Exodus 28 - Ordination, Urim & Thummim & The Priestly Garments (Part 2)

Exodus 28 and the Priestly Garments

Exodus chapter 28, let's pray and we will listen along. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness. We thank you for this evening and Moses and Aaron and the children of Israel and the story that is told and how it is a lesson for us and encouragement to us, but also at times a warning to us.

The Lord through your Holy Spirit, teach us this evening, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

You shall make chains for the breastplate at the end, like braided cords of pure gold. And you shall make two rings of gold for the breastplate and put the two rings on the two ends of the breastplate.

Then you shall put the two braided chains of gold in the two rings, which are on the ends of the breastplate. And the other two ends of the two braided chains, you shall fasten to the two settings and put them on the shoulder straps of the ephod in the front.

You shall make two rings of gold and put them on the two ends of the breastplate on the edge of it, which is on the inner side of the ephod. And two other rings of gold you shall make and put them on the two shoulder straps underneath the ephod toward its front, right at the seam above the intricately woven band of the ephod.

They shall bind the breastplate by means of its rings to the rings of the ephod using a blue cord so that it is above the intricately woven band of the ephod and so that the breastplate does not come loose from the ephod.

So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel on the breastplate of judgment over his heart when he goes into the holy place as a memorial before the Lord continually. And you shall put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim, and they shall be over Aaron's heart when he goes in before the Lord.

So Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel over his heart before the Lord continually. You shall make the robe of the ephod all of blue. There shall be an opening for his head in the middle of it.

It shall have a woven binding all around it like the opening in a coat of mail so that it does not tear. And upon its head, you shall make pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet all around its head and bells of gold between them all around, a golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate upon the hem of the robe all around.

And it shall be upon Aaron when he ministers and its sound will be heard when he goes into the holy place before the Lord and when he comes out that he may not die. You shall also make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it like the engraving of a signet, holiness to the Lord.

And you shall put it on a blue cord that it may be on the turban. It shall be on the front of the turban. So it shall be on Aaron's forehead that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things which the children of Israel hallow in all their holy gifts.

And it shall always be on his forehead that they may be accepted before the Lord. You shall skillfully weave the tunic of fine linen thread. You shall make the turban of fine linen and you shall make the sash of woven work.

For Aaron's sons, you shall make tunics and you shall make sashes for them and you shall make hats for them for glory and beauty. So you shall put them on Aaron your brother and on his sons with him. You shall anoint them, consecrate them and sanctify them that they may minister to me as priests.

And you shall make for them linen trousers to cover their nakedness. They shall reach from the waist to the thighs. They shall be on Aaron and on his sons when they come into the tabernacle of meeting or when they come near the altar to minister in the holy place that they do not incur iniquity and die.

It shall be a statute forever to him and his descendants after him.

The Ephod as the Priestly Garment

You can see this is the high priest and what scholars believe that the garments look like. I'm sure most of you can read it, but as you can see here, this is the breastplate. The ephod is this article of clothing.

The outer garment, the robe is underneath the ephod. And what are these two things inside? Like tucked inside the breastplate. What are they called? Urim and Thumim. Urim and Thumim, yeah, a little difficult to say, but Urim and Thumim.

Okay, so this will be part two of our study of Exodus chapter 28. We covered part one last week, which was only going through a few verses. We're gonna look tonight at the garments of the priest and what they represent.

You remember, though, the Lord had told Moses, take your brother Aaron and his sons. They're gonna be set apart or consecrated to God to serve as priests. Look at verse two, Exodus 28, verse two. And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother for glory and for beauty.

So you shall speak to all who are gifted artisans whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom that they may make Aaron's garments to consecrate him, that he may minister to me as priest. And these are the garments which they shall make.

A breastplate, an ephod, a robe, a skillfully woven tunic, a turban, or a mitre, depending on your translation, and a sash. So this is the list of the garments that we're gonna look at. And then starting in verse 31, at least the New King James Version titles that section, other priestly garments, verse 42 mentions linen trousers.

