The Blue Stone

The pavement under God's feet, and the throne itself, are described in Scripture as sapphire. That one detail ties together the giving of the law, the blue thread in Israel's garments, the colors of the high priest, and a striking omission in Revelation 17.

A Pavement Like the Heavens

When Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders went up Sinai to confirm the covenant, Exodus 24:10 says they saw the God of Israel, and "there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity." They ate and drank there. A shared meal after a covenant was an old custom; the same pattern appears when Jesus seals the new covenant at the Last Supper.

Ezekiel sees the same material on the throne itself. "Above the firmament over their heads was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like a sapphire stone" (Ezekiel 1:26). Ezekiel 10:1 repeats it: a throne like a sapphire stone. The Hebrew word is sappir, traditionally understood as a deep blue stone, often identified with lapis lazuli, and the "clarity like the heavens" language fits that reading.

"And they saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity."

Exodus 24:10 (NKJV)

Tablets of The Stone

In the next breath the Lord tells Moses, "Come up to Me on the mountain and be there; and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them" (Exodus 24:12). Asscherick notes that the Hebrew has the definite article: tablets of the stone. The only stone named in the passage is the sapphire of verse 10. Exodus 32:16 adds that the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God.

That the tablets were cut from the throne stone itself is an inference, not an explicit sentence of Exodus. Later Jewish tradition states it directly. Louis Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews records the belief that Moses came down with tables "made of a sapphire-like stone," and that "the sapphire employed for the tables was taken from the throne of Glory" (Vol. 3, pp. 118–119; Vol. 6, p. 49). Useful as historical belief; not the same as the biblical text.

Those tablets were placed in the ark, beneath the mercy seat, between the cherubim, where the glory that represented God's presence met Israel. The law under the mercy seat is a picture of the same throne-and-law connection Ezekiel and Exodus describe.

Why the Thread Was Blue

Numbers 15:37–41 tells Israel to put a blue thread in the tassels on the corners of their garments, "that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them," and not follow the harlotry of their own hearts. The color is not explained in the verse. The connection Asscherick draws is that blue would recall the commandments because the commandments were associated with the sapphire stone.

Exodus 28:31–33 dresses the high priest in blue, with pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet, and bells of gold. Blue is the color that points back to the law.

The Color That Is Missing

Revelation 17 pictures an unfaithful woman seated on a scarlet beast. In prophecy a woman stands for a church and a beast for a kingdom, so the scene is an unfaithful church in league with civil power. She is "arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls" (Revelation 17:4). Purple, scarlet, and gold are three of the high priest's colors. Blue is absent. Asscherick's reading is that the missing color is the missing law: she wears the priestly palette but not the color tied to the commandments.

Revelation 14:12, in the same book, describes God's last-day people as those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. The contrast is intentional.

What the Law Is For

The law is a mirror, not soap. James calls it "the perfect law of liberty" (James 1:25). Look into it and you see God's righteousness and your own lack of it: "There is none who does good, no, not one" (Romans 3:12). The mirror shows the bean on the tooth; it does not scrub the tooth. Its work is to drive us to a Savior.

Nothing in the New Testament invites us to discard the commandments one by one. The change is not which words remain, but why they are kept. We do not keep the law in order to be saved. We keep it because we are saved, and because God gives power to do what the mirror required. The law does not save. Only Jesus does.

"Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."

Revelation 14:12 (KJV)