Wed.’s Devo - The Curious Girdle

Read Ex. 39:1-7 Today we are going to begin to construct the priest’s garment. The colors are gold, blue, purple, and scarlet which we’ve learned gold stands for wisdom and glory; blue - spiritual, purple - royalty; scarlet - blood and passion. They would take gold and beat it till it was just strands and weave it into the textile threads. The blue color came from crushing snails and smearing them into the thread and the red came from crushing an insect and the purple was a combination of the snail and the insect. What a picture of what Jesus went through on the cross. Is. 53 says “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” Jesus, like us, learned obedience by the things he suffered. 9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him; 10 Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec. (Heb. 5:8-10) Jesus was our high priest who rose to heaven to wear this robe and forever be our high priest. The ephod was the vest-like piece that was called the curious girdle. On the shoulder of this girdle was to be placed two onyx stones that have the children of Israel’s names engraged. The priest was to wear their representation before the Lord as intercession. When God looked down he saw them on the shoulders of the priest whose job it was to carry them as his burden before the Lord. I looked up the word “curious” in the Hebrew and it means to plot or contrive; value, compute; thing, consider, find out forecast, hold, imagine, invent, purpose. These were just a few of the adjectives for the word but we can get a picture of what the priest was to do. Jesus, as our high priest carries us on his shoulder and he values us so much he has considered us and plotted out and imagined our lives in a wonderful way that will bring us joy and him glory. Lord, I thank you that we have been grafted into your family and you live to intercede for us.