The Work Is Finished, Inspected, and Blessed

The cloths of service are made of the three colours with no linen named, which suits the reading that they were the wrapping cloths of Numbers 4:6-13, where the furniture travels under cloths of blue, scarlet and purple. This is the first of seven times the chapter says “as the LORD commanded Moses”.

The ephod was a vestment worn over the robe, something like an apron with shoulder straps. The same word names the plain linen ephod worn by the boy Samuel and by David dancing before the ark (1 Samuel 2:18; 2 Samuel 6:14). Aaron’s is the one made of gold and all three colours.

“They did beat” is raqqa, the verb behind raqia, the firmament of Genesis 1:6, something beaten out thin. Here it is gold hammered into foil and then cut into strips fine enough to be woven with dyed yarn, so the metal runs through the cloth instead of lying on it.

The shoulderpieces are ketefot, “shoulders”, the word used of the flanks of the court gate in 38:14. The ephod was made in two parts, front and back, joined over the priest’s shoulders by these straps, “by the two edges”.

The girdle is the cheshev, a woven waistband named from the same root as the choshev, the pattern weaver. It is “of the same”, woven as one piece with the ephod rather than tied on afterward, and made of exactly the same five materials.

“Ouches” are settings. The Middle English word was nouche, a brooch or clasp, and “a nouche” was misheard as “an ouche”, the same slip that turned a naddre into an adder. Engraving onyx “as signets are graven” was the seal cutter’s trade, using drills and abrasives on hard stone.

The Hebrew says the stones were a zikkaron, a memorial, for the sons of Israel. Chapter 28:10 set six names on each stone “according to their birth”, and Josephus says the elder sons were on the right shoulder. The priest carried the tribes on his shoulders, where a man carries a load.

The breastplate is the choshen, called in 28:15 “the breastplate of judgment”. It is made “like the work of the ephod” in the same five materials, so that the two pieces, one on the chest and one around the body, read as a single garment.

A span, zeret, is the spread of the hand from thumb to little finger, half a cubit, about nine inches. “Being doubled” means folded to form a pouch, and 28:30 says the Urim and Thummim were put in it. They are never listed among the things made, here or anywhere.

Which stones the Hebrew names mean is uncertain, and the King James names follow the Greek and Latin tradition. The sardius is odem, “red”, the colour word behind Adam and Edom, probably carnelian. The topaz may be peridot; “carbuncle” is bareqet, “flashing”, perhaps an emerald.

The ancient sapphire was probably lapis lazuli, which Pliny describes as flecked with gold. The “diamond”, yahalom, is unlikely to be a diamond, since a diamond could not be engraved with the tools of the day; the word may come from a verb meaning to strike. The “emerald”, nofekh, is perhaps turquoise or garnet.

“Ligure” comes from the Greek ligurion, a stone Theophrastus mentions but no one can now identify. The Hebrew leshem is equally obscure. Achlamah, the amethyst, was connected by later Jewish writers with chalam, to dream, a guess from the sound of the word rather than a known meaning.

The beryl is tarshish, perhaps named for the distant port it was traded from. The onyx is shoham again, the stone of the shoulders, and the jasper, yashpeh, is one of the few whose Hebrew name passed straight into Greek and English. Every stone sits in its own gold setting.

The Hebrew says the stones were engraved “each man by his name”, ish al shemo, speaking of the stones as though they were the men themselves. The order of the twelve names on the breastplate is not given here or in 28:21, which has left the question open ever since.

“Wreathen work” means twisted or braided, like cord; in 1611 to wreathe was to twist. These are chains of pure gold made in the manner of rope, running from the top corners of the breastplate.

The two new rings go at the upper corners of the breastplate. The two ouches are gold settings made to receive the chains on the shoulders. The Book of Exodus describes each piece of hardware before it is assembled, like a craftsman laying out parts on a bench.

The chains pass through the rings at the breastplate’s top corners. From this point the breastplate is hanging, not stitched: it is suspended from above and can be taken off the ephod whole.

At the top, the chains fasten to the settings on the shoulderpieces, “before it”, on the front. The effect is that the twelve names on the chest hang from the stones that bear the same twelve names on the shoulders. The two memorials are physically linked.

The lower rings sit on the inside edge of the breastplate, “on the side of the ephod inward”, facing the garment. The fastening at the bottom is hidden, so that from the front only the stones and the gold would be seen.

These rings go low on the shoulder straps of the ephod, at the front, just above the woven waistband. The instructions are exact enough to cut from: which side, which height, and what they sit opposite.

The lace is petil tekhelet, a cord of blue, the same phrase Numbers 15:38 uses for the blue thread in the fringe every Israelite was to wear. The blue cord that ties the breastplate is the thread every ordinary garment carried too.

