blessing calls Issachar a "laden donkey," and sometimes the symbol is shown as that or as a laden man.]
- Zebulon's [stone was] Yahalom [beryl?], and the color of his flag was white [according to some, like silver {similar to heraldic rules today} because of his wealth], and [a picture of] a ship was drawn on it, because [as it says in Genesis 49:13] "Zebulon shall dwell by the seashore [i.e., engage in trade]."
- Dan's [stone was] Leshem [jacinth?], and the color of his flag was like a sapphire [others: black], and [a picture of] a snake was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 17] "Dan shall be [as] a snake [when he attacks from an ambush]." [As Dan's descendants were judges, scales are sometimes shown as well.]
- Gad's [stone was] Shevo [agate?], and the color of his flag was not white and not black but a mixture of black and white [gray?], and [a picture of] a camp was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 19] "Gad shall camp in troops" [Heb: Gad Yegud Yegudenu, a reference to his fighting strength]. [Sometimes actual troops, not tents, are shown.]
- Naftali's [stone was] Achlamah [amethyst?], and the color of his flag was like diluted wine (whose red [color] was no longer strong), and [a picture of] a deer was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 21] "Naftali shall be as a sent deer [i.e., he was fast]".
- Asher's [stone was] Tarshish [chrysolite?], and the color of his flag was like the expensive stone women decorate themselves with [pearl? opal?] [others: olive, or the light given by olive oil], and [a picture of] an olive tree was drawn on it, because [as it says ibid. 20] "From Asher will be his rich bread [i.e., he will live in a fertile area]". [Sometimes other signs of agricultural wealth- a cornucopia, say- are shown.]
- Joseph's [stone was] Shoham [onyx?], and the color of his flag[s] was very black, and the [picture] drawn on it for the two princes [of] Ephraim and Menasseh was Egypt [a pyramid?], because they were born in Egypt. And on the flag of Ephraim was drawn an ox, because [as it is written in Deuteronomy 33:17] "His first born is his ox," this is [a reference to] Joshua who was from the tribe of Ephraim [in addition, although the younger brother, Ephraim's was considered the senior tribe, and Genesis 49 calls Joseph an ox as well]. And on the flag of Menasseh was drawn a re'em [a sort of wild ox], because [as it is written Deuteronomy ibid.] "And the horns of the re'em will be [as] his horn," this means Gideon son of Joash who was from the tribe of Menasseh. [There is a question what this means: Was there one black flag with an overall picture of Egypt plus the two animals, or a flag with Egypt for the whole Joseph and a flag for each tribe, or just aflag for each tribe?]
- Benjamin's [stone was] Yashpeh [jasper?], and the color of his flag was like all the colors of the twelve colors, and [a picture of] a wolf was drawn on it, because [as it says Genesis 49:17] "Benjamin is like a scavenging wolf".
Therefore [the word] "BeOtot" [literally "in the signs"] is used, for there were symbols for each prince. [End of Numbers Rabbah translation.]
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads the verse as giving not one flag to each tribe, but one flag for each "camp"- that is, each of the four groups of three tribes each. He also sees the stones on the breastplate as being arranged for the tribes not in the order above (by mother, then by age) but according to the camps. Thus his commentary on the following verses:
- Numbers 2:3: "...[the camp of Judah's] Tekes (lit. "troop" [?], here clearly "flag") had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, odem, pitedah, bareket. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Judah- Issachar- Zebulon" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:35] "Arise, Lord, and may Your enemies be scattered, and may those who hate You flee before You!" And there was a picture of a young lion [Genesis 49:9, "Judah is a young lion..."] on it..."
- Numbers 2:10: "...[the camp of Reuben's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, nofekh-sapir-yahalom. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Reuben- Simeon-Gad" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Deuteronomy 6:4] "Hear Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." And there was a picture of a young deer [ram?] [originally to have been a calf, but changed because of the sin of the golden calf, hence the verse, with "rams" symbolizing Israel] on it..."
