3,961. The Choshen

Hilchos Klei HaMikdash 9:6

The breastplate was made as follows: they wove a garment of “skilled labor” (meaning that its design could be seen from both sides) from gold, blue wool, purple wool, scarlet wool and linen, using 28-ply threads, as was previously discussed. It was a cubit long (about 18”) and a half a cubit wide, and it was folded in half. The result was a square half a cubit by half a cubit. In it, they made four rows of stones. Each stone was square and placed in a gold setting that surrounded it from below and on all four sides.

Hilchos Klei HaMikdash 9:7

On the stones they engraved the names of the Tribes in order of their births, so “Reuven” was engraved on the ruby (the first stone) and “Binyamin” was engraved on the jasper (the last stone). Optimally, “Avraham,” “Yitzchak” and “Yaakov” should be engraved before Reuven and “Shivtei Kah” (the Tribes of God) after Binyamin. In this way, all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet would appear on the breastplate.