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That last location, if a reference in Second Maccabees is correct, contains the most important artifacts in religious history, including the tabernacle Moses carried through the wilderness with him and the Israelites after the biblical exodus from Egypt, and all of the tabernacle’s treasures - holy serving vessels of gold and silver; the ephod, a ceremonial breastplate worn by the Israelites’ high priest; the altar from the Holy of Holies; several pounds of gold and silver ingots; and the Ark of the Covenant.

This same narrative dwells upon the graven images, ephod and terāphīm, as forming the apparatus of religious ceremonial in Micah’s household.

For the prophet’s function became in an increasing degree a function of mind, and not merely of traditional routine or mechanical technique, like that of the diviner with his arrows or his lots which he cast in the presence of the ephod or plated Yahweh image.

Afterwards, when Abiathar fled to David with the high priest’s ephod, through which the judgment of Urim and Thummim seems to have been announced, David regarded that circumstance as an indication of the Divine permission to him to make use of the sacred oracle.

The very presence in his camp of Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, who escaped the massacre, with his ephod,—an official means of consulting God in all cases of difficulty,—would be a visible proof to his followers and to the community at large, that God was on his side.