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[159]
The high priest is indeed adorned with the same garments that we
have described, without abating one; only over these he puts on a vestment
of a blue color. This also is a long robe, reaching to his feet, [in our
language it is called .Meeir,] and is tied round with a girdle,
embroidered with the same colors and flowers as the former, with a mixture
of gold interwoven. To the bottom of which garment are hung fringes, in
color like pomegranates, with golden bells 1
by a curious and beautiful contrivance; so that between two bells hangs
a pomegranate, and between two pomegranates a bell. Now this vesture was
not composed of two pieces, nor was it sewed together upon the shoulders
and the sides, but it was one long vestment so woven as to have an aperture
for the neck; not an oblique one, but parted all along the breast and the
back. A border also was sewed to it, lest the aperture should look too
indecently: it was also parted where the hands were to come out.
1 The use of these golden bells at the bottom of the high priest's long garment, seems to me to have been this: That by shaking his garment at the time of his offering incense in the temple, on the great day of expiation, or at other proper periods of his sacred ministrations there, on the great festivals, the people might have notice of it, and might fall to their own prayers at the time of incense, or other proper periods; and so the whole congregation might at once offer those common prayers jointly with the high priest himself to the Almighty See Luke 1:10; Revelation 8:3, 4. Nor probably is the son of Sirach to be otherwise understood, when he says of Aaron, the first high priest, Ecelus. 45:9, "And God encompassed Aaron with pomegranates, and with many golden bells round about, that as he went there might be a sound, and a noise made that might be heard in the temple, for a memorial to the children of his people."
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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