Numbers 15: The Tzitzit

After the failure of the spies, who saw themselves as grasshoppers, and after the Lord condemned the generation that came out of Egypt for their lack of vision, the Lord gave the commandment to wear blue tzitzit (fringes) on the corners of their garments:

The theme of these chapters is vision: the spies' lack of vision and the fear of the people who believed their report (Numbers 13-14). The entire generation older than twenty years old would not enter the promised land because of their inability to see. The tzitzit becomes the peripheral correction.

There is so much encoded in the type of the tzitzit, so many things I had missed and never knew about it. But in context, there are some remarkable types and applications for us to learn. Here are some thoughts from a little research:

The word צִיצִת (tzitzit) has several meanings recognized by the rabbinic tradition. The root צִיץ (tzitz) carries three distinct but interconnected ideas, and the tzitzit absorbs all three.

First meaning: צִיץ as a flower or blossom. The same word is used for the budding of Aaron's rod in Numbers 17:8 (וַיֹּצֵא פֶרַח וַיָּצֵץ צִיץ, "it brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms"). The word is also used for the wild flowers of the field in Isaiah 40:6 ("all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower (tzitz) of the field").

The same word is used for the golden plate on the high priest's forehead, which is called the צִיץ הַזָּהָב (tzitz hazahav, "the plate of gold," Exodus 28:36). The high priest wears a tzitz on his forehead inscribed "Holy to YHWH." Every Israelite wears a tzitzit at the corner of his garment. The plate and the fringe are linguistically the same word. The high-priestly identity is being decentralized and encrypted in every garment of Israel.

The first meaning represents the idea of blossom, that in "seed form," all Israel is a holy high priest in potential. Holy to the Lord (Numbers 15:40).

Second meaning: צִיץ as something that gleams or sparkles. In Songs 2:9, the verb מֵצִיץ מִן־הַחֲרַכִּים (metzitz min hacharakim) appears, meaning "showing himself through the lattice". The bridegroom is glimpsed through the lattice (door/window).

In Rabbinic tradition, he is "tzitz-ing." The flash, the gleam, the revelation through a window. The tzitzit is something that catches the eye (deep blue), that flashes at the periphery of vision, that gleams when the garment moves.

This is the idea of the revelation as an unveiling of the Christ. The bridegroom is not yet fully present, yet He shows Himself through the lattice. He gleams. He flashes. The full presence is reserved for the wedding feast. But the fringe is the foretaste, the gleam.

Third meaning: צִיץ as a lock of hair or a tassel. Ezekiel 8:3 uses the related word: וַיִּקָּחֵנִי בְּצִיצִת רֹאשִׁי (vayikkacheni b'tzitzit roshi), "and he took me by a lock of my head".

Here, tzitzit means a lock of hair on the head. The fringe of the garment shares its name with the fringe of the hair. The body itself, in its hair, has tzitzit. The garment is being patterned after the body. The fringes hang from the corners of the cloth the way locks hang from the corners of the head. The garment becomes a kind of second body, or endowment.

This is from Brown Driggs:

Feminine of H6731; a floral or wing-like projection, that is, a forelock of hair, a tassel:—fringe, lock. (Brown-Driver-Briggs Dictionary).

The tzitzit is feminine in nature. Traditionally, men wear tzitzit, and women don't because they embody them in the locks of their hair. This represents the feminization of Israel as the bride of YHWH.

Christ holds all things together (Colossians 1:17).

Etimologically, the three meanings are unified in one word: the priestly diadem, the gleam of the bridegroom, the lock of hair. The tzitzit carries all three simultaneously. It is priestly, bridal, and bodily at once.

The rabbinic tradition holds that the word tzitzit, numerically (Gematria), adds up to 613. This is the traditional number of the commandments of the Torah. The tzitzit represents "The whole law." That is why it was "a reminder of all the commandments of the LORD." (Numbers 15:39). That ye may remember, and do all my commandments (Numbers 15:40)

This also represents the entire Torah condensed into one thread. Amulek perhaps was using the example of the tzitzit in Alma 34:

Christ is the thread. Every whit point, every hair, everything is locked in and by Christ.

Jesus himself used the tzitzit type to condense the law to: love the Lord with all your heart... and thy neighbor as thyself... On these two commandments HANG all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40).

The tzitzit are not about multiplying comments but about remembering why we keep all the commandments in the first place. Without the meaning, the law is dead.

Going full circle with the visual aspect of the tzitzit, all condensed to a thread, is the "eye single" (Matthew 6:22, Mormon 8:15, Doctrine and Covenants 27:2, 82:19). Is only when the eye is single that we can receive the Kabod, God's glory, and become full of light (D&C 88:67), which is exactly what the tzitzit represents.

The blue thread (פְּתִיל תְּכֵלֶת, p'til t'khelet) is itself a mindblowing type. First as color, is highly stimulated for the eye.

Second, similar to the crimson worm (tolaw), which produces the red dye, the blue dye comes from a specific Mediterranean sea snail called the chilazon in rabbinic tradition (Murex trunculus).

The dye produced by this snail undergoes a remarkable chemical transformation: when first extracted, it is colorless. When exposed to sunlight, it only then turns blue.

The dye literally requires sunlight to turn blue! The thread that hangs at the corner of every Israelite's garment comes from the "substance" of a sea creature that gives up its blood, and the blood, when exposed to light, becomes blue, the color of the throne of glory (Ezekiel 1:26).

