1“And you, bring you forward Aaron your brother and his sons with him from the midst of the Israelites to be priests to Me—Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron. 2And you shall make sacred garments for Aaron your brother for glory and for splendor. 3And you, speak to every wise-hearted person whom I have filled with a spirit of wisdom, that they make Aaron’s garments to consecrate him, to be priest to Me. 4And these are the garments that they shall make: breastplate and ephod and robe and checkwork tunic, turban and sash. And they shall make sacred garments for Aaron your brother and for his sons to make him a priest to Me. 5And they, they shall take the gold and the indigo and the purple and the crimson and the linen. 6And they shall make the ephod gold, indigo, and purple, crimson and twisted linen, designer’s work. 7Two joining shoulder-pieces it shall have at its two edges, and attached. 8And the fastening band that is on it shall be of the same fashioning, of one piece with it, gold, indigo and purple and crimson and twisted linen. 9And you shall take two carnelian stones and engrave on them the names of Israel’s sons. 10Six of their names on the one stone and the six remaining names on the other stone in the order of their birth. 11Lapidary work, seal engravings you shall engrave on the two stones the names of Israel’s sons, encased in filigree of gold you shall make them. 12And you shall set the two stones on the shoulder-pieces of the ephod as remembrance stones for Israel’s sons, and Aaron shall carry their names before the LORD on his two shoulders as a remembrance. 13And you shall make a filigree of gold. 14And two chains of pure gold, intertwined you shall make them in cordwork, and you shall set the corded chains on the filigree. 15And you shall make a breastplate of judgment, designer’s work, like the work of the ephod you shall make it, gold, indigo and purple and crimson and twisted linen you shall make it. 16It shall be square and doubled, a hand span its length and a hand span its width. 17And you shall set in it a stone inset, four rows of stone, a row of ruby, topaz, and malachite, the first row. 18And the second row, turquoise, sapphire, and amethyst. 19And the third row jacinth, agate, and crystal. 20And the fourth row, beryl and carnelian and jasper, framed in gold in their settings. 21And the stones shall be according to the names of Israel’s sons, twelve according to their names, seal engravings, each with its name for the twelve tribes. 22And you shall make on the breastplate intertwined cordwork, chains of pure gold. 23And you shall make on the breastplate two golden rings, and you shall set the two rings on the two edges of the breastplate. 24And you shall set the two golden cords on the two rings at the edges of the breastplate. 25And the two ends of the two cords you shall set in the two frames and put them on the shoulder-pieces of the ephod at the front. 26And you shall make two golden rings and put them on the two edges of the breastplate, at its border which faces the ephod on the inside. 27And you shall make two golden rings and set them on the two shoulder-pieces of the ephod below in the front opposite its seam above the band of the ephod. 28And they shall fasten the breastplate from its rings to the rings of the ephod with an indigo strand to be upon the band of the ephod, that the breastplate not slip from the ephod. 29And Aaron shall carry the names of Israel’s sons in the breastplate of judgment over his heart when he comes into the sanctum as a remembrance before the LORD perpetually. 30And you shall place in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim, that they be over Aaron’s heart when he comes before the LORD, and Aaron shall carry the judgment for the Israelites over his heart before the LORD perpetually. 31And you shall make the robe for the ephod pure indigo. 32And the opening for the head shall be in the middle of it, its opening shall have a wovenwork border all around, like the opening of a coat of mail it shall be, it must not tear. 33And you shall make on its hem pomegranates of indigo and purple and crimson, on its hem all around, and golden bells within them all around. 34A golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, on the hem of the robe all around. 35And it shall be upon Aaron when he serves, so that its sound be heard when he comes into the sanctum before the LORD and when he goes out, that he shall not die. 36And you shall make a diadem of pure gold and engrave upon it with seal engravings: Holy to the LORD. 37And you shall put on it an indigo strand, that it be on the turban, at the front of the turban it shall be. 38And it shall be on Aaron’s forehead, that Aaron may bear off any guilt from the holy things that the Israelites consecrate, from all their holy gifts, and it shall be on his forehead perpetually for their acceptance before the LORD. 39And you shall weave the tunic checkwork linen, and you shall make a linen turban, and a sash you shall make of embroiderer’s work. 40And for Aaron’s sons you shall make tunics, and you shall make sashes for them, and headgear you shall make them for glory and for splendor. 41And you shall dress them, Aaron your brother and his sons with him, and you shall anoint them, and you shall install them and consecrate them, that they serve Me as priests. 42And make them linen breeches to cover their naked flesh, from the hips to the thighs they shall be. 43And they shall be upon Aaron and upon his sons when they come into the Tent of Meeting or when they approach the altar to serve in the sanctum, that they do not bear guilt and die—a perpetual statute for him and for his seed after him.”
CHAPTER 28 NOTES
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1. to be priests to Me. Everywhere except perhaps in this chapter, the verb kihen is intransitive and means “to perform the functions of a priest (kohen).” Here, however, the infinitive has an accusative suffix and so might mean “to make him a priest.” In any case, the transformation of Moses’s brother and nephews into a distinctive sacerdotal caste is the burden of this passage, and it is the brilliant priestly costume—note the refrain in verse 2 and verse 40, “for glory and for splendor”—that most impressively effects this transformation.
