Charles Ellicott Commentary Exodus 28:2

"And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, for glory and for beauty." — Exodus 28:2 (ASV)

Holy garments. —Though holiness is, strictly speaking, a personal quality, yet all nations have felt it right to regard as “holy,” in a certain modified sense, all those material objects which are connected with religion and employed in the worship of God. Thus, we hear, both in Scripture and elsewhere, of “holy places,” “holy vessels,” “holy books,” “holy garments.” These last are required especially for the ministers in holy places, who need to be distinguished by some evident signs from the body of the worshippers.

In Egypt, the ministering priests in temples always wore distinctive attire; and probably there was no nation in the time of Moses which, if it possessed a class of priests, did not distinguish them by some special costume, at least when they were officiating. The natural instinct which thus exhibited itself received Divine sanction through the communications made to Moses on Sinai, by which special garments were appointed for both the high priest and the ordinary priests.

For glory and for beauty. —These words have great force. God intended His priests to be richly, as well as decently, clothed, for two objects:

1. For glory—to glorify them—to give them an exalted position in the eyes of the nation, to cause them to be respected, and their office to be highly regarded;
2. for beauty—to make the worship of the sanctuary more beautiful than it would otherwise have been, to establish a harmony between the richly-adorned tabernacle and those who ministered in it, to give the service of the sanctuary the highest artistic, as well as the highest spiritual, perfection.

The relation of art to religion is a subject on which volumes have been written, and which cannot be discussed here; but God’s regard for “beauty” is here brought prominently before us, and no honest exegesis can ignore the significant fact that when God was pleased to give directions for His worship on earth, they were made to serve not only utility and convenience, but also beauty. Beauty, it would seem, is not a thing despised by the Creator of the universe.