In one detail, however, we find an analogy in Egypt. Professor Hommel[205] has pointed out that the breastplate of the high-priest, the mysterious Urim and Thummim, with its twelve engraved stones, is pictured on the breast of an Egyptian priest. Thus Seker-Khâbau, a high-priest of Memphis in the age of the nineteenth dynasty, wears upon his breast a sort of double network with four rows of precious stones set in it, each row consisting of three stones, alternately in the form of crosses and disks.[206] The Hebrew breastplate was used as an oracle, like the linen ephod which was worn under it, though how the future was divined from it we do not know. But in moments of danger it was usual to consult it; and the fact that ‘when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets,’ is brought forward as a proof that he had been forsaken by his God (1 Sam. xxviii. 6). Like the lawgiver himself, it was the mouthpiece of Yahveh, and as such it bore the name of ‘the breastplate of judgment.’ The architects of the tabernacle and its adornment in precious metals were Bezaleel of Judah and Aholiab of Dan.[207] Modern criticism would hold them to be part of an elaborate fiction, of which the tabernacle was the subject. But the fiction would be too elaborate, too detailed, to be conceivable. Moreover, we have references to the tabernacle or ‘tent of meeting’ in the later history of Israel; and to declare these to be interpolations or the products of the same pen as that which invented the tabernacle itself may be an easy way of saving a theory, but it is not scientific. How far the description of the tabernacle is exact, how far it has not been coloured by the conceptions of a later age, is, of course, a question that may be asked. Those who maintain that the Pentateuch goes back in substance to the Mosaic age must nevertheless allow that it has undergone many changes and modifications before assuming its present shape. But, except in rare instances, it is impossible to indicate these changes with the assurance that the historian demands, and we must therefore be content with the probability that in the description of the tabernacle we have the revised version of an old story. It has been asked how the materials used in the construction of the tabernacle could have been obtained in the desert, from whence came the silver and gold, the bronze and precious stones, the rich embroideries and cloths stained with Tyrian dye? Those who ask such questions have forgotten that the Israelites were not wild Bedâwin, and that they were laden with the spoils of Egypt. Like the invading hosts who attacked Egypt in the reign of Ramses III., they carried with them in their retreat the treasures of their late masters. And we are specially told that the gold was obtained from the bracelets and earrings and rings which were offered by the people and melted down.