THE SEER’S GIFT; OR THE GIFT OF SEEING
WITH THE URIM AND THUMMIM
This gift is a peculiar manifestation of the Spirit to the natural
eyes, as well as to the mind. The Urim and Thummim is a stone or other substance
and illuminated by the Spirit of the living God, and presented to those who are
blessed with the gift of seeing. All Saints cannot see by the illuminations of
the Urim and Thummim; but, as we have already said, “to some is given one gift,
and to some another.” Aaron and the firstborn of his sons who were high priests
after the Levitical order, were blessed with this choice gift. And the Lord
commanded that the Urim and Thummim should be inserted in the breastplate worn
by the high priest. Four rows of precious stones, upon which the names of the
twelve tribes of Israel were engraved, adorned the breastplate: these stones
were set in gold; and the breastplate was attached by gold rings to a richly
wrought ornament, called an ephod. (Orson Pratt, “Spiritual Gifts,” in Masterful
Discourses of Orson Pratt, comp. N. B. Lundwall [Salt Lake City: N. B.
Lundwall, 1946], 552, emphasis added)
The “silver cup” which
Joseph in Egypt commanded the steward to put in Benjamin’s sack, in order to
try his brethren, was, most probably, sanctified as a Urim and Thummim to
Joseph. Hence, Joseph commanded the steward to pursue his brethren, and say to
them, “Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he
divineth?” And when Joseph’s brethren were brought back, he said unto them, “What
deed is this ye have done? Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly
divine?” (See Gen. xliv.) It would be no more difficult for the Lord to
sanctify a “Silver Cup,” and cause it to be endowed with all the properties of
the Urim, than to sanctify a stone or any other material for such a holy
purpose. It was the gift of seeing in these holy divine instruments which,
without doubt, constituted the difference between a seer and a prophet. The
former being a prophet with the additional gift of the Urim; the latter being a
prophet without the aid of that divine instrument. (Ibid., 557)
