Manna Moments

Clothed in White: The Testing of the Priests

Alfred Edersheim, in The Temple: Its Ministry and Services in the Days of Christ, explains that candidates for the priesthood in Jesus’s day had to meet strict qualifications. The very first requirement was to prove their genealogy. Records kept in the archives at Zipporim were carefully examined, and if a man’s lineage could not be verified, he was clothed in black and dismissed. But if his father’s name was found, he advanced to the next stage, where the court inspected him for any physical defects. Those who passed were clothed in white, and their names were formally recorded.

This practice echoes the promise of Revelation 3:5: “He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.”