These verses attest to the use of garments, or even fragments of garments, as symbols of covenant-making or witnessing and affirming certain actions. Treading upon one’s garments is an ancient ritual practice attested in early Christian Coptic texts where individuals became members of the early church by trampling their clothes as a token of trampling old sins or the old life. It is traced back to the Jewish interpretation of Genesis 3:21.63
Verse 24 attests that a remnant of Joseph’s coat was preserved beyond his being sold into slavery into Egypt. Jacob prophesied regarding the seed of Joseph by using his son’s coat as an object lesson. We have only a remnant of this prophecy preserved in our current Old Testament (Genesis 44:28). Joseph’s coat or garment was an emblem of his primacy in the priesthood, and evidently it had special markings on it.