Tabernacle

The tabernacle is the portable sanctuary Yahweh commands Moses to build at Sinai so that he may stay in the midst of his people: "And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may stay among them" (Ex 25:8). Its pattern is shown to Moses on the mountain; its materials are brought as free-will offerings; its craft is given to Bezalel and Oholiab by the Spirit of God; its frame, curtains, court, and furniture are constructed and consecrated; its glory descends as a cloud; and it travels with Israel through the wilderness, halts for centuries at Shiloh, and is finally absorbed into Solomon's temple. The author of Hebrews then reads the whole structure as "a copy and shadow of the heavenly things" (Heb 8:5), of which Christ is the minister and through which his blood is read into "the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man" (Heb 8:2).

The Tent Before Sinai

Even before the Sinai pattern, Israel knows a provisional tent. Moses takes a tent and pitches it outside the camp: "and he called it, The tent of meeting. And it came to pass, that everyone who sought Yahweh went out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp" (Ex 33:7). The pillar of cloud descends to its door (Ex 33:9), the people worship at their own tent doors when they see it (Ex 33:10), and "Yahweh spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his companion" (Ex 33:11). The tent-of-meeting vocabulary, the pillar of cloud, and the face-to-face oracle are all in place before the Sinai sanctuary is built; the wilderness tabernacle takes them up and gives them an authorized form.

The Pattern Shown to Moses

The plan is not Moses'. Yahweh shows him the design on the mountain: "According to all that I show you, the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all its furniture, even so you⁺ will make it" (Ex 25:9). The same charge is repeated at the close of each major specification — "And see that you make them after their pattern, which has been shown to you in the mount" (Ex 25:40); "And you will rear up the tabernacle according to the fashion of it which has been shown to you in the mount" (Ex 26:30); of the bronze altar, "Hollow with planks you will make it: as it has been shown to you in the mount, so they will make it" (Ex 27:8); of the lampstand, "according to the pattern which Yahweh had shown Moses, so he made the lampstand" (Nu 8:4). The same vocabulary later carries over to the temple: David receives "the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit, for the courts of the house of Yahweh" (1Ch 28:12), and confesses, "All this, [said David], I have been made to understand in writing from the hand of Yahweh, even all the works of this pattern" (1Ch 28:19). Hebrews picks the language up wholesale: those who serve the earthly sanctuary "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" (Heb 8:5).

Free-Will Offerings and the Inspired Craftsmen

The tabernacle is built from voluntary gifts. Yahweh commands Moses, "Speak to the sons of Israel, that they take for me an offering: of every man whose heart makes him willing you⁺ will take my offering" (Ex 25:2), and lists the materials: gold, silver, bronze, blue, purple, scarlet, fine linen, goats' hair, rams' skins dyed red, sealskins, acacia wood, oil, spices, onyx stones (Ex 25:3-7). The response, when Moses repeats the call, is total: "everyone whom his spirit made willing brought Yahweh's offering, for the work of the tent of meeting, and for all its service, and for the holy garments. And the men as well as the women, as many as were willing-hearted, brought brooches, and earrings, and signet-rings, and armlets, all jewels of gold" (Ex 35:21-22). The wise-hearted women spin, the rulers bring onyx stones (Ex 35:25-27), and "The sons of Israel brought a freewill-offering to Yahweh; every man and woman, whose heart made them willing to bring for all the work, which Yahweh had commanded to be made by Moses" (Ex 35:29). The flow has to be stopped: "they spoke to Moses, saying, The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work which Yahweh commanded to make. And Moses gave commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, Let neither man nor woman make anymore work for the offering of the sanctuary. So the people were kept back from bringing. For the stuff they had was sufficient for all the work to make it, and too much" (Ex 36:5-7). The audited tally registers the scale: twenty-nine talents and seven hundred and thirty shekels of gold; a hundred talents and 1,775 shekels of silver; seventy talents and 2,400 shekels of bronze (Ex 38:24-29).

