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Purple
Have you ever taken on a job that was not nearly as glamorous as it first sounded? I worked at a flower shop for a few years and it was a much dirtier job than I thought. I imagined I would be arranging beautiful bouquets and making people deliriously happy when I delivered them with love. And it was some of that. But it was also dressy-enough-clothes-to-wait-on-customers getting dirty and wet and sticky from preparing the flowers for sale. It was thorn pricks all over my hands from the roses, and hot glue gun burns from the silk arrangements.
It's well known even today that purple is considered to be the color of royalty. Very similar to the history of blue yesterday (Day 3), the color purple was drawn from a snail--some say the same as the blue, some say a different version of snail. Either way, its believed it would take THOUSANDS of snails to make a tablespoon of dye. It was an elaborate process to extract the dye from the snail, therefore purple was very expensive and could only be afforded by the wealthy.
In Exodus 19, God had told Moses to tell the Israelites that, if they would carefully listen to God and keep His commandment, they would be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. So maybe they looked at the purple--the color of royalty, wealth, authority--and thought "well, yeah!" (But in Hebrew...) Exodus 19:3-6 Royal Priests
All the Israelites had known of royalty was from the Pharaoh and his family in Egypt. And while the Pharaohs worked, they mostly lived a life of luxury. They were highly revered and worshiped. Everything about them reflected that they considered themselves god on earth.
The tabernacle was a mobile dwelling place for the presence of God. As the Hebrews wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, the tabernacle would be packed up and taken with them. It was an honor but it was work. The priests--and ONLY THE PRIESTS--could take down the veil on moving day. They would take the veil and cover the ark of the testimony with it. Moving Day Even while being moved, the veil blocked the people from seeing the ark of the testimony, where the Presence of God dwelled.
I'm not trying to make the priests seem whiny, unhappy, ungrateful. They were serving Jehovah Mekoddishkem, the God who sanctifies them. Exodus 31:13 They were royalty unlike anything on earth to that point. But I wonder if they looked at the purple--woven into the tabernacle, woven into their clothes, woven into the veil-- and thought this job was not as glamorous as they thought. The ritual, ceremony, fanfare of daily life in the tabernacle as they gave God their best lay adjacent to the humility, meekness, obedience required as a priest to the Most High God. Not unlike the Royal One to come....💜
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