Pattern

The "pattern" of which scripture speaks is the heavenly model that the earthly tabernacle was built to match. Hebrews picks up the Sinai language — Moses warned to make all things according to what he was shown on the mount — and turns it into the framework in which the priesthood, the sanctuary, and the sacrifices are read as copies of heavenly originals.

The Pattern Shown on the Mount

The first reference quotes the Sinai instruction directly. The earthly priests, Hebrews says, "serve [that which is] a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses is warned [of God] when he is about to make the tabernacle: for, See, he says, that you make all things according to the pattern that was shown to you in the mount" (Hebrews 8:5). Two terms work together. The earthly service is "a copy and shadow"; the source of the copy is "the pattern that was shown" on the mount. The pattern is upstream — it precedes the construction — and the tabernacle is downstream of what Moses saw.

Copies of the Things in the Heavens

The second reference completes the geometry. If the earthly sanctuary and its furnishings are copies, the cleansing they receive is the cleansing of copies; the heavenly originals require a better sacrifice: "It was necessary therefore that the copies of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these" (Hebrews 9:23). The two-tier structure is explicit: copies on earth, things themselves in heaven. The pattern that governs the construction in Hebrews 8:5 also governs the cleansing in Hebrews 9:23 — what Moses built was modeled on heavenly realities, and so was the priestly service that ran inside it.