Exodus 28

This chapter offers plenty of mouth-watering morsels for those with a passion for fashion, but alas, I do not count myself among those privileged few. The elaborate, meticulously described clothing reveals just how serious a duty it was to be a priest of God. Still is, in fact, but we no longer require our pastors to wear checkerboards of precious stones, or even modern suits or formalwear. Of course, I think it's more important for religious leaders to be spiritually mature than to be Mr. or Ms. Fancy Car Clothes; I personally don't care what a pastor wears, as long as it's not along the lines of a birthday suit.

But wearing a uniform or a particular set of clothing can make you feel different, as many an actor and Disneyland character will attest. When I'm in my pajamas, I feel like a lazy schlub, but when I'm dressed to the nines, as it were, in my best tux, I walk just a little straighter. And the people around you contribute to this effect by treating you just a little different. We do judge people by appearances to some extent, and changing what you wear is the easiest way for you to change how people react to your appearance. I'm well aware that my face could stop a clock (which is odd, as my parents and siblings are all good-looking--like Scar, I'm at the shallow end of the gene pool), but I can't change that. But my clothes I can change--but then again, I barely put any thought into what I wear anyway, so I don't know quite where I was going with this.

But getting back to the topic, the clothes that the Israelite priests wore probably did help them approach their holy tasks with just a bit more reverence. This was especially apt in the time before Jesus when a priest entering the Holy Place in the tabernacle could possibly be killed if he screwed something up. (The NIV Study Bible hypothesizes that the bells on the priests' ephods mentioned in verses 34 and 35 let those outside the Holy Place know that the priest was still alive. If the bells stopped, that probably wasn't a good sign.)

The breastplate contained four rows of three precious stones each, including turquoise (which used to be my favorite color back when "favorite colors" were the talk of the break room) and amethyst (which used to be my favorite gemstone back when males and females at my workplace wanted nothing to do with each other. I'm sure that we gave our boss a headache--imagine having to manage 30 employees split into two clans of 15, each of whom believes with fervent conviction that the other clan has some debilitating virus that can only be cured with a special shot.)

Anyway, when I read about the breastplate, I can't help but be reminded of that game Mastermind, with its colorful rows of four. It was one of those games that was always in the library of my previously mentioned workplace, but no one ever actually played it like you were supposed to. I think people just screwed around with the pegs, making colorful designs. As I remember, it was one of those torturous logic puzzles in game form. "Bob, an only child who never tells the truth, is sitting next to someone whose last name is Dead and three seats away from a man whose father is Bob's father's son. No one wearing a green cummerbund is sitting next to someone who only takes the elevator down. What is the bus driver's name?"

Ten Commandments ruminations will return tomorrow (or whenever I publish the next post). Tune in next time to find out whether I've stolen anything!