Jesus promises the overcomers of Pergamum “hidden manna” and a “white stone.” The hidden manna is often linked with the manna stashed away in the ark of the covenant. The white stone has proved more elusive.

Exodus tells us that manna was white (Exodus 16:31) and like bdellium (Numbers 11:7), an aromatic gum exuded from trees. The Bible mentions bdellium only one other time, in Genesis 2:12, describing the riches of the land of Havilah (gold, bdellium, and onyx stone). The combination of manna, which is like bdellium, and a stone with a name, which reminds us of the onyx stones on the high priest’s shoulders, takes us back to Havilah, the place downstream from the garden, the location where Adam was supposed to find the riches that would adorn the Lord’s house. To the victorious saints at Pergamum, in short, Jesus promises access to the golden land of Havilah.

There is also perhaps a priestly reference. The names of the sons of Israel are written on onyx stones on the shoulders of the high priest’s garments (Exodus 28:9-12), stones of memorial for the sons of Jacob, stones that memorialize Israel whenever the high priest enters the tabernacle or temple to do his work. Onyx is frequently black, but the stone can be nearly every color except purple and blue. It can be white.

It would seem best to search for a solution to the puzzle of the white stone within the context set by the rest of the message, which is a wilderness context. The Balaamites of Pergamum are doing what the original Balaam did, and Jesus threatens to come armed like a new Phinehas to make war on His enemies. In the original story, Phinehas acted alone, but in Pergamum, Jesus looked for others to follow him into war and to become Phinehases themselves. He calls on the church to “overcome,” which certainly means not only enduring the Nicolaitans but opposing them, preventing further idolatry and porneia.

Because Phinehas turned away Yahweh’s wrath by being filled with Yahweh’s own jealousy, Yahweh rewarded Phinehas’s zeal with a gift of “covenant of peace” and a “covenant of perpetual priesthood” (Numbers 25:11). Psalm 106:31 adds that Yahweh was rewarded by being “reckoned righteous,” using a phrase found only in Genesis 15 . As in Numbers, Psalm 106 emphasizes that Phinehas’s reward was passed on to future generations.

If we read those two passages together, we conclude that the righteousness reckoned to Phinehas took the specific form of being at peace with Yahweh and a gift of priestly status to himself and his descendants. To be righteous is to be at peace with God (cf. Romans 5:1) and to be righteous and at peace with God is to be welcomed into His household service.

For his zeal, he was rewarded with a gift, and Jesus likewise offers to give the overcomers certain rewards for their zeal. Reading the message to Pergamum from the perspective of the story of Balaam and Phinehas, we may consider the gifts of Jesus as signs of the gifts given to Phinehas. If the saints in Pergamum show Jesus-like zeal in fighting the Balaamites, He will make peace with them, invite them into a perpetual priesthood, and reckon them as righteous ones. Manna and the white stone are emblems of these gifts.

But how? The first of the promised gifts fits neatly with Phinehas’s reward. As Phinehas was given the privilege of priesthood, so the overcomers of Pergamum are given the “hidden manna,” the manna stashed away in the ark of the covenant (Exodus 16:33; Hebrews 9). Overcomers receive a privilege greater than Phinehas because they are allowed to eat from the manna, while Phinehas could only enter into the presence of the manna, and had to settle for weekly showbread. Access to hidden manna is a sign of peaceable table communion, of priestly privilege, of righteousness.

But the white stone remains a puzzle. How is that a sign of Phinehas’s priesthood? We can come at this from various angles. On the one hand, if the hidden manna is the manna stowed in the ark, then the white stone might well correspond to something else in or near the ark, “in the presence of Yahweh.” The closest match is the rod of Aaron, which was inscribed with the name of Aaron and budded with almond blossoms (white!) when placed with other rods in the presence of Yahweh in the tabernacle (Numbers 17). Aaron was no fruitless rod, but a fruitful tree in the presence of God. Phinehas, a descendant of Aaron, was rewarded with a promise of priesthood, in effect a promise that he too would bloom white in God’s house. As priest, he went before the manna and rod; overcomers go Phinehas one better: They eat the manna and are given the white stone, perpetually white, perpetually blossoming in the Lord’s presence.

The problem with that explanation is that there does not appear to be any connection between the white blossom of the almond and a stone, nor between rod and stone. Perhaps we can make that work by noting that the third item in the ark were the tablets of the covenant, made of stone (Hebrews 9:4). The two gifts of Jesus thus open out into three gifts: Manna, white-blossoming rod, and tables of the law.

But there are, I think, preferable explanations. One of them arises from Zechariah 3, where Joshua the high priest is cleansed and restored to priestly status. Yahweh promises to “give” before him a “stone” with seven eyes, inscribed by Yahweh. Commentators often link this to the high priest’s “crown,” a gold plate on the high priest’s forehead inscribed with “Holy to Yahweh” (Exodus 28:36-38). When given a perpetual priesthood, Phinehas donned this golden head-stone, and went into Yahweh’s presence wearing a pure gold crown that would “dazzle” (one of the possible meanings of the Greek leukos, used in Revelation 2:17). Jesus promises the overcomers a similar gift so they might have similar access. Crowned with white stones, the zealous eat the hidden manna.

One final possibility suggests itself. According to Deuteronomy 33:8, Urim and Thummim were blessings given to the tribe of Levi, manipulated by the high priest who kept them hidden in the pouch of his breastplate (Exodus 28:30), as the jar of manna was hidden with the tables of the law in the ark. No one knows for sure what the Urim and Thummim actually were, but Josephus considered them stones that shone to communicate Yahweh’s will to the people,[1] and the notion that they were stones has been a widespread, though hardly universal, tradition. Jesus’ gift of a white stone thus might be another of the gifts of priesthood. In the wilderness of Pergamum, those who overcome will know the will of God.

That is all background, but the inscribed white stone also points forward. The foundation stones of the city that descends from heaven are inscribed with names. The bride is like the high priest, dressed in festal bridal garments, and she wears the jewels of the high priest. The overcomers of Pergamum are jeweled like the bride, the priestly bride that is the body of the High Priest, Jesus.

 Peter J. Leithart is President of Trinity House.

[1] Josephus, Antiquities 3.8.9: “For as to those stones, 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.”