"You shall make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it, like the engraving of a signet, ‘Holy to the Lord.’ And you shall fasten it on the turban by a cord of blue. It shall be on the front of the turban. It shall be on Aaron's forehead" (Ex 28:36-38a NIV)
These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. (Dt 6:6-8)
The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God. (Nu 15:37-40)
I promised to post on the connection between the word of God and the colour blue. Here it is.
Aaron was to have a plate bound to his forehead by a cord of blue. It had the word of God - "Holy to the Lord" engraved upon it. In a parallel analogy, the Lord commanded the people through Moses to have the word of God bound upon their foreheads.
The blue cord appears again in the curious commandment about the tassels. Here the blue chord and the tassel were again to remind them of all that the Lord had spoken to them, that they would obey it and be holy to the Lord.
Slightly more tenuously, perhaps, a blue cord is reminiscent of a river. When God speaks it is often described like the "roar of many waters." This takes us back to the four rivers that flowed out of Eden. There is more to be said here too, which I will write in another post.
[Again, just to stress: this is not meant to be taken as a rigorous theological basis for the meaning of the colour blue in the scriptures , but I trust it does lend weight to my association of this colour with the revealed word of God.]
3 comments:
Chris - for sometime now I have looked into the variety of colours and the meaning thereof. It is amazing that God gives us a greater dimension to his word when we look into it.
If you go back a couple of chapter, in Ex 24 we find that blue is connected with that which is holy in God's service. I'm not certain about this but I think that the background to Judah's flag was blue. I'll let you make the link to Christ in the NT being holy.
Also I think that you have already pointed out in your previous post that Joseph had a coat of many colours, which encompasses all the colours of the rainbow, and Joseph being a foreshadow of Christ, gives us another link here.
Once final point is that the rainbow has all the colours in it. Gods covenant covers the seven colours, beginning with red and ending with purple, God was displaying a natural miracle that demonstrated the complete redemption and salvation of man.
If we first look at colours in the natural world of art, we have three primaries; red, yellow and blue. These cannot be formulated by mixing. They come from the earth; but with these three colours, and the addition of black and white, any shade of the spectrum can be obtained.
In this fact alone lies a thought provoking, scriptural principle!
White is the colour that is comprised of all the colours of the spectrum. Refraction of white light produces the rainbow colours which consist of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo (purple), violet. Other colours consist of the infrared and Ultraviolet spectrum Infrared and Ultraviolet represent that which is unseen.
The rainbow represents the promises of God and was a sign of the covenant that God would never again flood the earth with water: "I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth... .. the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh." Gen 9:13,15
The rainbow signifies the glory, majesty and honour of the Lord Jesus Christ "One sat on the throne. And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald." (Rev 4:2-3)
Look foward to all the other colours, great post and sorry if I've gone on a bit
Richard
Hello Chris,
I have recently had a vision about the blue cord. My boyfriend ended our relationship after 7.5 months of heavy dating. Many have said that I should get over him and move on with my life. But we might through a mutual friend..had never seen each other even though we lived in the same city for over 12 years....I love him to peices and on Friday 11/21 my girlfriends tried to rip my picture of him up (as to help me move on)...however I had a vision that night and my boyfriend had asked me to come get him from the airport...(even though we were broken up) and we went back to a house (maybe our house)...when I picked him up he had about 3 of my church hats on and we laughed about it...when we got to the house I went to the bathroom and there was something in my teeth...I started to pull it and it was a blue cord (royal blue) and it wouldn't stop coming. i finally had to cut. I went back and the scripture that I found was in Exodus and I am beginning that the cord means covenant...but I wonder what the relationship of the cord is to my ex-boyfriend? Maybe you can help me.
Tomeka
Hi Tomeka,
It sounds as if this situation is still very emotional for you. In situations like this it is very hard to be objective and to hear God clearly. The temptation is just to interpret things to say what you want them to say.
That's one of the blessings of being part of a body. God gives us friends along side us, and pastors who watch over us.
As I don't know you or your situation, the only advice I can give you is to listen to your friends and submit yourself to the guidance of your pastor. They are the ones who love you, want the best for you and who know all the details.
The context of the blue cord in Numbers 15 was to remind the people to submit themselves to God rather than chasing after the desires of their own hearts.
If you put God first above all other desires and seek his kingdom and live by his word, then he will surely lead you through this valley of Baca to a place of strength and peace on the other side. Just let him do it his way.
Every blessing
Chris
Post a Comment