Exodus 28:36-39

THE MITRE; THE COAT; AND THE GIRDLE

"And thou shalt make a plate of pure gold, and grave upon it, like the engravings of a signet, HOLY TO JEHOVAH. And thou shalt put it on a lace of blue, and it shall be upon the mitre; upon the forefront of the mitre it shall be. And it shall be upon Aaron's forehead, and Aaron shall bear the iniquity of the holy things, which the children of Israel shall hallow in all their holy gifts; and it shall be always upon the forehead, that they may be accepted before Jehovah. And thou shalt weave the coat in checker work of fine linen, and thou shalt make a mitre of fine linen, and thou shalt make a girdle, the work of the embroiderer."

"And thou shalt make a plate of pure gold ..." "The word for plate here literally means petal of a flower, which seems to have been the figure (shape) of this burnished plate of gold."[29]

"HOLY TO JEHOVAH ..." We agree with Fields that the King James Version of this expression is superior. "[~QODESH], the Hebrew word for "HOLY" is a noun; and despite the fact that it is sometimes used as an adjective, the use of it here without a noun closely preceding it, indicates that it should be taken as a noun, HOLINESS."[30] It should therefore read, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD, or HOLINESS UNTO JEHOVAH (YAHWEH). The measure of the distance by which the Church of God has surpassed this conception of HOLINESS is evident in Zechariah's great passage:

"In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLY UNTO JEHOVAH; and the pots in Jehovah's house shall be like the bowls before the altar (Zechariah 14:20)."

God's redeemed people in the New Israel would be accounted HOLY UNTO JEHOVAH without any of the symbolism so richly evident in this great chapter.

"And Aaron shall bear the iniquity of the holy things ..." Aaron's bearing the iniquity of the holy things given by the people is a manner of saying that Aaron would bear the iniquity of Israel; and this is a symbol of Him who bore our sins in his own body on the tree! "This was prophetic of our Lord's taking on him the iniquity of us all'" (Isaiah 53:6).[31]

The shape of the mitre is not given here, but Josephus' description of the head-dress of the ordinary priests states that, "they were not conical of form, nor did they cover the whole head."[32] From this, it has been assumed that the mitre of the High Priest was conical and that it covered the whole head except for the face.

"The girdle ..." This was also called a sash and was to be made of fine embroidered needle work. "According to the Talmud, the sash was wrapped around the coat and was forty-eight feet long!"[33]

"The coat ..." also mentioned here was not described except in the general requirement that it should be of "checker work." Josephus described it as an inner garment worn close to the body, with sleeves tied close to the arms, and covering practically all the body. "It was embroidered with flowers of scarlet, purple, and blue, and hung loosely down to the ankles and was tied about the waist."[34]