Esodo 28:1 Commento

Orders being given for the fitting up of the place of worship, in this and the following chapter care is taken about the priests that were to minister in this holy place, as the menial servants of the God of Israel. He hired servants, as a token of his purpose to reside among them. In this chapter, I. He pitches upon the persons who should be his servants (Exo 28:1). II. He appoints their livery; their work was holy, and so must their garments be, and unanswerable to the glory of the house which was now to be erected (Exo 28:2-5). 1. He appoints the garments of his head-servant, the high priest, which were very rich. (1.) An ephod and girdle, (Exo 28:6-14). (2.) A breast-plate of judgment (Exo 28:15-29), in which must be put the urim and thummim (Exo 28:30). (3.) The robe of the ephod (Exo 28:31-35). (4.) The mitre (Exo 28:36-39). 2. The garments of the inferior priests (Exo 28:40-43). And these also were shadows of good things to come.

We have here, I. The priests nominated: Aaron and his sons, Exo 28:1. Hitherto every master of a family was priest to his own family, and offered, as he saw cause, upon altars of earth; but now that the families of Israel began to be incorporated into a nation, and a tabernacle of the congregation was to be erected, as a visible centre of their unity, it was requisite there should be a public priesthood instituted. Moses, who had hitherto officiated, and is therefore reckoned among the priests of the Lord (Psa 99:6), had enough to do as their prophet to consult the oracle for them, and as their prince to judge among them; nor was he desirous to engross all the honours to himself, or to entail that of the priesthood, which alone was hereditary, upon his own family, but was very well pleased to see his brother Aaron invested in this office, and his sons after him, while (how great soever he was) his sons after him would be but common Levites. It is an instance of the humility of that great man, and an evidence of his sincere regard for the glory of God, that he had so little regard to the preferment of his own family. Aaron, who had humbly served as a prophet to his younger brother Moses, and did not decline the office (Exo 7:1), is now advanced to be a priest, a high priest to God; for he will exalt those that abase themselves. Nor could any man have taken this honour to himself, but he that was called of God to it, Heb 5:4. God had said of Israel in general that they should be to him a kingdom of priests, Exo 19:6. But because it was requisite that those who ministered at the altar should give themselves wholly to the service, and because that which is every body's work will soon come to be nobody's work, God here chose from among them one to be a family of priests, the father and his four sons; and from Aaron's loins descended all the priests of the Jewish church, of whom we read so often, both in the Old Testament and in the New. A blessed thing it is when real holiness goes, as the ceremonial holiness did, by succession in a family. II. The priests' garments appointed, for glory and beauty, Exo 28:2. Some of the richest materials were to be provided (Exo 28:5), and the best artists employed in the making of them, whose skill God, by a special gift for this purpose, would improve to a very high degree, Exo 28:3. Note, Eminence, even in common arts, is a gift of God, it comes from him, and, as there is occasion, it ought to be used for him. He that teaches the husbandman discretion teaches the tradesman also; both therefore ought to honour God with their gain. Human learning ought particularly to be consecrated to the service of the priesthood, and employed for the adorning of those that minister about holy things. The garments appointed were, 1. Four, which both the high priest and the inferior priests wore, namely, the linen breeches, the linen coat, the linen girdle which fastened it to them, and the bonnet or turban; that which the high priest wore is called a mitre. 2. Four more, which were peculiar to the high priest, namely, the ephod, with the curious girdle of it, the breast-plate of judgment, the long robe with the bells and pomegranates at the bottom of it, and the golden plate on his forehead. These glorious garments were appointed, (1.) That the priests themselves might be reminded of the dignity of their office, and might behave themselves with due decorum. (2.) That the people might thereby be possessed with a holy reverence of that God whose ministers appeared in such grandeur. (3.) That the priests might be types of Christ, who should offer himself without spot to God, and of all Christians, who have the beauty of holiness put upon them, in which they are consecrated to God. Our adorning, now under the gospel, both that of ministers and Christians, is not to be of gold, and pearl, and costly array, but the garments of salvation, and the robe of righteousness, Isa 61:10; Psa 132:9, Psa 132:16. As the filthy garments wherewith Joshua the high priest was clothed signified the iniquity which cleaved to his priesthood, from which care was taken that it should be purged (Zac 3:3, Zac 3:4.), so those holy garments signified the perfect purity that there is in the priesthood of Christ; he is holy, harmless, and undefiled.

INTRODUCTION TO EXODUS 28 This chapter informs us of the servants God would have to minister to him in the house, or tabernacle, he had ordered to be made, even Aaron and his sons, Exo 28:1 of the garments they were to wear in their service, Exo 28:2 and first of the garments of the high priest, and particularly of the ephod, with the girdle, on the shoulder pieces of which were to be two onyx stones, with the names of the children of Israel engraved on them, Exo 28:6, and that of the breastplate of judgment, with the Urim and Thummum in it, Exo 28:15 and of the robe of the ephod, Exo 28:31, and of the mitre, Exo 28:36 and then of the garments of the common priests, Exo 28:40.