See the pattern:

This is drawn from the depths of the sea (the chilazon lives at the bottom). Christ descended below all things (D&C 88:6). Extracted through the death of the snail, the dye substance comes from Christ's sacrifice. Activated by sunlight, the dye turns blue only when exposed to light. Christ ascended above all things and became the sun of righteousness (Malachi 4:2)

This is what is worn at the corner of the garment. The law only has substance because of Christ's atoning blood.

The Talmud (Menachot 44a) mentions the visual element of the tzitzit: "Anyone who is meticulous about the mitzvah of tzitzit will merit to greet the face of the Shekhinah."

The visible blue thread produces the privilege of seeing the invisible glory. The discipline of the garment-vision trains the soul for the throne-vision. You learn to see by looking at the thread; eventually, the same trained eye will see the throne itself.

The Hebrew word for the "corner" of the garment where the tzitzit hangs is כָּנָף (kanaf). Kanaf means "wing." It is the standard word for a bird's wing: eagles' wings, the wings of the cherubim over the mercy seat (Exodus 25:20), the wings of the seraphim in Isaiah 6:2. The same repeated word in Psalms "the shadow of thy wings" (Psalms 17:8, 36:7, 57:1, 63:7, 91:4).

When God offers protection, He offers the shadow of His kanaf. When the tzitzit is commanded to hang from the kanaf of the garment, the fringe hangs from the wing. Every Israelite, by wearing the tzitzit, is carrying small wings at the corners of his body. The body is being made into a quasi-cherubic structure. The corners of the garment become the wings that symbolize divine protection.

Kanaf means "covering" in the sense of protection or marriage. When Boaz takes Ruth as his wife, she asks him: "spread therefore thy skirt (kanaf) over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman" (Ruth 3:9).

To "spread your wing over" a woman is to take her in marriage. Ezekiel uses the same image of YHWH and Israel: "I spread my skirt (kanaf) over thee, and covered thy nakedness... and thou becamest mine." (Ezekiel 16:8). Marriage is kanaf-spreading. The fringe hangs at the corner of the bridal covering. The tzitzit are the marriage tassels, the corners of the canopy that cover the bride. This is why, in some traditions, the marriage chuppah in later Jewish practice is a tallit (a fringed garment) held over the heads of the bride and groom.

Malachi 4 is the transition chapter from the Old Testament to the New. Verse 2 prophesies:

But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. (Malachi 4:2)

The word for "wings" here is kenafayim, the dual form of kanaf (two wings).

The Sun of righteousness has wings, and healing is in those wings. The sunlight is what gives the blue color to the substance of the chilazon.

And Malachi's prophecy uses the exact same word that describes the corner of the garment where the tzitzit hangs. The Hebrew reader of Malachi 4:2, hearing "healing in his kenafayim," understands that healing is in the "corners," which is the tzitzit. The Messiah who comes will be wearing tzitzit, and the place where His healing power resides will be at the corners of His garment.

And Matthew explicitly demotrates this.

All these ideas of the tzitzit are then represented in the woman with the issue of blood in Matthew:

The Greek word translated "hem" is kraspedon, which is the standard Septuagint translation of tzitzit (Numbers 15:38 LXX, Deuteronomy 22:12 LXX, and Zechariah 8:23 LXX where ten men "take hold of the kraspedon" of a Jew).

The woman literally touched His tzitzit.

She had been bleeding for twelve years, representing the Twelve tribes of Israel.

She is, structurally, every daughter of Israel whose womb has been wounded by exile, by Egypt, by every form of bondage. She represents Israel's lost feminine vitality, the broken water-bearer, the wounded matrix of the nation.

She reaches for the tzitzit because she knew what it meant, and probably understood Malachi 4:2 "The Sun of righteousness has healing in His wings (kenafayim/corner).

If He is the Messiah, then His tzitzit carries the healing of the prophecy. She touches the one specific point on His body where Malachi said the healing would be.

And it works. The healing flows from the tzitzit into her body. The blood that has been hemorrhaging for twelve years stops at the touch of the corner-thread. The Lamb's blood, encoded since Numbers 15 in the blue thread, has now been distilled into the literal hem of the Messiah.

This is why, later in Matthew, the tzitzit function as the focus of healing. People are reaching for the corner of His garment.

Most of us don't wear tzitzit today. A visual reminder won't hurt, and we do wear garments, but the principle is all about "trained vision." A whole generation died in the wilderness because they lacked vision, and the tzitzit were not about clothing. It was about our eyes being single to one thread.

The tzitzit were worn in every garment. Everywhere you walked, every hour, all the time, they were forced to see the blue thread. It was a deliberate visual discipline of peripheral correction.

The Egypt-eye sees us grasshoppers. The trained eye sees the potential high priest and priestesses we can blossom. The Egypt-eye sees commandments; the trained eye sees Christ.

We are healed by just looking, and this is going to set the stage for Numbers 21 and the brazen serpent.

• Our tiztzit modern are given in look unto Christ in everything we do:

• lift up your eyes (John 4:35; Luke 21:28; D&C 101:38; D&C 110:1)

• look and live (Alma 37:46–47; Alma 33:22)

• look forward with an eye of faith (Alma 5:15; Alma 32:40; Ether 12:19)

Going back to Numbers 15:39-41

The tzitzit is a type of Christ. We have to "look and remember..." to him, the tzitzit is bridegroom imagery. But if "seek [our] after your own heart and your own eyes", we prostitute ourselves. We are looking for other gods. Only looking to him, we blossom, we become holy to the Lord, and we are healed, and we can enter into the promised land.