What are trousers? Pants. Yeah, they're basically like pants. Some people say pants did not exist back in Bible times. Well, of course they did, but these were actually more of an undergarment. They were more like underwear than pants.

They certainly weren't blue jeans, but. So we're gonna look at these items. The most mysterious items of all, I think, are the Urim and the Thummim. So we're gonna look at that. All right, let's start with the first item, the ephod.

According to blueletterbible .org, which is a great website if you're interested in studying the Hebrew and the Greek and the meanings and everything. It defines the Hebrew word for the ephod as a shoulder cape.

Have any of you ever heard of a shoulder cape? No, neither have I. What's a shoulder cape? And it says it's an outer garment. But basically, if you look at pictures of what people think this looked like, as you can see here, it almost looked like an apron.

I mean, that's kind of how I would describe it. It's like an apron, or maybe if it wasn't quite this long, it would be more like a vest. So this is our best educated guess on what the garments looked like.

So look at verses five through seven. About the ephod, they shall take the gold, blue, purple, and scarlet thread and the fine linen, and they shall make the ephod of gold, blue, purple, and scarlet thread and fine woven linen.

Artistically worked. So it's to be well done and beautiful. And it shall have two shoulder straps joined at its two edges, and so it shall be joined together. So basically, the ephod is a symbol of the priestly office.

That's generally how you would consider it. Although, there was a man who did wear an ephod, the Bible records, but he wasn't a priest. Do you know what man I'm referring to? Who wore a linen ephod? There's a well-known story in scripture about a man.

Who was it? 2 Samuel 6 .14, that's a little hint. David, right. It says, then David danced before the Lord with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod. So of course, David could not be a priest.

Why?

He was a prophet and a king. Yeah, right.

He was a prophet and a priest. Yeah, he was a prophet and a king. He was from the tribe of Judah. He wasn't a Levite. He could not be a priest. But David was dancing before the Lord when the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Jerusalem.

So that was his expression of worship. But even though he wore an ephod, he wasn't actually a priest. That's where my mind went when I hear of ephod. I related it to that story. All right, and if you have any questions as we're going along, raise your hand if there's anything you'd like to add.

But let's move on to the next item, the breastplate. And if you look at this picture, it's exactly what it sounds like. It's a breastplate. But it also serves as a carrier or a pouch because there are two items within it.

So you could kind of, it's like a pocket behind the breastplate where you would put the Urim and the Thuman. Exodus 28 verse 15 says, and you shall make the breastplate of judgment artistically woven according to the workmanship of the ephod.

You shall make it of gold, blue, purple, and scarlet thread and fine woven linen. You shall make it. So in the breastplate, there were how many stones? 12. Okay, 12 stones or jewels or gems. And they represented obviously the 12 tribes of Israel.

So there were four rows of three. They were set in gold. And remember, these things were created for what? Glory and beauty. So this is one of the more beautiful items that the high priest would have worn.

And it says in verse 21 about the stones, they shall have the names of the sons of Israel, 12 according to their names. So the names of the 12 sons of Jacob were written on it. Who wants to take a guess?

Who can raise their hand and tell the class from memory all 12 sons of Israel? Who wants to do it? All right, your best guess. Who's the oldest? Ruben. All right, Ruben. Simeon. Simeon. I heard Judah.

Levi, good. Asher. Asher, Benjamin. Yep. Dan. Naphtali, Naphtali, yep. Joseph. Gad. Gad. Dan, we got, yep. Now Ephraim and Manasseh were sons of Joseph, remember? Let's see, who didn't you get? Asher, did somebody say Asher?

Issachar and Zebulun. I think those two are forgotten. So I have the cheat sheet. So I think I could have done it. When you're put on the spot, that's difficult sometimes. So what was the purpose of this?

Having the 12 stones representing the 12 tribes over his heart. So they were over Aaron's heart, displaying his role, I believe, as intercessor. So he was interceding on behalf of the people before the Lord.

