The colours of the holy garments of Aaron as priest to God, blue and purple and scarlet, remind me of the veins and arteries in the body and the twined linen of skin and the gold of God the creator who is entwined in our making. We are precious to God in all our being and inseparable from his life and love though we are free to reject Him and ignore HIm and even to hate Him because he is a just God and has given us free will, the right to choose freely.

Some might say but God is not just because He has not been made known to everyone. God chose the church and the nation of the Israelites to make Him known but we have done very poorly in this mission. Nevertheless, God has made Himself known to all people through creation, the heavens and the earth and everything in them which he made, so no one has an excuse not to respond to Him.

The ephod is made with the stones marked with the names of the sons of Israel set on the shoulders of the ephod, so that Aaron carries them as a shepherd carries a lamb on his shoulders and as all things in Scripture point to Jesus, we know that He is carrying us on His shoulders as our great High Priest continually before the face of God interceding for us and as he died on the cross, He carried us on his shoulders as he stretched out his arms for us.

Notice that the ephod and the breastplate are joined together, "and they bind the breastplate by its rings unto the rings of the ephod, with a ribbon of blue, to be above the girdle of the ephod and the breastplate is not loosed from off the ephod,". They are inseparable.

Note also that the wreathed chains of the breastplate, and the rings are made of pure gold, for it is God himself who carries us in His heart and on His shoulders, all our sins and griefs to bear, and to delight in us as a father delights in his child, twirling in a dance of joy over us.

We are precious stones, even as the twelve sons of Israel were represented by individual precious stones each marked with their name, as we who respond to the call, who rise up and follow Him, are also. "I have called you by name. You are mine." Isaiah 43:1

If we hold fast to Jesus to the end, in the strength of the Holy Spirit overcoming the evil we are confronted with, we will be given a new name, even as Jacob was, and be as a white stone engraved with a new name that no one knew except him who is receiving it. (Revelation 2:17) and as priests of God, be "Holy to Jehovah" (Exodus 39:30)