But Moses refused all that honor which he saw the multitude ready
to bestow upon him, and attended to nothing else but the service of God.
He went no more up to Mount Sinai; but he went into the tabernacle, and
brought back answers from God for what he prayed for. His habit was also
that of a private man, and in all other circumstances he behaved himself
like one of the common people, and was desirous to appear without distinguishing
himself from the multitude, but would have it known that he did nothing
else but take care of them. He also set down in writing the form of their
government, and those laws by obedience whereto they would lead their lives
so as to please God, and so as to have no quarrels one among another. However,
the laws he ordained were such as God suggested to him; so I shall now
discourse concerning that form of government, and those laws. I will now treat of what I before omitted, the garment of the high
priest: for he [Moses] left no room for the evil practices of [false] prophets;
but if some of that sort should attempt to abuse the Divine authority,
he left it to God to be present at his sacrifices when he pleased, and
when he pleased to be absent. Of this strange expression, that Moses left it to God to be present
at his sacrifices when he pleased, and when he pleased to be absent, 
see the note on B. II. against Apion, sect. 16. 
And he was willing this should be known, not to the Hebrews only, but to
those foreigners also who were there. For as to those stones, These
answers by the oracle of Urim and Thummim, which words signify, light and
perfection, or, as the Septuagint render them, revelation and truth, and
denote nothing further, that I see, but the shining stones themselves,
which were used, in this method of illumination, in revealing the will
of God, after a perfect and true manner, to his people Israel: I say, these
answers were not made by the shining of the precious stones, after an awkward
manner, in the high priest’s breastplate, as the modern Rabbins vainly
suppose; for certainly the shining of the stones might precede or accompany
the oracle, without itself delivering that oracle, see Antiq. B. VI. ch.
6. sect. 4; but rather by an audible voice from the mercy-seat between
the cherubims. See Prideaux’s Connect. at the year 534 . This oracle had
been silent, as Josephus here informs us, two hundred years before he wrote
his Antiquities, or ever since the days of the last good high priest of
the family of the Maccabees, John Hyrcanus. Now it is here very well worth
our observation, that the oracle before us was that by which God appeared
to he present with, and gave directions to, his people Israel as their
King, all the while they submitted to him in that capacity; and did not
set over them such independent kings as governed according to their own
wills and political maxims, instead of Divine directions. Accordingly we
meet with this oracle (besides angelic and prophetic admonitions) all along
from the days of Moses and Joshua to the anointing of Saul, the first of
the succession of the kings, Numbers 27:21; Joshua 6:6, etc.; 19:50; Judges
1:1; 18:4-6, 30, 31; 20:18, 23, 26-28; 21:1, etc.; 1 Samuel 1:17, 18; 3.
per tot.; 4. per tot.; nay, till Saul’s rejection of the Divine commands
in the war with Amalek, when he took upon him to act as he thought fit,
1 Samuel 14:3, 18, 19, 36, 37, then this oracle left Saul entirely, (which
indeed he had seldom consulted before, 1 Samuel 14:35; 1 Chronicles 10:14;
13:3; Antiq. B. 7 ch. 4 sect 2.) and accompanied David, who was anointed
to succeed him, and who consulted God by it frequently, and complied with
its directions constantly (1 Samuel 14:37, 41; 15:26; 22:13, 15; 23:9,
10; 30:7, 8, 18; 2 Samuel 2:1; 5:19, 23; 21:1; 23 :14; 1 Chronicles 14:10,
14; Antiq. B IV ch. 12 sect. 5). Saul, indeed, long after his rejection
by God, and when God had given him up to destruction for his disobedience,
did once afterwards endeavor to consult God when it was too late; but God
would not then answer him, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets,
1 Samuel 28:6. Nor did any of David’s successors, the kings of Judah, that
we know of, consult God by this oracle, till the very Babylonish captivity
itself, when those kings were at an end; they taking upon them, I suppose,
too much of despotic power and royalty, and too little owning the God of
Israel for the supreme King of Israel, though a few of them consulted the
prophets sometimes, and were answered by them. At the return of the two
tribes, without the return of the kingly government, the restoration of
this oracle was expected, Nehemiah 7;63; 1 Esd. 5:40; 1 Macc. 4:46; 14:41.
And indeed it may seem to have been restored for some time after the Babylonish
captivity, at least in the days of that excellent high priest, John Hyrcanus,
whom Josephus esteemed as a king, a priest, and a prophet; and who, he
says, foretold several things that came to pass accordingly; but about
the time of his death, he here implies, that this oracle quite ceased,
and not before. The following high priests now putting diadems on their
heads, and ruling according to their own will, and by their own authority,
like the other kings of the pagan countries about them; so that while the
God of Israel was allowed to be the supreme King of Israel, and his directions
to be their authentic guides, God gave them such directions as their supreme
King and Governor, and they were properly under a theocracy, by this oracle
of Urim, but no longer (see Dr. Bernard’s notes here); though I confess
I cannot but esteem the high priest Jaddus’s divine dream, Antiq. B. XI.