I'd like to read a short segment from a book that's titled, The Tabernacle Shadows of the Messiah by David Levy. And thank you to Jim for letting me borrow that book this week. It says about the breastplate, the high priest bore the children of Israel upon his heart, each tribe represented by a precious stone, as he, Aaron, ministered before the Lord.

The Lord bears us. Here's the application he makes. The Lord bears us close to his heart as he represents us before God. Each Christian is a precious stone to the Lord, forming his church. As each stone in the breastplate had its individual character, color, beauty, and glory, so it is with Christians.

Although we are framed together in one body, we each reflect Christ's glory in our own unique way. I thought that was pretty good. And I think about that as we are all one, we're all united, we're members of one body, there's still diversity within the one body, right?

We compliment each other. Christians are not all the same. If we were all exactly the same with the exact same personality and dressed the same way and acted the same way, it'd be probably a little dull.

So we're all different, yet we're all united. And where one is weak, another one is strong, right? Where one is gifted in one area, but not this area, someone else will be gifted in that area. So it helps to all work together.

And along that idea, I just wanted to go back to something we discussed last week. We talked about the differences between the old covenant and the new covenant, about the priestly office and all that, you remember that discussion from last week.

If you didn't listen to it, or if someone online didn't listen to it, you can go back online and check it out. But even though all believers can come boldly before the throne of grace, right? We all have that access to God because of the veil and the temple being rent, and Christ is our great high priest.

He's the one mediator between man and God. I just wanna maybe explain this role of intercessor. What does it mean to be an intercessor? Here at Morse Corner Church, even though all of you have the right and the privilege and even the duty to come before the Lord in prayer and pray for others, right?

You can all do that, and you do do that. On Sunday morning, however, we still have what basically amounts to an intercessory event, right? The pastoral prayer is basically basically the pastor interceding on behalf of the people.

So someone can come in on Sunday morning and raise their hand, and they give a praise or a prayer request, and I take that and then bring it before God. Now, again, you can do that on your own. You don't need me to do that, but that just illustrates the role of an intercessor.

Back under the old covenant, Aaron, that was really his duty and the priest's duty to intercede between God and the people. And I think this is a good time to briefly go over the differences between, because we talked about last week the three great offices of the Old Testament scriptures.

What were they? Prophet, priest, and king. So let's just go over these two intercessors. The king wasn't so much an intercessor, but the prophet was and the priest was. So you think of God is up here, the people are here, and an intercessor is one who stands in between.

And with the priest, the communication goes up. With the prophet, the communication goes down. So with the prophet, God speaks to the prophet, and then the prophet speaks to the people. With the priest, however, the people come to the priest with their needs.

The priest ministers between the people and God, so the direction goes up. So both are intercessors, but the communication flows up one, down in the other, okay? So I'm trying to relate these Old Testament scriptures to today and the New Testament church to help us understand these things.

So don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I think you won't, but in a sense, a New Testament pastor does do both. We're not prophets, we're not priests, except that we're part of the priesthood of all believers.

But a pastor or a preacher acts as a prophet only in the sense that he's forth telling the word of God. God gave his word, we take his word, and we preach it to the people. And then there's the intercessory prayer where we pray on behalf of the people.

So maybe if that helps just in understanding all this. I've been thinking about a question that was asked last week that was a very good question. And I don't know if I adequately answered it, but you remember Emil had asked a question about what about ordination?

Because we were saying that a New Testament pastor or a bishop is not set apart like a priest was in the Old Testament. And he said, well, what about ordination? You're set apart in that way or you're ordained.

So I was thinking about that and I wanna take a moment or two. Acts 14, verse 23. Acts 14, 23, the King James Version uses this term ordained. It says that they ordained elders in every church. So we see that idea of ordination.

Next week, we're gonna look at Aaron's ordination and Aaron's son's ordination as priests. But yeah, Acts 14, 23, they ordained elders or pastors or bishops in every church. And then Paul said in 1 Timothy 1, 12, Paul said, I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has enabled me because he counted me faithful, putting me in the ministry.

