The Vestments
(Lev. 8:6-9)
After their selection, the washing
and clothing of the priests-to-be is the first order of business. The various fabrics
and waves used to cover the high priest correspond to those precious materials
and skilled methods of manufacture also used to make the veils in the
tabernacle. For instance, the blue-purple, red-purple, and red woolen threats
of rōqēm embroidery used for Aaron’s sash (Exod. 28:39) are the same
fabrics used in the tabernacle’s lower curtains and the same weave employed for
the screens at the tabernacle’s entrance (Exod. 26:36; 27:16). In fact, the
making of the high priests’ vestments suggestively concludes the account
relating the components of the tabernacle, as if these vestments were part of
that tabernacle itself (Exod. 39:1-31). The priest himself thus appears visibly
transformed into a living dwelling.
While rich priestly vesture was by
no means unique to Israel, in the ancient Near East it was not also not unknown
for priestly figures to serve in the sanctuary entirely unclothed. This
curiosity is seen, for instance, on multiple ancient plaques and reliefs
depicting ministers officiating in a state of ritual nudity (e.g., ANEP 597,
600, 603, 619). Against his background, God’s explicit commandment that Israel’s
priests must wear linen undershorts, and that those who build and ascent an
altar of stones (seemingly a private altar) must not thereby “uncover their nakedness,”
acquires a much more pointed cultural resonance (cf. Exodus 28:42; 20:26). An
undergarment covering the loins was not in fact a standard part of ancient
dress, and to this extent it is not irresponsible to suppose that a form of
sexual propriety explains this peculiar priestly girding: a kind of distant
forerunner to the Catholic priests’ symbolic cincture (praecinge me Domine,
cingulo puritatis, “Gird me, O Lord, with the belt of purity”). In
Leviticus 18:6-30 a long list of sexual sins will be prohibited using the same “uncovering
nakedness” formula evoked in Exodus 20, hinting at its moral force. Much later
in Ezra, when the priest’s marriage partners will be rigorously regulated, it
will become increasingly clear that the sexual existence of the priest stands
subject to special ritual legislation.
The priest’s liturgical garb
embodies in a certain way the priestly office itself, mysteriously made visible:
a man-shaped ritual space into which successive officeholders will enter. The
Talmud says, “When the priests are clothed in their vestments, their priesthood
is upon them; when they are not clothed in their vestments, their priesthood is
not upon them” (b. Zebaḥ. 17b). This, Aaron will eventually be stripped
of his vestments and they will be put upon his son Eleazar as a sign of the transfer
of the office (Num. 20:25-28); all subsequent high priests are likewise
commanded to don them (Exod. 29:30; see Lev. 21:10). Importantly, this
continuity of transmission of Aaron’s vesture/priesthood is prophetically interrupted
in the vision of Zechariah 3:1-5, when the high priest Joshua appears accused
by Satan and standing in filthy garments: an image of the priesthood and nation’s
accumulated uncleanness and sin. This Old Testament “Jesus” is then reclothed
in new festal apparel, indicative of a regenerated priesthood, linked to a
rebuilt temple. . . . If the priestly vestments somehow embody the whole
priestly office, two conjoined points of symbolic meanings must be mentioned.
These represent two poles, one human, one divine. First, the ephod, a curious
breastplate with twelve stones corresponding to the twelve tribes of Israel,
signals that the high priest somehow carries the corporate collectivity of God’s
people by his office. Second, the headdress and diadems that he wars, which carry
the inscription qōdeš lĕ-YHWH, “Holy to the LORD,” points to the priest’s
unique place within the divine realm. Both head and members of the whole Christ
(totus Christus), joined together in one body, and thus typologically signified
by the inherent symbolism of the vestments. (Anthony Giambrone, The Bible
and the Priesthood: Priestly Participation in the One Sacrifice for Sins [A
Catholic Biblical Theology of the Sacraments; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker
Academic, 2022], 45-46)
