And the second row, an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond.
Exodus 39:11 names the emerald, the sapphire, and the diamond as the three stones in the second row of the high priest's breastplate. That breastplate, also called the breastpiece and the breastplate of judgment, was his most sacred vestment, whose twelve stones bore, represented, and were engraved with the names of the tribes of Israel, with the precious stones forming the border around them.
The verse belongs to the account of preparing, fitting, making, building, and setting up the Tabernacle, which was set up on the first day of the first month of the second year after the Exodus. That building and setting up in Exodus 33-40 comes in chronological order after the events of Exodus 19-32 and immediately after the instruction concerning the sanctuary in Exodus 25-31 given to Moses in the mount. It carries out those explicit directions with all furniture and equipment done just as God directed, in a completed account upon which blessing and glory came down upon the congregation and the building, by craftsmanship that was possible in the ancient world.
It is part of the directions for building and the description of the marvelously beautiful sanctuary structure in Exodus 25-40, the detailed instructions for constructing Israel's sanctuary as the dwelling place God asked them to make so He could dwell among them. The sanctuary was a great, multiple object-lesson given after Israel's deliverance from Egyptian bondage to comprehend in its forms and rites the great plan of salvation, because hundreds of years of slavery had unfitted Israel to comprehend God's great salvation and the character He required. It was to be built from free-will offerings of all that would be used in building, by workmen specially endowed by God for the work, according to the divine pattern given to Moses in the mount.
The verse belongs to the full description of the earthly sanctuary and its furnishings from Exodus 25 to the end of Exodus, which served as a pattern pointing to the heavenly sanctuary and Christ's work as High Priest. That description sets out the two kinds of ceremonies performed by different persons at different times in separate apartments for the errors of the people and pointing to the remedy for sin. The breastplate's precious stones corresponded to stones in the foundations of the city of God.
The breastplate illustrates Christ, the great High Priest, bearing the name of every repentant, believing soul on his heart. The wearing of that breastplate in the tenth-day atonement of the house of Israel shadowed the investigative judgment of the house of God, in which the cases of the saints dead and living are decided before the first resurrection while Jesus offers His blood for the blotting out of sins. The verse is part of the law of Moses commanded through Moses in Horeb with the statutes and judgments, which includes the Ten Commandments together with civil regulations, laws of sacrifices and offerings, laws of conduct, health laws, ceremonial laws and moral laws. In the last days God's people are called to remember it with the rest of Exodus 20 to 40 and Leviticus, not the Ten-Commandment law alone but also the offerings, sacrifices and types, so the substance of the new dispensation may be traced from the shadows of the old.
Exodus 39:11 names the emerald, the sapphire, and the diamond as the three stones in the second row of the high priest's breastplate. That breastplate, also called the breastpiece and the breastplate of judgment, was his most sacred vestment, whose twelve stones bore, represented, and were engraved with the names of the tribes of Israel, with the precious stones forming the border around them.
The verse belongs to the account of preparing, fitting, making, building, and setting up the Tabernacle, which was set up on the first day of the first month of the second year after the Exodus. That building and setting up in Exodus 33-40 comes in chronological order after the events of Exodus 19-32 and immediately after the instruction concerning the sanctuary in Exodus 25-31 given to Moses in the mount. It carries out those explicit directions with all furniture and equipment done just as God directed, in a completed account upon which blessing and glory came down upon the congregation and the building, by craftsmanship that was possible in the ancient world.
It is part of the directions for building and the description of the marvelously beautiful sanctuary structure in Exodus 25-40, the detailed instructions for constructing Israel's sanctuary as the dwelling place God asked them to make so He could dwell among them. The sanctuary was a great, multiple object-lesson given after Israel's deliverance from Egyptian bondage to comprehend in its forms and rites the great plan of salvation, because hundreds of years of slavery had unfitted Israel to comprehend God's great salvation and the character He required. It was to be built from free-will offerings of all that would be used in building, by workmen specially endowed by God for the work, according to the divine pattern given to Moses in the mount.
The verse belongs to the full description of the earthly sanctuary and its furnishings from Exodus 25 to the end of Exodus, which served as a pattern pointing to the heavenly sanctuary and Christ's work as High Priest. That description sets out the two kinds of ceremonies performed by different persons at different times in separate apartments for the errors of the people and pointing to the remedy for sin. The breastplate's precious stones corresponded to stones in the foundations of the city of God.
The breastplate illustrates Christ, the great High Priest, bearing the name of every repentant, believing soul on his heart. The wearing of that breastplate in the tenth-day atonement of the house of Israel shadowed the investigative judgment of the house of God, in which the cases of the saints dead and living are decided before the first resurrection while Jesus offers His blood for the blotting out of sins. The verse is part of the law of Moses commanded through Moses in Horeb with the statutes and judgments, which includes the Ten Commandments together with civil regulations, laws of sacrifices and offerings, laws of conduct, health laws, ceremonial laws and moral laws. In the last days God's people are called to remember it with the rest of Exodus 20 to 40 and Leviticus, not the Ten-Commandment law alone but also the offerings, sacrifices and types, so the substance of the new dispensation may be traced from the shadows of the old.