So God put Paul in the ministry. And then later in chapter three, Paul speaks of pastors. If any man desires the position of bishop, he desireth a good work. Okay, so it's a calling really is what it is.

A New Testament pastor, it's a calling. So I would describe it this way. Remember what the Psalmist wrote, Psalm 37, delight yourself also in the Lord. He will give you the desires of your heart, right?

Well, and the other pastors in the room or men who have been ordained, you can relate to this, I'm sure. I believe God put that desire in my heart because there was a time where that was not something I was interested in.

That was not something I wanted to do. At some point, that would probably have been one of the last things I would have wanted to do. But then I began to delight myself in the Lord. And I believe, because it was really all of a sudden out of nowhere, he put that desire in my heart.

And then the Lord enabled me, like Paul says, I believe the Lord enabled me to do that work. God, the Holy Spirit or Christ through the Holy Spirit gives gifts as he would. So he has given you spiritual gifts.

And I believe that he gave me that gift of pastor and teacher. He gifted me in that area. My critics might disagree with that, but that's fine. But he called me into the ministry where we had to Emil's question, there was an ordination.

Okay, so when a Bishop is ordained in the New Testament Church, he receives what? What's the ordination? Laying on of hands. Yeah, back then it was taking some oil and pouring it on their head. We could still do that today, it'd be a little messy.

Of course they did lay, do the laying on of hands. We think of that in the New Testament. That's the ordination today. It's the laying on of hands. So pastors, when they are ordained, they receive the laying on of hands from other pastors.

And that's really an identification where these men who are already pastors are now recognizing, okay, he's now one of us. And we're doing this publicly laying on of hands to show that we approve of him.

God may call you to the ministry, or you may feel that God's calling you to the ministry, but if nobody else recognizes it, well, maybe he didn't call you. So when you receive the laying on of hands, that's showing that other pastors recognize the gift and the calling.

Okay, so any questions on that? No? All right, so while the New Testament pastor or bishop is not someone who's set up as some sort of special priest or mediator who must stand in between God and his people, instead, pastors are set aside to fulfill this calling that God has placed on their lives.

I don't know if that, that's the best I can do with the question from last week and this week, as far as ordination, the differences between Old and New Testament.

All right, yes, Dennis. Passage. I couldn't help but think about as I think about you as pastor praying. Again, yeah, the ability is there for all of us, but for your particular calling, it doesn't say prayer, but it says, for they watch out for your souls as those who must give an account.

And that's, I know, something that you take very dearly, and so there's a uniqueness in that that I think is obviously meant by God, because he's talking about the calling of the pastor, watching out for your souls.

I guess that's the shepherd thing.

Yeah. Yeah. And overseeing, yeah, all those words. Yeah, it's a responsibility.

And it weighs on you. At first, it really was pretty heavy at first. And I heard of, without getting into details, I heard of someone else who's currently going through that. And the first thing that hit them was the gravity of it.

And wow, I'm really responsible for a lot. And yeah, so yes, Linda.

Isn't it quite as simplistic as you felt. You were being called in, you've got a bunch of pastors coming in,.

Like, they examine you, and it's not just a Yeah, that's the shortened version I gave you, yeah. Yeah, that's called the trials.

Yeah, yeah, right? We've been through the trials. You know, it's funny, because if you look at Moses, and you look at Joseph, and you look at David, there were periods of a lot of, they felt called God, but yet, Moses spent 40 years in the desert before God said, okay, now I can use you.

So then in that 40-year period, there was a lot of discouragement, and there was a learning process. Moses, and David, and Joseph, and any of the other great men that we see in scripture had to go through a period of training.

And if anybody has ever felt the call of pastor, or I guess we're talking about pastor, and he said, you know, God wants to give you the desires of your heart. If you don't get that, if you don't get what you desire right away, there's that period of training, and it might be 40 years.

Yeah. I mean, that's kind of a, I mean, each individual had their own time period.

Well, the apostles were walking with Jesus for three and a half years before they really were on their own. And just one last thing on this, if anyone ever had that desire to be a pastor, you know, before you can rule in a local church, you need to first learn how to serve in a local church.

