Bible Commentaries

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.—XL1-16.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— Exodus , etc, p223.