The history of this garment, if such it can be called, goes back to Moses. Because of one man's disobedience, God commanded the people to put fringes with a thread of blue on their clothes to remind them that they must obey His law [Numbers 15:32-41]. From this injunction and through various stages of development comes the modern prayer shawl or tallit worn by Jewish people in the synagogue today.

Traditionally, the dye for the blue thread came from a rare sea mollusc which made it expensive. Lydia, one of Paul's converts in Philippi, was in the purple dye trade which may have been the same business [Acts 16:14]. No blue is used in the tassel nowadays as the exact shade is not known.

Indigo dye was cheaper and it was hard to tell the difference but the authorities condemned its use. Quite recently some Israeli archaeologists found prayer shawls belonging to the soldiers of Bar Cochba who led a rebellion against Rome in 131-135 CE. They were surprised to discover, on analysis, that the dye was indigo.

We are not sure how the tassel was made in Jesus' day. Today it consists of four long strands threaded through each corner hole and then doubled over to make eight. One strand is longer than the others. It is wound thirty nine times around the remaining seven with five knots interspersed at equal intervals. All this is symbolic.

Thirty nine stands for the books of the Jewish Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament. Five symbolises the books of the Torah. The Hebrew word for a tassel is tzitzit. As all Hebrew letters have a numerical value, those of the word tzitzit add up to six hundred. This plus the eight threads and five knots makes six hundred and thirteen, the traditional number of commandments in the Torah. Modern Judaism delights in calculations of such complexity.

In New Testament times, ordinary people only wore a tallit on special occasions, if at all. It was the Pharisees who seem to have worn it regularly and, apparently in some cases, often for show. Jesus expresses no disapproval of the custom itself but he does condemn the extra long fringes which they affected to display their piety [Matthew 23:5]. Despite this, he must sometimes have worn one himself as the story of the woman who touched the hem of his garment suggests [Luke 8:43, 44]. Were they the ritual tassles that she touched? Other people, too, were healed by touching the borders or tassles of his clothes [Mark 6:56].