Which stones were on the breastplate of the High Priest in the Temple and which stone corresponded to which tribe?
Exodus 28 – with the commentary of Rashi:
17. And you shall fill into it stone fillings, four rows of stones. One row: odem, pitdah, and bareketh; thus shall the one row be.
“And you shall fill into it” Since the stones fill the holes of the settings, which are prepared for them, [the Torah] calls them by an expression of filling.18. The second row: nofech, sappir, and yahalom.
19. The third row: leshem, shevo, and achlamah.
20. And the fourth row: tarshish, shoham, and yashpheh; they shall be set in gold in their fillings.
“set in gold” The rows shall be [set in gold] in their fillings, encircled by settings of gold in the depth. According to the measure of the fullness of the thickness of the stone shall be the depth of the settings, no less and no more.21. And the stones shall be for the names of the sons of Israel twelve, corresponding to their names; [similar to] the engravings of a seal, every one according to his name shall they be, for the twelve tribes
“every one according to his name” According to the order of their [the progenitors of the tribes] births shall be the order of the stones, odem for Reuben, pitdah for Simeon, and similarly for all of them.
Rabbi Meir Goldberg