The craftsmen are named and Spirit-filled. "See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship" (Ex 31:2-3). Beside him is "Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and in the heart of all who are wise-hearted I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded you" (Ex 31:6) — the tent of meeting and ark and mercy-seat, the table and lampstand, the altars of incense and burnt-offering, the basin, the priestly garments, the anointing oil, and the holy incense (Ex 31:7-11). The two are also teachers: Yahweh "has put in his heart that he may teach, both he, and Oholiab" (Ex 35:34), and they pass the engraver's, weaver's, and embroiderer's craft on to the willing-hearted (Ex 35:35). The completed accounting is summed in their names: "And Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made all that Yahweh commanded Moses. And with him was Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan" (Ex 38:22-23).

The Structure: Court, Holy Place, Most Holy

The completed tent stands inside an outer court. The court is fenced with hangings of fine twined linen, "a hundred cubits long for one side" (Ex 27:9), and on every side: "The length of the court will be a hundred cubits, and the width fifty at both ends, and the height five cubits, of fine twined linen, and their sockets of bronze" (Ex 27:18). The east end has the gate-screen of "blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, the work of the embroiderer" (Ex 27:16).

Inside the court stands the tabernacle proper, framed in upright acacia boards: "And you will make the boards for the tabernacle of acacia wood, standing up. Ten cubits will be the length of a board, and a cubit and a half the width of each board" (Ex 26:15-16) — twenty boards along the south, twenty along the north, eight along the back westward (Ex 26:18-25), all overlaid with gold and locked together by gold-overlaid acacia bars (Ex 26:26-29). Above the frame run three coverings: ten linen curtains "of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, with cherubim the work of the skillful workman" (Ex 26:1); over them eleven goats'-hair curtains "for a tent over the tabernacle" (Ex 26:7); and over those "a covering for the tent of rams' skins dyed red, and a covering of sealskins above" (Ex 26:14).

The interior is divided by a veil. "And you will make a veil of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen: with cherubim the work of the skillful workman it will be made" (Ex 26:31). The veil is hung on four gold-overlaid acacia pillars, and "the veil will separate to you⁺ between the holy place and the most holy" (Ex 26:33). Inside the veil, in the most holy, stands the ark of the testimony with the mercy-seat on top (Ex 26:34); outside the veil, in the holy place, stand the table on the north and the lampstand opposite it on the south (Ex 26:35), with a screen of the same colored fabric closing the door of the Tent (Ex 26:36-37).

The Furniture

The wilderness sanctuary is built around five vessels (see Ark and Altar for full treatments). At the center, inside the most holy, stands the ark of acacia wood overlaid with gold: "And they will make an ark of acacia wood: two cubits and a half will be its length, and a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height" (Ex 25:10), with a pure-gold mercy-seat above it and two beaten-gold cherubim of one piece with it, "spread out their wings on high, covering the mercy-seat with their wings, with their faces one to another" (Ex 25:20). It is the meeting-point: "And there [my Speech] will meet with you, and I will commune with you from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the testimony" (Ex 25:22). Inside the ark go the testimony tablets, Aaron's budded rod (Nu 17:7-8), and the golden pot of manna (Heb 9:4); the tent's other name is "the tent of the testimony" (Ex 38:21).

In the holy place stand three other pieces: the table of showbread, the pure-gold lampstand "according to the pattern which Yahweh had shown Moses" (Nu 8:4), and the altar of incense before the veil. In the court before the door stands the bronze altar of burnt-offering (Ex 27:1-8), and between it and the door of the tent the bronze basin for washing (Ex 30:18).

