Exodus 39

Exodus 39:1-43

Exodus 39:26 The golden bells on this ephod, by their precious matter and pleasant sound, do well represent the good profession that the saints make; and the pomegranates the fruit they bring forth. And as, in the hem of the ephod, bells and pomegranates were constantly connected, as is once and again observed, there was a golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, so it is in the true saints. Their good profession and their good fruit do constantly accompany one another. The fruit they bring forth in life evermore answers the pleasant sound of their profession. — Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections (part iii.). Exodus 39:43 Though the gift of inspiring enthusiasm for duty and virtue is like other gifts, very unequally distributed among well-meaning persons, I do not believe that anyone who had himself an ardent love of goodness ever failed to communicate it to others. He may fail in his particular aims, he may use ill-devised methods, meet with inexplicable disappointments, make mistakes which cause him bitter regret; but we shall find that after all, though the methods may have failed, the man has succeeded; somewhere, somehow, in some valuable degree, he has— if I may use an old classical image— handed on the torch of his own ardour to others who will run the race for the prize of virtue. — Sir Leslie Stephen. Reference.— XL. 1-16.— A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—Exodus, etc., p. 223.