That's very important. Okay, let's continue on with the priestly garments. Next, we have the robe, Exodus 28, 31. And you shall make the robe of the ephod all of blue. So on the bottom here, you can see it right here.

There are the pomegranates. I had to check, like, did I read that correctly? Pomegranates, yes. And bells. So it would alternate pomegranate bell, pomegranate bell. So obviously it's just the shape. It's not an actual, it's fruit, right?

Pomegranate? Yeah. It's not very good from what I remember. Verse 35, and it shall be upon Aaron when he ministers, and its sound will be heard, the bell, when he goes into the holy place before the Lord, and when he comes out, that he may not die.

That's kind of strange. What's that about? All right, so the pomegranates were just decorative. This is for beauty, right? Glory and beauty. The bells actually serve a purpose. Basically, as long as the high priest was in the holy place, in the most holy place, as he moved around ministering, the people could hear him and kind of track his movements and tell, okay, he's still alive in there.

Now, why would that be an issue? Well, because if he did anything wrong, which we're gonna see when we get to Aaron's two sons, Nadab and Abihu, oh, the Lord won't mind if we'll just change the liturgy a little bit and just change, no.

If the high priest did something wrong, God would strike him dead. So as long as they heard the bells, they know Aaron's still alive. And there's this, and I don't know if this is a legend. I don't think this is in the scripture.

Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but yeah, there's this idea that they would tie a rope to his legs so when he was in the most holy place, if he did something wrong and the bells stopped ringing, Aaron's dead and no one's allowed in there, right?

So they had to, let's drag his body out. I don't, yeah, I think we've all heard that. It's not actually in the Bible, but it does seem to hint at least that there's the, yeah, there's the possibility that he would drop dead if he did something wrong.

You have to get him out of there somehow.

So it's possible. Yes, Larry. How many robes, ephods, and breast pieces did they have? Because they would have had to wait for a whole year for the next high priest before you all go in to retrieve.

Yeah, that'd be a bad situation. I don't think that ever happened. I don't think a high priest was ever, but the threat was there and it's all, hey, God is holy. God demands obedience and it got the point across.

So Matthew Henry writes about the robe. He said, the robe of the ephod was under the ephod and reached down to the knees without sleeves. Aaron must minister in the garments appointed. We must serve the Lord with holy fear.

So you hear about that and, you know, think about our service to God. We must also serve the Lord with holy fear as those who know they deserve to die. A gold plate was fixed over Aaron's forehead, engraven with the words, holiness to the Lord.

Aaron was hereby reminded that God is holy and that his priests must be holy and devoted to the Lord. And I didn't plan on mentioning this, but there's some things, you've probably seen some of this online, where like the new contemporary churches and the pastor's trying to be cool and just the shenanigans and the antics that go on in some churches today.

I would be afraid to do, I saw one pastor, he preached a Sunday morning sermon from a dumpster. Brought a dumpster right up on the stage and, well, anyways, that's a whole nother topic, but I'm thinking.

But Wody Slocum has a good segment on that on YouTube. And he denounces these people that are on the stage going through what you're just describing, all these antics, and they're labeled as worshipers.

Boy, can those people worship. And that's not what, and Wody has a lot to say about this.

Yeah, the guy in the dumpster, I do not know his name. I'm just thinking, Matthew Henry wouldn't have thought too highly of that. Preaching garbage, yes. Very good. That's almost as good as the slain in the spirit comment.

Ananias and Sapphira, they were slain in the spirit, yes. Okay, next is the woven tunic. Hey, we need to get serious. Holiness to the Lord here, okay? Next is the woven tunic, turban, and sash. Verses 39 and 40, you shall skillfully weave the tunic of fine linen thread.

You shall make the turban of fine linen, and you shall make the sash of woven work. For Aaron's sons, you shall make tunics, and you shall make sashes for them, and you shall make hats for them for glory and beauty.