Erection and Indwelling Glory

The tent is reared on the first day of the first month: "On the first day of the first month you will rear up the tabernacle of the tent of meeting" (Ex 40:2). Moses is given an order of operations — install the ark and screen it with the veil; bring in the table and the lampstand; set the golden altar before the ark; place the screen at the door; set the bronze altar before the door of the tent of meeting; set the basin between the tent and the altar; raise the court round about (Ex 40:3-8). Then he anoints everything: "And you will take the anointing oil, and anoint the tabernacle, and all that is in it, and will hallow it, and all its furniture: and it will be holy" (Ex 40:9). Leviticus records the anointing the same way: "And Moses took the anointing oil, and anointed the tabernacle and all that was in it, and sanctified them" (Lev 8:10), and Numbers seals the day: "And it came to pass on the day that Moses had made an end of setting up the tabernacle, and had anointed it and sanctified it, and all its furniture, and the altar and all its vessels, and had anointed them and sanctified them" (Nu 7:1). The summary statement in Exodus is the formal sign-off: "Thus was finished all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting: and the sons of Israel did according to all that Yahweh commanded Moses; so they did" (Ex 39:32).

The glory comes immediately. "Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of Yahweh filled the tabernacle. And Moses wasn't able to enter into the tent of meeting, because the cloud stayed on it, and the glory of Yahweh filled the tabernacle" (Ex 40:34-35). From inside that cloud the oracle speaks: "And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with him, then he heard [the Speech] speaking to him from above the mercy-seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim: and he spoke to him" (Nu 7:89). The same cloud later commissions Joshua: "And [the Speech of] Yahweh appeared in the Tent in a pillar of cloud: and the pillar of cloud stood over the door of the Tent" (De 31:15). On the Day of Atonement the same tent is the place where Israel's sins are dealt with: the high priest brings blood within the veil and "will make atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleannesses of the sons of Israel, and because of their transgressions, even all their sins: and so he will do for the tent of meeting, that stays with them in the midst of their uncleannesses" (Lev 16:16).

In the Wilderness Journey

The tabernacle moves with Israel. The cloud is the signal: "And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the sons of Israel went onward, throughout all their journeys: but if the cloud wasn't taken up, then they didn't journey until the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of Yahweh was on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys" (Ex 40:36-38). Numbers traces the rhythm in detail: "Whether it was two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried on the tabernacle, staying on it, the sons of Israel remained encamped, and didn't journey; but when it was taken up, they journeyed" (Nu 9:22).

The Levites are the load-bearers. "And when the tabernacle sets forward, the Levites will take it down; and when the tabernacle is to be pitched, the Levites will set it up: and the stranger who comes near will be put to death" (Nu 1:51). Take-down is a priestly act before it is a Levitical one: "Aaron will go in, and his sons, and they will take down the veil of the screen, and cover the ark of the testimony with it, and will put on it a covering of sealskin, and will spread over it a cloth of all blue, and will put in its poles" (Nu 4:5-6). Each piece of furniture is wrapped — a blue cloth and sealskin over the showbread, the lampstand, and the golden altar; a purple cloth over the bronze altar (Nu 4:7-14) — and only then is the load handed off: "And when Aaron and his sons have made an end of covering the sanctuary, and all the furniture of the sanctuary, as the camp is to set forward; after that, the sons of Kohath will come to bear it: but they will not touch the sanctuary, or they will die" (Nu 4:15). On the march itself the tent travels in the middle of the camp, ringed by the tribes: "Then the tent of meeting will set forward, with the camp of the Levites in the midst of the camps: as they encamp, so they will set forward, every man in his place, by their standards" (Nu 2:17).

From Shiloh to Solomon's Temple

After the conquest the tent is set down at Shiloh. "And the whole congregation of the sons of Israel assembled themselves together at Shiloh, and caused the tent of meeting to stay there: and the land was subdued before them" (Jos 18:1). The tribal allotments are finalized at its door: "These are the inheritances, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers' [houses] of the tribes of the sons of Israel, distributed for inheritance by lot in Shiloh before Yahweh, at the door of the tent of meeting" (Jos 19:51). Through the period of the judges Shiloh stays the sanctuary: "So they set themselves up Micah's graven image which he made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh" (Jud 18:31). By Hannah's day the wilderness tent is being called by an elevated name: "Now Eli the priest was sitting on his seat by the door-post of the temple of Yahweh" (1Sa 1:9), and Samuel sleeps "in the temple of Yahweh, where the ark of God was" (1Sa 3:3). The last act of the Shiloh sanctuary is the ark's removal to battle: "Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of Yahweh out of Shiloh to us … And the people sent to Shiloh; and they brought from there the ark of the covenant of Yahweh of hosts who sits [above] the cherubim" (1Sa 4:3-4). Centuries later Jeremiah names the verdict: "go⁺ now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I made my name stay at first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel" (Jer 7:12).

