SPEAK UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, AND BID THEM THAT THEY MAKE THEM FRINGES

We are not specifically told that the giving of this command was directly linked to the case of the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath day, vv. 32-36, but it is certainly significant that it follows a section dealing with failure to observe all the commandments of the Lord, vv. 22-23, embracing sins of ignorance, vv. 24-29, and wilful sin, vv. 30-31. We could say that in the incident of the man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day we see the severity of God, how ‘every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward’, Heb. 2. 2, while in the command to make fringes to their garments we see the goodness of God, a divine provision that the people might never forget His precepts and their responsibility before Him.

The fringes consisted of four tassels each with a cord of blue, v. 38. These hung from the four corners of the outer garment, Deut. 22. 12, and were given as an aid to memory and an incen­tive to action: ‘that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them’. The cord of blue, a colour readily associated with heaven, would perhaps recall the divine origin of the Law, that these were ‘commandments of the Lord’, obedience to which would be a preservative from sin ‘that ye seek not after your own heart’, v. 39, and would produce holiness of life, v. 40, conduct consistant with the people’s rela­tionship to God and their redemption by Him, v. 41.

It is still God’s desire that the minds of His people be stirred up ‘by way of remembrance’, that they might be mindful of the words of the holy prophets and the commandments of the apos­tles, 2 Pet. 3. 1-2. What place does the word of God have in your life? Could you say, with the writer of Psalm 119, ‘Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee’, v. 11, and ‘I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word’, v. 16? In Psalm 1 the ‘Blessed man’ is one whose ‘delight is in the law of the Lord’ and who meditates therein ‘day and night’, v. 2. When you close your Bible after this daily reading, is it likely to be the last time your thoughts are occupied with the word of God today?