- Numbers 2:18: "...[the camp of Ephraim's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, leshem-shivo-achlamah. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Ephraim-Menasseh-Benjamin" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:34] "And the cloud of the Lord was above them during the day when they traveled from the camp." And there was a picture of a young boy [Jeremiah 31:19, "Ephraim is my dear son..."] on it..."
- Numbers 2:25: "...[the camp of Dan's] flag had three stripes, each like three of the stones of the breastplate, tarshish-shoma-yashpeh. On it was written the names of the three tribes, "Dan- Naftali-Asher" and (in the center[?]) the verse [Numbers 10:36] "Return, Lord, the myriads of thousands of Israel!" And there was a picture of a snake [Genesis 49: 17, "Dan shall be [as] a snake..." {see above}] on it..."
Nathan Lamm, 5 June 2003
In "Modern" Hebrew, the stones are translated as follows:
- Odem: Ruby
- Pitedah: Topaz
- Bareket: Emerald
- Nofekh: Not in use as stone name today
- Sapir: Sapphire
- Yahalom: Diamond
- Leshem: Opal
- Shevo: Not in use as stone name today
- Achlamah: Amethyst
- Tarshish: Not in use as stone name today
- Shoham: Onyx
- Yashpeh: Jasper
Dov Gutterman, 5 June 2003
First of all, while the Twelve Tribes of Israel, or Shivtei Yisrael, as they are known in Hebrew, did indeed have what we might term in contemporary usage heraldic signs and devices, all of which are mentioned repeatedly in the bible. There is no Tanachic record of the Tribes ever actually possessing, much less using flags of any sort. Any such items are purely fictitious in nature, having been invented not earlier than the Protestant Reformation and probably much more recently. Any flag which you have seen which claims (or has claimed for it) that it belonged to any or all of the Twelve Tribes is absolutely, completely, and totally spurious.
Incidentally, the State of Israel has over the years issued several series of postage stamps which depict the heraldic devices of the Twelve Tribes; you can find these illustrated in Scott's Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue or in Stanley Gibbons' Stamps of the World Catalogue. Believe me, if the Twelve Tribes had had any flags the Israelis would have issued postage stamps commemorating the fact.
What might have been the case was that in battle some or all of the tribes may have borne standards containing a depiction of their identifyiong device on a piece of colored cloth. Hoever, none of them would have borne any flag such as you describe.
Ron Lahav, 18 March 2004
The fact is rather the opposite: Symbols of the tribes are mentioned at the end of Genesis, and are merely part of a blessing. On the other hand, flags (of a sort) are explicitely mentioned in Numbers, but the Bible itself does not mention what was on them. The Midrash does, often but not always in line with the blessing in Genesis.
Of course, the "flags" likely did not resemble modern flags at all, and may not even have been made of cloth.
Nathan Lamm, 18 March 2004
I do not think that the Degalim (flags) mentioned in Numbers (Bamidbar) can be considered as true standards or flags. If anything they were Vexilloids.
Ron Lahav, 18 March 2004
You should be aware that the flags of the tribes of israel ARE described, but not in the Torah (Old Testament). Each tribe had a colour with a symbol embroidered on it. The colour of the flag could be from a single colour such as that of Joseph (shared by Ephraim and Menasshe) of black, to that of Benjamin which is described as "many colours" and is taken to mean any colour of the wolf which is the symbol on the flag. It must be noted that use of heraldry began from this source as the Romans did not use flags, and Celts and germanii used carved/hammered symbols on long poles as far as I'm aware.
The stamps do not reflect the colours. The significance of the colours is that they related to the colours of the stones on the breastplate of the High Priest.
Greg Chalik, 5 January 2006
It should be pointed out, though, that "heraldry" originated in coats of arms, not flags, and so can't be traced to the tribes of Israel. In any event, it's not entirely clear that "flags" as we know them are meant here, at least in the Bible itself.
One more point: Some of the flags *are* multi-colored.
Nathan Lamm, 5 January 2006
Jaffa.
It is is the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. It is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus.
It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, as a city opposite the territory given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan, as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple, as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish and again as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem.Jaffa.