So the tunic was an undergarment, as were the trousers, as we mentioned. That's in verse 42. So they're like undergarments. The turban was sort of like a crown. A crown slash headdress. Upon it were the words, holiness to the Lord.

And the sash underneath, maybe think of it as sort of like a belt to hold everything up. All right, so let's close with the mysterious items called the Urim and the Thumim. I know that's what you're waiting for.

That's kind of the highlight of the chapter. What are these things? Urim and the Thumim. Well, if you go on the internet and Google Urim and Thumim. Oh, all kinds of descriptions. Yeah, what comes up, and this means nothing, really, but a black stone, the most common response you get is a black stone and a white stone with like Hebrew letters on it.

Is that really what they were? Bottom line is nobody knows what they were. I think we have some indicators. And then there's some weird Mormon idea about the Urim and Thumim, which I'm sorry. Sorry I brought that up.

Yeah. But remember the stones are gems on the breastplate, right? The Urim and Thumim went inside of there. The stones represent the 12 tribes. So these items, the Urim and Thumim, apparently were a way to discern God's will for the children of Israel.

The word Urim means lights, and Thumim means perfection. So lights and perfections. That doesn't really clear it up. Matter of fact, that confuses me even more, I think. But you think of another way in the Old Testament, and even on the pages of the New Testament and the Book of Acts, there is another way or other objects that were used to discern God's will.

What were those objects? Casting lots. Yeah, right, casting lots. Okay, so people would discern God's will by the casting of lots. So there's some indication that there might be a connection. Of course, we don't really know what casting lots are either.

We kind of think of rolling dice, but nobody knows. That's the bottom line. Okay, the Urim and the Thumim. Here's what we do know. King Saul, when he went to consult the witch at Endor, why did he consult the witch?

Why did he stoop to that level? Because God wasn't talking to him anymore. The Lord was not responding to King Saul, it says, either through prophets or by dreams or through the Urim. So apparently Saul consulted the high priest who had the Urim to try to get an answer from God.

God wasn't speaking to Saul. So he resorted to seeking, it wouldn't have been God's will. That's the devil talking through the medium, but that's a whole other story. But yeah, that was sinful for him to do that.

Also in Ezra 2 .63 and Nehemiah 7 .65, the Bible talks about priests consulting the Lord by consulting the Urim and the Thumim. So here's the best explanation that I found, and I'll just read what John MacArthur writes about these items.

He said, Aaron and his successors bore over their heart the judgment of the children of Israel. So right, it's the breastplate of what? Breastplate of judgment, and that's judgment in the sense of giving a verdict or a decision.

In the passages in which the terms appear, Urim and Thumim, and those which record inquiries of the Lord when a high priest with the ephod was present, it allows for the following conclusion. So here's John MacArthur's conclusion, that the two objects represented the right of the high priest to request guidance for the acknowledged leader who could not approach God directly as Moses had done, but had come via the God-ordained priestly structure.

So Moses can go directly to God, right? Moses and God speak face-to-face. Once Moses is gone, Joshua didn't have that same privilege, and then from there, Israel's leaders could not approach God in the same way that Moses could.

So what they did was, apparently, that's the theory, they would go to the high priest, and the high priest would consult with the Lord through the Urim and the Thumim. So not just any Israelite could go to the priest, hey, tell me about this.

No, it's the leader of Israel through the high priest with the Urim and the Thumim. And obviously, when Saul, who's the leader, disobeyed God, God didn't communicate. So does that kind of give you an idea of how it all worked?

We don't know, but I think that's our best educated guess. All right, so trying to wrap this up now. Someone today, you might wish, and I admit, I've kind of thought this, wouldn't it be nice to have objects like this today, the Urim and the Thumim?

We can go and discern God's will, but of course, we don't need that. We believe that we can discern the will of God, actually, any of us. We don't even need to go through a man. We can all discern the will of God through two things, not the Urim and the Thumim.

We can discern God's will through His holy word and the Holy Spirit. So in conclusion, these garments were to show the set-apart nature of Aaron, God's first Levitical high priest, and the clothing he wore, again, were for glory and beauty.