The same society that gave us a woven house of worship also gave us a design for vestments for the clergy for the House of Israel. Even the sewing pattern is prescribed in Exodus 28. This chapter begins by limiting the wearers of the vestments to the males of a certain family. Therefore, the vestments created a still more uniform appearance among the males in that family (the line of Aaron), distinguishing them as the mediators between God and man in the Tabernacle. Confining the priesthood to one family might have also saved a lot of tailoring, since members of the same family tend to be within a certain size range.
The whole twenty-eighth chapter of exodus is taken up with liturgical design for the priests' clothing. The purpose of the vestments is noteworthy: they are to be made "for glory and for beauty....garments to consecrate him (the priest) that he may minister unto Me in the priest's office."
The liturgical garments are named and described thus: 1. Ephod. The ephod is made like a modern jumper, a panel for the front of the body with straps that attach it at the shoulder to the back panel. The fabric for the ephod was to be the same as that used for the hangings of the Tabernacle: blue, purple and scarlet "fine-twined linen." On each of the ephod's shoulder straps at their joining, was an engraved stone set in a gold buckle. Each of the two stones was engraved with the names of six of the twelve tribes of Israel "for a memorial."
2. Breastplate. Suspended from the buckles of the ephod there was a breastplate on gold chains "of wreathen work." The breastplate marked the priest as a person who judged the people of Israel to keep them in compliance with Mosaic Law. On the breastplate was a piece of "cunning work" -- an embroidered emblem. The foundation material for the breastplate was the usual blue, purple and scarlet linen with gold thread forming the emblem on the breastplate, repeating the color scheme of the Tabernacle curtains. The fabric background was folded into double-thickness into the form of a nine-inch square. Four rows of stones were set into the embroidered design.
The top row of jewels included a ruby, a topaz, and a rounded red stone called a carbuncle. The second row boasted an emerald, a sapphire and a diamond. The third row a jacinth, an agate and an amethyst. The fourth row consisted of a beryl, an onyx and a jasper. Each of these twelve stones was set in gold and then worked into the embroidered design. Each stone bore the name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel.
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