After Shiloh the priesthood and the showbread surface at Nob: "Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest" (1Sa 21:1), where the only bread on hand is "the showbread, that was taken from before Yahweh, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away" (1Sa 21:6). David then splits the sanctuary in two. He brings the ark to Jerusalem and "made houses for himself in the city of David; and he prepared a place for the ark of God, and pitched a tent for it" (1Ch 15:1); "And they brought in the ark of God, and set it in the midst of the tent that David had pitched for it: and they offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings before God" (1Ch 16:1). Meanwhile the wilderness tabernacle itself, with the bronze altar, stays at Gibeon: "For the tabernacle of Yahweh, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt-offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon" (1Ch 21:29). Solomon goes there before he builds the temple: "So Solomon, and all the assembly with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon; for there was the tent of meeting of God, which Moses the slave of Yahweh had made in the wilderness" (2Ch 1:3); "Moreover the bronze altar, that Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made, was there before the tabernacle of Yahweh: and Solomon and the assembly sought it [out]. And Solomon went up there to the bronze altar before Yahweh, which was at the tent of meeting, and offered a thousand burnt-offerings on it" (2Ch 1:5-6).

When the temple is finished the wilderness tent is folded into it: "And they brought up the ark of Yahweh, and the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the Tent; even these the priests and the Levites brought up" (1Ki 8:4); "and they brought up the ark, and the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the Tent; the Levitical priests brought these up" (2Ch 5:5). The tax for the upkeep of the structure stays in the language even centuries later: under Joash, the king sends to the Levites "the tax of Moses the slave of Yahweh, and of the assembly of Israel, for the tent of the testimony" (2Ch 24:6). David's psalm uses the same vocabulary as a moral category — "Yahweh, who will sojourn in your tabernacle? Who will stay in your holy hill?" (Ps 15:1) — and as an object of longing: "One thing I have asked of Yahweh, that I will seek after; That I may dwell in the house of Yahweh all the days of my life" (Ps 27:4). In Sirach's portrait of Wisdom the same noun is sacralized one more time: "In the holy tabernacle I ministered before him, Moreover, in Zion I was established" (Sir 24:10), and Wisdom's own scent is "as the smoke of incense in the Tabernacle" (Sir 24:15).

The Tabernacle in Hebrews

The author of Hebrews reads the entire structure typologically. Christ is "such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man" (Heb 8:1-2). The Sinai pattern itself is read as proof that the wilderness tent was always a copy: "who 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" (Heb 8:5). The architecture is then walked through, room by room: "For there was a tabernacle prepared, the first, in which [were] the lampstand, and the table, and the showbread; which is called the Holy place. And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holy of holies; having a golden altar of incense, and the ark of the covenant overlaid around with gold, in which [was] a golden pot holding the manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; and above it cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy-seat" (Heb 9:2-5). The Day-of-Atonement rite is read as a deliberate signal: "the Holy Spirit this signifying, that the way into the holy place has not yet been made manifest, while the first tabernacle is yet standing" (Heb 9:8).

Christ is then placed inside the typology: "But Christ having come [as] high priest of the good things that have come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption" (Heb 9:11-12). The blood-sprinkling rite of Lev 16 is read the same way: "Moreover the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry he sprinkled in like manner with the blood … For Christ didn't enter into a holy place made with hands, like in pattern to the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us" (Heb 9:21,24). The closing thrust returns to the outer altar and re-locates the church's table outside the old service: "We have an altar, of which they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle" (Heb 13:10). The wilderness tent, raised at Sinai and folded into Solomon's temple, is read in the New Testament as the architectural shadow of the heavenly throne-room into which Christ has gone with his own blood.