ch. 8. sect. 4, and the high priest Caiaphas’s most remarkable prophecy,
John 11:47-52, as two small remains or specimens of this ancient oracle,
which properly belonged to the Jewish high priests: nor perhaps ought we
entirely to forget that eminent prophetic dream of our Josephus himself,
(one next to a high priest, as of the family of the Asamoneans or Maccabees,)
as to the succession of Vespasian and Titus to the Roman empire, and that
in the days of Nero, and before either Galba, Otho, or Vitellius were thought
of to succeed him. Of the War, B. III. ch. 8. sect. 9. This, I think, may
well be looked on as the very last instance of any thing like the prophetic
Urim among the Jewish nation, and just preceded their fatal desolation:
but how it could possibly come to pass that such great men as Sir John
Marsham and Dr. Spenser, should imagine that this oracle of Urim and Thummim
with other practices as old or older than the law of Moses, should have
been ordained in imitation of somewhat like them among the Egyptians, which
we never hear of till the days of Diodorus Siculus, Aelian, and Maimonides,
or little earlier than the Christian era at the highest, is almost unaccountable;
while the main business of the law of Moses was evidently to preserve the
Israelites from the idolatrous and superstitious practices of the neighboring
pagan nations; and while it is so undeniable, that the evidence for the
great antiquity of Moses’s law is incomparably beyond that for the like
or greater antiquity of such customs in Egypt or other nations, which indeed
is generally none at all, it is most absurd to derive any of Moses’s laws
from the imitation of those heathen practices, Such hypotheses demonstrate
to us how far inclination can prevail over evidence, in even some of the
most learned part of mankind. 
which we told you before, the high priest bare on his shoulders, which
were sardonyxes, (and I think it needless to describe their nature, they
being known to every body,) the one of them shined out when God was present
at their sacrifices; I mean that which was in the nature of a button on
his right shoulder, bright rays darting out thence, and being seen even
by those that were most remote; which splendor yet was not before natural
to the stone. This has appeared a wonderful thing to such as have not so
far indulged themselves in philosophy, as to despise Divine revelation.
Yet will I mention what is still more wonderful than this: for God declared
beforehand, by those twelve stones which the high priest bare on his breast,
and which were inserted into his breastplate, when they should be victorious
in battle; for so great a splendor shone forth from them before the army
began to march, that all the people were sensible of God’s being present
for their assistance. Whence it came to pass that those Greeks, who had
a veneration for our laws, because they could not possibly contradict this,
called that breastplate the Oracle . Now this breastplate, and this
sardonyx, left off shining two hundred years before I composed this book,
God having been displeased at the transgressions of his laws. Of which
things we shall further discourse on a fitter opportunity; but I will now
go on with my proposed narration. The tabernacle being now consecrated, and a regular order being
settled for the priests, the multitude judged that God now dwelt among
them, and betook themselves to sacrifices and praises to God as being now
delivered from all expectation of evils and as entertaining a hopeful prospect
of better times hereafter. They offered also gifts to God some as common
to the whole nation, and others as peculiar to themselves, and these tribe
by tribe; for the heads of the tribes combined together, two by two, and
brought a waggon and a yoke of oxen. These amounted to six, and they carried
the tabernacle when they journeyed. Besides which, each head of a tribe
brought a bowl, and a charger, and a spoon, of ten darics, full of incense.
Now the charger and the bowl were of silver, and together they weighed
two hundred shekels, but the bowl cost no more than seventy shekels; and
these were full of fine flour mingled with oil, such as they used on the
altar about the sacrifices. They brought also a young bullock, and a ram,
with a lamb of a year old, for a whole burnt-offering, as also a goat for
the forgiveness of sins. Every one of the heads of the tribes brought also
other sacrifices, called peace-offerings , for every day two bulls,
and five rams, with lambs of a year old, and kids of the goats. These heads
of tribes were twelve days in sacrificing, one sacrificing every day. Now
Moses went no longer up to Mount Sinai, but went into the tabernacle, and
learned of God what they were to do, and what laws should be made; which
laws were preferable to what have been devised by human understanding,
and proved to be firmly observed for all time to come, as being believed
to be the gift of God, insomuch that the Hebrews did not transgress any
of those laws, either as tempted in times of peace by luxury, or in times
of war by distress of affairs. But I say no more here concerning them,
because I have resolved to compose another work concerning our laws. THE MANNER OF OUR OFFERING SACRIFICES. I WILL now, however, make mention of a few of our laws which belong
to purifications, and the like sacred offices, since I am accidentally
come to this matter of sacrifices. These sacrifices were of two sorts;
of those sorts one was offered for private persons, and the other for the
people in general; and they are done in two different ways. In the one
case, what is slain is burnt, as a whole burnt-offering, whence that name
is given to it; but the other is a thank-offering, and is designed for
feasting those that sacrifice. I will speak of the former. Suppose a private
man offer a burnt-offering, he must slay either a bull, a lamb, or a kid
of the goats, and the two latter of the first year, though of bulls he
is permitted to sacrifice those of a greater age; but all burnt-offerings
are to be of males. When they are slain, the priests sprinkle the blood
round about the altar; they then cleanse the bodies, and divide them into
parts, and salt them with salt, and lay them upon the altar, while the
pieces of wood are piled one upon another, and the fire is burning; they
next cleanse the feet of the sacrifices, and the inwards, in an accurate
manner and so lay them to the rest to be purged by the fire, while the
priests receive the hides. This is the way of offering a burnt-offering. But those that offer thank-offerings do indeed sacrifice the same
creatures, but such as are unblemished, and above a year old; however,
they may take either males or females. They also sprinkle the altar with
their blood; but they lay upon the altar the kidneys and the caul, and
all the fat, and the lobe of the liver, together with the rump of the lamb;
then, giving the breast and the right shoulder to the priests, the offerers
feast upon the remainder of the flesh for two days; and what remains they
burn.