Anyway, the video I watched was about the makers of purple—the dye.
Purple is often mentioned in the Bible.
- Exodus tells us the priestly robes were made of blue, purple, and scarlet.
- Numbers 4:13 tells the priests to spread a purple cloth over the bronze altar.
- Judges 8:26 reminds us the Kings of Midian wore purple.
- The Proverbs 31 woman is clothed in purple.
- Daniel is clothed in purple after reading the writing on the wall.
- Act 16:14 tells us Lydia was a seller of purple, but the Bible isn’t clear on whether she also made it. After watching Tony Robinson, I suspect Lydia delegated that part of the task.
If you have time, you can watch the video here:
I’ll summarise for the rest of you.
Purple dye was made from the shells of thousands of seashells. They were broken and crushed to bring out the juices, add some wood ash, then left to ferment for around ten days—and it stank. The dye maker had to feel and taste the fermented liquid to ensure it was ready. You can imagine how it tasted.
The dyemaker would then immerse the fabric in the liquid for around half an hour, then remove it and wait for the fabric to change colour from white to green to purple. It apparently took over a thousand shellfish to make enough dye for a single cloak.
That’s a lot of effort for not a lot of fabric—which made purple fabric incredibly expensive.
It’s not hard to understand why purple was reserved for priestly garments and royalty. Purple was used for the lining of crowns, and for coronation robes. Purple signalled someone who was rich and influential (as we see in the story of Lazarus in Luke 16).
Yet Jesus, the King of Kings never wore purple—at least, not in his day-to-day life. Mark 15 tells us the Roman soldiers clothes Jesus in purple while they mocked him, and he was wearing a purple cloak and a crown of thorns when Pilate presented him to the Jewish mob as King of the Jews in John 19.
The colour purple also symbolised suffering—Christ’s suffering.
In the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, purple is the colour of Lent, to remind us of Jesus’s suffering on the cross. In that respect, we could say that purple is the colour of communion, because that’s when we recognise Jesus’s suffering on the cross, dying for our sins, so we can be adopted as God’s children.
But William Henry Perkin accidentally invented synthetic purple dye in 1856, and now we can all afford to wear purple, royal or not. And why shouldn’t we? After all, we are all adopted sons and daughters of the King of Kings, which makes us part of God’s family—so we’re all royalty.
So wear your purple clothes.
And as you wear purple, remember what it symbolises: Christ’s death and resurrection. Christ’s death, that we might live and be adopted as sons and daughters of the King of Kings.
This is very interesting, thank you, Iola. Purple and mauve are colours that I like. I would not have liked to make it before William Henry Perkin accidentally discovered how to make the colour synthetically.
They are colours I like as well 🙂