And take thou unto thee Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him,.... Moses is bid to fetch or send for Aaron and his sons to him: or "cause" them to "draw near" (n) to him, and stand before him, that he might in the name of the Lord, and by his authority, distinguish and separate them from among the children of Israel: and before them all invest them with the office of priesthood, as it follows: that they may minister unto me in the priest's office, before this time every master of a family was a priest, and might and did offer sacrifice, and all the Israelites were a kingdom of priests; and Moses, as Aben Ezra calls him, was "a priest of priests"; but now it being enough for him to be the political ruler of the people, and the prophet of the Lord, the priestly office is bestowed on Aaron and his sons; nor might any afterwards officiate in it but such as were of his family; and a great honour this was that was conferred on him, and to which he was called of God, as in Heb 5:4 and it is greatly in the favour of Moses, and which shows him to be an upright and undesigning man, that sought not to aggrandize himself and his family; that though he had so much honour and power himself, he sought not to entail any upon his posterity. It is hinted in the latter part of the preceding chapter, that Aaron and his sons should minister in the sanctuary, and look after the candlestick, and its lamps; and here the design of God concerning them is more fully opened, which was, that they should be his peculiar ministers and servants in his house, to do all the business appertaining to it: even Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's sons: who were all the sons that Aaron had that we read of; though Aben Ezra thinks it probable that he might have other sons, and therefore the names of those are particularly mentioned, who were to be taken into the priest's office with him; the two first of these died very quickly after this, in a very awful manner, as the sacred story relates; and from the other two sprung all the priests that were in all successive generations. (n) "appropinquare fac", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus.

Aaron and his sons are set apart for the priest's office, Exo 28:1. Garments to be provided for them, Exo 28:2, Exo 28:3. What these garments were, Exo 28:4, and of what made, Exo 28:5. The ephod, its shoulder-pieces, and girdle, Exo 28:6-8. The two onyx stones, on which the names of the twelve tribes were to be engraven, Exo 28:9-14. The breastplate of judgment; its twelve precious stones, engraving, rings, chains, and its use, Exo 28:15-29. The Urim and Thummim, Exo 28:30. The robe of the ephod, its border, bells, pomegranates, etc., and their use, Exo 28:31-35. The plate of pure gold and its motto, Exo 28:36, to be placed on Aaron's mitre, Exo 28:37, Exo 28:38. The embroidered coat for Aaron, Exo 28:39. Coats, girdles, and bonnets, Exo 28:40. Aaron and his sons to be anointed for the priest's office, Exo 28:41. Other articles of clothing and their use, Exo 28:42, Exo 28:43.

Aaron - and his sons - The priesthood was to be restrained to this family because the public worship was to be confined to one place; and previously to this the eldest in every family officiated as priest, there being no settled place of worship. It has been very properly observed that, if Moses had not acted by the Divine appointment, he would not have passed by his own family, which continued in the condition of ordinary Levites, and established the priesthood, the only dignity in the nation, in the family of his brother Aaron. "The priests, however, had no power of a secular nature, nor does it appear from history that they ever arrived at any till the time of the Asmoneans or Maccabees." See Clarke's note on Exo 19:22.

APPOINTMENT TO THE PRIESTHOOD. (Exo. 28:1-43) take thou unto thee Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him--Moses had hitherto discharged the priestly functions (Psa 99:6), and he evinced the piety as well as humility of his character, in readily complying with the command to invest his brother with the sacred office, though it involved the perpetual exclusion of his own family. The appointment was a special act of God's sovereignty, so that there could be no ground for popular umbrage by the selection of Aaron's family, with whom the office was inalienably established and continued in unbroken succession till the introduction of the Christian era.

(cf. Ex 39:1-31). Appointment and Clothing of the Priests. - Exo 28:1, Exo 28:5. "Let Aaron thy brother draw near to thee from among the children of Israel, and his sons with him, that he may be a priest to Me." Moses is distinguished from the people as the mediator of the covenant. Hence he was to cause Aaron and his sons to come to him, i.e., to separate them from the people, and install them as priests, or perpetual mediators between Jehovah and His people. The primary meaning of cohen, the priest, has been retained in the Arabic, where it signifies administrator alieni negotii, viz., to act as a mediator for a person, or as his plenipotentiary, from which it came to be employed chiefly in connection with priestly acts. Among the heathen Arabs it is used "maxime de hariolis vatibusque;" by the Hebrews it was mostly applied to the priests of Jehovah; and there are only a few placed in which it is used in connection with the higher officers of state, who stood next to the king, and acted as it were as mediators between the king and the nation (thus Sa2 8:18; Sa2 20:26; Kg1 4:5). For the duties of their office the priests were to receive "holy garments for glory and for honour." Before they could draw near to Jehovah the Holy One (Lev 11:45), it was necessary that their unholiness should be covered over with holy clothes, which were to be made by men endowed with wisdom, whom Jehovah had filled with the spirit of wisdom. "Wise-hearted," i.e., gifted with understanding and judgment; the heart being regarded as the birth-place of the thoughts. In the Old Testament wisdom is constantly used for practical intelligence in the affairs of life; here, for example, it is equivalent to artistic skill surpassing man's natural ability, which is therefore described as being filled with the divine spirit of wisdom. These clothes were to be used "to sanctify him (Aaron and his sons), that he might be a priest to Jehovah." Sanctification, as the indispensable condition of priestly service, was not merely the removal of the uncleanness which flowed from sin, but, as it were, the transformation of the natural into the glory of the image of God. In this sense the holy clothing served the priest for glory and ornament. The different portions of the priest's state-dress mentioned in Exo 28:4 are described more fully afterwards. For making them, the skilled artists were to take the gold, the hyacinth, etc. The definite article is sued before gold and the following words, because the particular materials, which would be presented by the people, are here referred to.