“Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey” (Matt. 3:4).
Why is John the Baptizer clothed with camel’s hair? Why does he want to look like a camel? Or at least: what does he expect Israel to think when they see him dressed like a camel?
There’s not a whole lot about camels in the Hebrew Scriptures. They are mostly mentioned incidentally when describing the possessions of those wealthy enough to own them. So Abraham has camels. Job has 3000 camels at the beginning of the story and 6000 at the end. Camels bear gifts of gold, silver, and spices for Solomon from the Queen of Sheba. Camels are beasts of burden. Stuff like that.
But there is place where there are more references to camels than anywhere else—15-16 times in one chapter of the Bible. How’s that for Bible trivia! All these camel references are in Genesis 24, the story of Abraham’s servant traveling to Mesopotamia to find a bride for Isaac, the son of Abraham.
Abraham said to his servant, “Yahweh, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my kindred, and who spoke to me and swore to me, ‘To your offspring I will give this land, he will send his messenger before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there. . .’” After his servant swore an oath to Abraham, he took ten of his master’s camels and departed.
When the servant came to the spring of water in the city of Nahor, he found Rebekah. And Rebekah gave him water and also watered the camels. Camels, camels, and more camels.
Then once the arrangement was made that Rebekah would return with Abraham’s servant to be the bride of the seed of Abraham, she makes her journey with her young maids on the camel Eliezer had brought. Look at that. She is carried back to her husband on a camel.
Now, in the fulness of time, if you will, John is dressed like a camel. And he is calling the people of Israel out into the wilderness, outside of the promised land, to prepare them to come back into the land and meet the bridegroom, their true husband, the seed of Abraham. The visual imagery is of John the Baptizer washing the contrite, repentant people of Israel in the waters of the Jordan and then bearing them, if you will, like the camel that bore Rebekah to Isaac, to their true husband, Yahweh come in the flesh, the greater Isaac. The servant of Yahweh is bringing the bride to the seed of Abraham. Is it possible that this is why God orchestrated and ordained that John dress like a camel? You betcha.
The Apostle John says as much when he writes about Jesus and John the Baptizer in John 3:28-30.
Now a discussion arose between some of John’s disciples and a Jew over purification.
And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.”
You mean to tell me that God orchestrates history such that details like this stand out, so that his people can search out and discover his divine artistry? Yes. To move us. To amaze us with the level of detail in his providential arrangement of history. And yes, even to delight us.
Today we have no John the Baptizer dressed like a camel, a messenger of God to lead us to our Bridegroom Jesus, the Anointed King. But we do have the Word of God and the ministry of the Church that continually calls us to confession and repentance. Every Sunday we have a John-the-Baptizer kind of experience as we are called out of the world to confess our sins, remember who we are by baptism, and then be ushered to our Lord and Husband’s presence at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.