The me’il, the robe, is “all of blue”, a whole garment in the costliest dye in the sanctuary, woven rather than sewn. Josephus says it was a single piece with no seam and no sleeves. It was worn under the ephod, so the blue showed below it to the feet.

“Habergeon” is the old English name for a short coat of mail. The Hebrew tachra appears only here and in 28:32 and may mean a leather corselet. The neck was bound like the collar of a soldier’s coat. Leviticus 21:10 forbids the high priest to tear his clothes in mourning.

The pomegranates are made of yarn, soft tassels in the three colours, not metal. The linen here is “twined linen”, without the “fine” that goes with it almost everywhere else in these chapters.

The bells are pure gold. 28:35 gives their purpose: the priest’s sound must be heard when he goes in and comes out, “that he die not”. How many there were is not said; the Talmud (Zevachim 88b) preserves traditions of seventy two and of thirty six.

The Hebrew doubles the phrase as the King James does, “a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate”, so the line itself alternates like the hem. “To minister in” means the robe is for service, not for display.

The coats are kuttonet, tunics, the garment Joseph’s father gave him in Genesis 37:3 and the garment God made of skins for Adam and Eve in 3:21. Here the sons of Aaron enter the chapter for the first time; their clothing is plain woven linen.

Aaron wears the mitre, mitsnefet, a wound turban; his sons wear migba’ot, rounded caps, called “goodly” from pe’er, an ornament. The breeches are linen drawers from waist to thigh, required in 28:42 “to cover their nakedness”, for men who would climb the altar ramp.

The sash is the only piece of the sons’ clothing with colour in it, needlework in the three dyes on linen. On the Day of Atonement Aaron himself wears a sash of plain linen (Leviticus 16:4), laying aside the colours for the one day he enters the inner room.

The plate is the tsits, a shining thing, whose root also means a flower. The “holy crown” is nezer, the word Numbers 6:7 uses for the consecration of a Nazirite. Apart from the tablets, these words and the tribal names are the only writing in the whole sanctuary.

The blue lace appears again, now tying the gold plate to the turban. This is the seventh and last “as the LORD commanded Moses” in the making of the garments; the refrain has closed every major piece of Aaron’s clothing.

“Thus was all the work... finished” uses the verb and the opening of Genesis 2:1, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished”. The second half says the same thing twice, “did according to all” and “so did they”, making the obedience the last word.

Everything is carried to Moses separately, in pieces, to be looked at. The inventory starts with the frame and its fittings in nearly the same order as the list of what to make in 35:11, so the request and the delivery can be read against each other line by line.

The roof is presented as a stack: the goats’ hair tent of verse 33, then the red rams’ skins, then the tachash skins. The veil comes next, the one fabric that hangs inside rather than over, and it is listed with the coverings because it too is a “covering” or screen.

The ark is called “the ark of the testimony”, named for what it will hold, although the tablets are not put inside until 40:20. The chest, its poles and its lid are brought as three items, not yet assembled.

The shewbread is on the list, handed in with the table as though it were one of its parts. The Book of Exodus counts the bread among the finished work, ready to be set out, though its recipe is given only in Leviticus 24:5-9.

“Lamps to be set in order” is literally “lamps of the arrangement”, using ma’arakhah, the word Leviticus 24:6 uses for the rows of the shewbread. The lampstand is called “pure”, and it comes in with its oil, ready to be lit.

For the first time in the book the incense altar is named “the golden altar”, set directly beside “the brasen altar” of the next verse. The two altars are now told apart by their metals, the inner one for incense and the outer one for fire and blood.

The bronze altar is brought with every part: grating, poles, tools. The laver and its base come as two items, as in 35:16, though the laver still has no dimensions. The court’s furniture is handed in only after the dwelling’s.

The inventory has moved from the ark outward to the fence and the tent pegs, the order in which chapter 40 will set it all up, ending with the court (40:33). “Vessels of the service” is kelei ha’avodah, the equipment for the work of worship.

The list ends where the chapter began, with the cloths of service and the holy garments of verse 1. The last words, “to minister in the priest’s office”, are one Hebrew verb, lechahen, to act as priest, which no one has yet done.

“All the work” here is ha’avodah, the word used in 1:14 for the “hard bondage” Egypt put on Israel with mortar and brick. The book that began with forced labour for Pharaoh ends its building with the same word turned to service for the LORD.

What Moses said in blessing them is not recorded. Rashi reports a tradition that he prayed that the presence would rest on the work of their hands, and connects it with Psalm 90:17, “establish thou the work of our hands”, from the psalm titled “A Prayer of Moses”.