"Hmm, my Hebrew ain't great," Sam says. "But I'll do my best. If you want a full translation, though, I'll need time and a dictionary."
"Just get what you can," you say.
Sam's finger scrolls along the neat rows of letters, right to left.
"'In the days when the Kittim'—that means the Romans—'in the days when the Kittim came against Jerusalem,'" they translate. "Then there's some words I don't recognize. 'I took up the—the breastplate of the High Priest and went by secret roads from Zion.' Something like that."
"The breastplate of the High Priest?" you ask, excitement shining in your eyes.
Then Sam makes the connection too, their eyes widening. "Urim and Thummim!" they gasp. "Esme, Abdul, don't you see? In the Bible, the High Priest of Jerusalem has—has sacred vestments, right? A special costume. And part of that was a breastplate, studded with magical stones, Urim and Thummim. The stones would—would shine with a great light, and signal messages from God. It was—it was like an oracle, an oracle of God, a way of communicating with the divine and learning His will."
Esme and Abdul look at each other in astonishment.
Sam, their excitement visibly mounting, turns back to the text. "Look here," they say, piecing together another phrase. "'By secret roads…from Zion into the wilderness.'"
Esme puts into words what you are all thinking. "So let me see if I have this. This document seems to be suggesting that someone took this—this magic breastplate, this Urim and Thummim thing, out of the city and into the wilderness during the Roman siege? Is there more? Does it say where it was taken?"
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