Scripture Daily

Context No. 743 of 4322 · Exodus

Context · Reflection

Exodus 39:1-5: in context

1Of the blue, purple, and scarlet, they made finely worked garments for ministering in the holy place, and made the holy garments for Aaron, as the LORD commanded Moses. 2He made the ephod of gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twined linen. 3They beat the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires, to work it in with the blue, the purple, the scarlet, and the fine linen, the work of the skillful workman. 4They made shoulder straps for it, joined together. It was joined together at the two ends. 5The skillfully woven band that was on it, with which to fasten it on, was of the same piece, like its work: of gold, of blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twined linen, as the LORD commanded Moses.

The last chapters of Exodus are the making of everything God had described on the mountain, and the pace slows to admire the work. This is the making of the priestly garments, and it begins with the ephod, the vestment Aaron would wear to serve, woven of blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen. One detail stops you. To get the gold into the cloth, the craftsmen beat it into thin sheets and cut the sheets into threads, and then wove the gold thread in among the colored yarns. The gold does not sit on the garment as a nugget or a plate for everyone to see. It is hammered thin and drawn out and worked in, so that it runs through the whole fabric and holds it together.

That is a picture worth sitting with: the most precious material in the room, not displayed on its own, but humbled into a thread and woven into the common cloth to serve the whole. And over the passage runs the refrain that beats all through these chapters, as the LORD commanded Moses. Nothing here is improvised or embellished for the maker's glory. The finest skill and the costliest metal are bent, exactly, to what was asked, and given to be part of something larger than any single strand.

The gold was beaten into thread and woven in to serve the whole, not shown off on its own. Am I willing to have my best hammered thin and worked in where it holds others together, instead of set out where it can be seen?

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