3. wise-hearted . . . wisdom. The Hebrew for “wise/wisdom” suggests both a craftsman’s skill and insight or understanding.
4. breastplate and ephod and robe and checkwork tunic. The ancient audience of this text had an immense advantage over modern readers because it would have had some actual glimpses of all this splendid raiment and priestly ornamentation and thus would have had a concrete notion of what was being referred to. There have been endless latter-day efforts to reconstruct the wardrobe and to parse the technical sartorial terms that are used to represent it, but these can be no more than amalgams of guesses and approximations. Though the present translation assumes that “breastplate” is still plausible for the Hebrew ḥoshen (etymology uncertain), others contend it is a smaller “breastpiece” or even a “pouch.” The ephod (the Hebrew root suggests “binding” or “wrapping around”) evidently was a kind of apron, although opinions differ on this. It has a secondary meaning as an oracular device.
9. the names of Israel’s sons. Here the recurrent ethnic designation beney yisraʾel clearly refers to the twelve sons of Jacob who are the eponymous founders of the twelve tribes of Israel. This, too, reflects a momentous transformation, enshrined in the magic of the cult: the twelve sons of Jacob have become a consecrated people whose special status before the deity is evoked, “remembered,” ritually enacted and confirmed in the engravings on the two precious stones in the priest’s shoulder-pieces that he carries before the LORD.
15. a breastplate of judgment. The judgment (mishpat) function of the breastplate is executed through the Urim and Thummim (verse 30) that are set in it. Because the purpose of this device is oracular, some prefer to render mishpat as “decision,” although there is evidence elsewhere that the Urim and Thummim were often used to determine who was guilty of a particular trespass.
17–20. ruby, topaz, and malachite . . . jasper. For all the scholarly recourse to conjectured etymologies and comparative philology, it is virtually impossible to determine precisely what precious stones are referred to in this list of twelve terms. We can do little more than revel in the gorgeousness of the words, which is surely part of the intended response for the ancient audience.
21. according to the names of Israel’s sons. The stones offer a reduplication—reinforcing the ritual efficacy—of the device of incising the names of the twelve tribes: in the first instance, six names were listed on each of two stones; now every tribe has its own precious stone.
29. over his heart. “Heart” of course here means “chest,” but the resonance of the term as the organ of feeling and understanding should not be lost.
30. the Urim and the Thummim. The precise character of this oracular device has eluded identification. One common conjecture is that they were two stones with different letters or words engraved on them, but unless someone actually digs up a pair, there is no way of proving this conjecture. Traditional interpretation associates the two words with roots that mean “light” and “perfection,” but if they are opposites, they could be linked etymologically with terms suggesting “curse” and “innocence.” It is probably not coincidental that these two words begin respectively with the first and the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In any case, most of the references to the Urim and Thummim in narrative passages invite the inference that the device generated a binary response to whatever question was posed: yes or no, guilty or innocent.
32. like the opening of a coat of mail. This is a prevalent traditional interpretation, but the crucial term in the phrase, taḥra, does not appear elsewhere and is of uncertain etymology and meaning.
34. A golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate. The sheer splendor of the ornamentation is evoked in poetic incantation through the repetition of the phrase. Judah Halevi, the great medieval Hebrew poet, echoes these words in a delicate, richly sensual love poem, registering an imaginative responsiveness to the sumptuous sensuality of the language here.
35. so that its sound be heard . . . that he shall not die. In the ancient Near East, the inner sanctum was a dangerous place. Any misstep or involuntary trespass of the sacred paraphernalia could bring death. (Compare verse 38: the device with the divine name on Aaron’s golden diadem carries away any guilt that may be incurred in violating “the holy things that the Israelites consecrate.”) The sound of the ringing golden bells on Aaron’s hem goes before him as he enters the sanctum, serving an apotropaic function to shield him from harm in this zone of danger.
36. diadem. This is another term about which there is dispute. The primary meaning of the Hebrew tsits is “blossom,” and so this might be a blossom-shaped gold ornament bound upon the forehead, of the sort the Egyptians were known to use. In poetry, tsits appears in parallelism with nezer, “crown.”
38. any guilt. If, for example, an Israelite consecrated to the cult an animal marred by a blemish, “guilt” would be incurred.
41. install them. The literal meaning of the Hebrew is “fill their hands.”
42. linen breeches to cover their naked flesh. Breeches were not worn except by the priestly officials. The need to avoid exposing nakedness in the cult was asserted earlier in 20:26. The Hebrew term here is literally “flesh of the nakedness,” the word for nakedness, ʿerwah, referring specifically to the genitalia and strongly associated with forbidden sexuality.
43. that they do not bear guilt and die. The phrase used pointedly puns on “bear off . . . guilt” in verse 38. In the first instance, the idiom means to remove guilt. Here, antithetically, it means to bear the onus of guilt. Even the golden diadem engraved with the divine name would not protect the priest from harm if he were to violate the sanctity of the Tabernacle by exposing his sexual parts as he performed his priestly functions.