Trevor Laurence
The Gospels incorporate all sorts of little details intended to alert the well-trained reader to the depths of Jesus’ identity and work. One example: the seamless, untorn tunic at the cross.
John 19:23–24 offers a peculiarly specific account of the soldiers’ actions at Jesus’ crucifixion:
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.”
Of course, John may simply paint this particular scene to set up his quotation of Psalm 22:18. In the very next breath, he tells us, “This was to fulfill the Scripture which says, ‘They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.’” Clearly, the Evangelist wants us to interpret this dying man through the Davidic lens of Psalm 22. But there is more here.
In Exodus 28:31–32, the Lord gives detailed instructions for the high priest’s garments:
You shall make the robe of the ephod all of blue. It shall have an opening for the head in the middle of it, with a woven binding around the opening, like the opening in a garment, so that it may not tear.
And Leviticus 21:10 prohibits the high priest from tearing his clothes:
The priest who is chief among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil is poured and who has been consecrated to wear the garments, shall not let the hair of his head hang loose nor tear his clothes.
Together with these Old Testament texts, we might also consider Josephus’ description that the high priest’s robe “was not composed of two pieces, nor was it sewed together upon the shoulders and the sides, but it was one long vestment” (Ant. 3.161). The priestly robe designed to go untorn is of one piece, seamless.
Though the soldiers shame him by stripping off his garments, they do not tear his seamless tunic. Inadvertently, they participate in the revelation that the man hanging upon the cross is God’s great high priest and that Jesus’ death is far more than an execution.
In the Bible, a few small details can go a long way.
Trevor Laurence is the Executive Director of the Cateclesia Institute and the author of Cursing with God: The Imprecatory Psalms and the Ethics of Christian Prayer (Baylor University Press, 2022).
Image: Pier Francesco Mola, Aaron, High Priest of the Israelites, Holding a Censer