Exodus 26:31

WEB

"You shall make a veil of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, with cherubim. The work of the skillful workman shall it be made.

KJV

And thou shalt make a vail of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen of cunning work: with cherubims shall it be made:

Commentary

And thou shalt make a vail,.... The use of this, as follows, was to divide the holy place from the most holy place in the tabernacle; it has its name from hardness, it being very stiff and strong, for it was made of thread six times doubled, and was four fingers thick, as the Jewish writers say: this vail may represent the sin of man, which separates between God and man, was removed by the death of Christ when the vail was rent, and so the way to heaven opened; or the obscurity of the legal dispensation, the Gospel being veiled under the shadows of the law, and the way into the holiest of all then not so manifest, and particularly the ceremonial law, which separated between Jew and Gentile, and is now abolished by the death of Christ; or rather it was typical of the human nature of Christ, his flesh, called in allusion to it the vail of his flesh, Heb 10:20 . This vail was made of blue, and purple, and scarlet, of fine twined linen of cunning work; it seems to have been made of the same materials, and in the same curious manner of workmanship with the curtains of the tabernacle, Exo 26:1 , and was itself no other than a curtain, and so it is interpreted by some Jewish writers (x). It being made of "fine linen" denotes the purity of Christ, of his nature, life, and righteousness; of "twined linen", his strength, courage and steadiness; "of blue, purple, and scarlet", the several graces of the Spirit, with which his human nature was adorned, his flaming zeal for his Father's glory and the good of his people, his bloody wounds, sufferings, and death, the preciousness of his blood, the dignity of his person, and his glorious exaltation, purple and scarlet being the colours wore by kings: with cherubim shall it be made; signifying either the ministration of angels to him in his incarnate state, or the mission of Gospel ministers by him, see Psa 139:15 . (x) Vid. R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 37. 2.