found elsewhere only in Isa. iii. 22, where it is used of the " changeable suits of apparel " which the haughty daughters of Zion of that time reserved to be worn on great occasions probably stands here for the specifically priestly or high priest's outfit; and these being put upon Joshua as the representative of Israel Would indicate, not only pardon and justification before the Lord, on the ground of the righteousness which He Himself provides for His people, but their reinstatement and reconsecration to their priestly calling as a nation. And this, it seems to me, is brought out still more clearly in the 5th verse.
The prophet has hitherto been a silent but eager spectator of the wonderful scene which he was made to witness, but as he beholds the transformation which had taken place in the high priest's outfit, after the filthy garments were taken from him, and as the symbolical character of the transaction becomes clear to him in its very process (since he does not in this vision ask for any explanation of its meaning, nor is there one given to him by the interpreting angel), he bursts out in the prayer that the gracious work may be completed: " And I said, Let them set a fair (or clean ) mitre upon his head " which prayer, being in accordance with the good pleasure of Jehovah, and that for which it asked having apparently been omitted only in order to leave something, and that the completion of all, to be done at the intercession of the prophet, it is also immediately answered, " So they set a fair mitre (literally, the mitre, the clean or fair one ) upon liis head"
Now the word tsaniph (rendered " mitre ") is not " a turban such as might be worn by anybody " (as Koehler and other commentators assert), but is, as Keil rightly explains, " the head-dress of princely persons and kings," and is here used as a synonym for mitsnepheth, which is the technical word for the tiara prescribed for the high priest in the law.
And this mitre, or turban, was the glory and comple ment of the high priest's sacred and symbolical attire the
