“You are to weave the tunic from fine linen, make a turban of fine linen, and make an embroidered sash. Make tunics, sashes, and headbands for Aaron’s sons to give them glory and beauty. Put these on your brother Aaron and his sons; then anoint, ordain, and consecrate them, so that they may serve me as priests. Make them linen undergarments to cover their naked bodies; they must extend from the waist to the thighs. These must be worn by Aaron and his sons whenever they enter the tent of meeting or approach the altar to minister in the sanctuary area, so that they do not incur guilt and die. This is to be a permanent statute for Aaron and his future descendants.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

My church hired a new youth minister when I was in 7th grade. His name was Tim, and he had an enormous impact on my faith growth and development. As part of his interview process (although, I think it was more of a formality for the sake of us kids), they let the whole youth group do a question and answer session with him. I don’t remember any of the questions save one. One girl raised her hand, and when given the floor, asked, “Boxers or briefs?” The room erupted in laughter, and everybody learned just how much fun the next couple of years were going to be. One last part of the priestly garment description here. Let’s wrap up this chapter by talking about some holy underwear.

We’ll come back to the “linen undergarments” in just a minute, but they aren’t the only thing going on here. The first part of this section offers a summary of the less decorative and more functional parts of the priestly costume. These were the tunic to which everything else was attached, the turban (which gets noted again since the previous part about the turban didn’t actually make much of a mention of the turban itself), and a decorate sash to bring everything together. Being more basic than things like the ephod, breastpiece, or robe, they don’t get much in the way of a description. Everybody knew what these looked like. They didn’t need to be fancy. The rest of it was fancy enough.

The description here goes on to mention Aaron’s sons again for the first time since the beginning of the chapter. As far as we can tell, they would not be receiving an ephod, breastpiece, robe, or turban with an engraved gold seal in their duties as regular, day-to-day priests. They just got the parts listed here. Yet even in their simpler garb, they were still to be dressed for the same purposes as the high priest’s more elaborate costume: “to give them glory and beauty.” As we talked about before, this was intended to be a reflection of God’s glory and beauty, but the point was to identify them clearly as set apart from the rest of the people in their service to the Lord.

Once everybody was dressed, three things were yet to happen before they were set loose to do their duties. The first was that they were to be anointed. The anointing here would have likely been done with the sacred oil that will be described in chapter 30. Anointing like this is something that featured in many different religious traditions, and still does in some form or fashion in many still today. The idea was that as the oil pours over you, you are being symbolically cleansed from your sins so that you are pure and holy to be able to stand before the Lord to serve Him in some special capacity.

The second thing that was to happen was that they were to be ordained. The Hebrew word here literally means, “fill their hands.” To ordain someone is to specifically set him aside for a particular task, and to formally give him the authority to complete that task to the extent he is able (in this case with God’s abiding help). After being cleansed, the priests were to be officially directed to begin their work.

The third thing was perhaps the most important, and it was one that had to happen before they could actually start their work. They had to be consecrated, or set apart as holy. This would happen by way of the variety of sacrifices and offerings to be described in the next chapter. Here is where all of their sins would be covered so they could actually enter into the presence of the Lord. Without this step, all the anointings and ordinations in the world wouldn’t matter.

The very last part of the description of the priestly garments, then, draws our attention to something to which they didn’t want any attention drawn. Underneath everything else the priests were to put on was a pair of underpants. Okay, they were technically boxer briefs, not whitey-tighties. Being woven out of fine linen, they were probably pretty comfortable. The insinuation here is that linen undergarments like these were not something most people wore in that day. Apparently most people (or at least most guys) just went commando most of the time. That doesn’t sound particularly comfortable to me, but in a hot, desert climate, maybe it made things more tolerable than the alternative. I don’t honestly know.

As for why God went out of His way to direct the priests to wear a special set of briefs whenever they entered the tent of meeting (that is, the tabernacle) or approached the altar to minister in the sanctuary area, we don’t actually know. There are plenty of guesses out there – some of which are better than others – but these are ultimately guesses. The altar nor the tent of meeting were elevated above the rest of the people, so it’s not like anyone was going to be able to see up their tunics when they were doing their priestly work. Perhaps these were put in place for when the temple would later be built and things were a little more elevated. Some commentators suggest this was to further set the religious exercises of the Israelites apart from the various pagan nations around them that incorporated nakedness and sexuality into their worship practices. In the end, though, we don’t know. God considered this extra assurance of modesty something of sufficiently significant importance that He emphasized it. A lot. So the priest wore briefs.

So then, what does any of this mean for us? Well, directly speaking, not a whole lot. As an ordained minister of the Gospel, I don’t plan on changing up my regular Sunday-morning getup based on a careful study of Exodus 28. I’m especially not going to change anything about what I wear on Wednesday nights which are more casual than Sunday mornings. And thankfully, I don’t have to. The clothing described in this chapter isn’t for me to wear. It was for Israel’s priests to wear. We don’t need them anymore. Their work and the reason for it has been fulfilled and replaced by someone and something surpassingly greater than anything they ever could have achieved in their wildest dreams.

And this is just as God always planned for it to be. In fact, as we have talked about, all of these various garments have all contained subtle pointers forward toward Jesus and His greater ministry under the new covenant God would make with us through Him. Living under this new covenant is a very good thing. If you haven’t experienced it, I would very much encourage you to consider it. It is harder in some ways than whatever version of old covenant living you are currently trying to use. Works-based approaches to righteousness are all variations of the old covenant. This doesn’t mean they are all from God (they’re not), or that they were ever as effective as the Law (they aren’t), but works-based approaches to righteousness are all variations on the same basic theme, and they are all fundamentally different from grace-based approaches to righteousness of which there has only ever been one: the new covenant in Christ. But the new covenant is also much, much simpler than whatever approach you are currently using. Just acknowledge who Jesus is, put your trust in Him, and He’ll take care of the rest. That’s as simple as you could ask for. And its results are guaranteed. Put your trust in the high priest who can truly get the job done. You won’t regret it.