Exodus 25:1-9 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,… 1. Blue, being the colour of the heaven, as it appears to man looking up into it, may be regarded not unnaturally as speaking of God. The Israelites were bidden to have fringes on the borders of their garments, and upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue (Numbers 15:38), doubtless to be a perpetual reminder to them in their daily life that, they were the people of God. 2. Scarlet, or red, is the colour which, after blue, occurs most frequently in connection with the Tabernacle. As blue speaks of God the Creator, so red, or scarlet, speaks of the world, or of man the creature. 3. Purple is formed from the intermingling of scarlet and blue, and thus corresponds to twelve among numbers, which is the result of three multiplied into four, and is, therefore, the colour of the Incarnation. In the Tabernacle, purple appears side by side with blue and scarlet in the interior hangings, in the veils, and in the vestments of the high-priest. When we remember that the Tabernacle, as a whole, was a type of the Word who "tabernacles in us" (John 1:14), we shall not, I think, find it difficult to acquiesce in the suggestion of a devout and learned writer, that "the purple appears to have foreshadowed the hypostatical union, i.e., the union of the Divine and human natures in the person of our Lord." It would seem to have been selected to reveal the intimacy and perfection of this union; and the constituent colours of purple, red, and blue, to have been set in juxtaposition with it, to teach that, although the two natures are thus combined in Him, yet are they not absorbed in each other, as if the Divine had been lost in the human, or the human in the Divine, but ever remain to co-exist, notwithstanding their most perfect union. 4. The three colours already spoken of were conjoined with the whiteness of fine linen. White is symbolic of cleansing from sin (Isaiah 1:18; cf. Revelation 7:14; Psalm 51:7). White is also symbolical of perfect dazzling holiness (Daniel 7:9; cf. Revelation 6:2; Revelation 14:14; Revelation 19:11; Revelation 20:11). In the Tabernacle the fine white linen would tell of the purity and holiness which results from that union of the Divine with the human which was already indicated by the three colours with which it was conjoined. The great lesson, therefore, which everywhere met the eye of the worshipper in the fine linen hangings of the outer court, and in the blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine-twined linen of the veils, and sacerdotal vestments, was none other than this, "Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." (E. F. Willis, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, |
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