שֹׁהַם

The word "שֹׁהַם" (shoham) appears in the Bible several times, first in Genesis (2:12) as one of the treasures of the land of Havilah, and then as one of the stones in the breastplate (hoshen) worn by the High Priest (Exodus 28:20), in the fourth row. It also appears in the list of precious stones on the garments of the king of Tyre (Ezekiel 28:13). The exact identity of the shoham stone is not known with certainty. In the Septuagint Greek translation, the word "shoham" was translated inconsistently: in Genesis as "prasinos" (λίθος πράσινος, "green stone"), in Exodus as "beryllion" (βηρύλλιον), and in other places as "onyx" (ὄνυξ) or "sardion" (σάρδιον). In the Latin Vulgate translation, the word was usually translated as "onyx." Following these translations, it is now customary to identify the shoham stone as onyx, a stone striped in black and white. During the Haskalah period, when Hebrew writers were required to find a Hebrew term for diamond, Judah Leib Ben-Zeev suggested "shoham" in his dictionary "Otzar HaShorashim" (1808), and many of the Haskalah writers and writers in the Hebrew press of the 19th century followed him. However, eventually, in the 20th century, the use of "yahalom" prevailed over "shoham" as the Hebrew term for diamond, and today "shoham" is mainly used as a term for onyx.