Tabernacle

Tabernacle, also called the Tent of Meeting, was the sanctuary that the LORD, speaking to Moses, told the Israelites to make so that He might "dwell among them" (Exodus 25:1-9; Exodus 39:32). The instructions for it, given to Moses on Mount Sinai, are set out in Exodus 25-31, and the account of its making in Exodus 35-40 (Exodus 25:40; Exodus 31:18; Exodus 39:32-43). The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia describes it as "the dwelling-place of the holy Yahweh in the midst of His people".

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Making and Setting Up

Everyone whose heart was willing brought an offering for the work: gold, silver and bronze, blue, purple and scarlet yarn, fine linen, goat hair, ram skins dyed red, fine leather, acacia wood, oil, spices, and onyx and other gemstones (Exodus 35:5-9; Exodus 35:21-29). The LORD called Bezalel son of Uri, of the tribe of Judah, filled him with the Spirit of God for every kind of craftsmanship, and chose Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, as his assistant (Exodus 31:2-6). Both men were also given the ability to teach others (Exodus 35:34). The people kept bringing freewill offerings morning after morning until the craftsmen told Moses there was more than enough, and a proclamation sent through the camp restrained them from bringing more (Exodus 36:3-7).

Moses set up the tabernacle on the first day of the first month of the second year (Exodus 40:17). Numbers counts the years of this period from the Israelites' coming out of Egypt (Numbers 1:1), and the Exodus is dated 1446 BC, with a later date of about 1250 BC also held. He laid its bases and raised its frames, brought the ark in behind the veil, placed the table on the north side and the lampstand on the south, put the gold altar in front of the veil, and set the altar of burnt offering near the entrance with the basin between it and the Tent of Meeting (Exodus 40:18-30). Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle, so that Moses could not enter (Exodus 40:34-35). Whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle the Israelites set out, and the cloud was over it by day, with fire in it by night, through all their journeys (Exodus 40:36-38; Numbers 9:15).

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Structure

The courtyard was a hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide, enclosed by linen curtains five cubits high, with its gate on the east side (Exodus 27:13-18). The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia gives these measurements as 150 by 75 feet. In the courtyard stood the bronze-covered altar of burnt offering, five cubits square and three cubits high, and the bronze basin where Aaron and his sons, the priests, washed their hands and feet (Exodus 27:1-2; Exodus 28:1; Exodus 30:18-21).

The tabernacle itself was built of upright frames of acacia wood overlaid with gold and set in silver bases, and covered with ten curtains of fine linen worked with cherubim, a tent of goat hair, and coverings of ram skins dyed red and fine leather (Exodus 26:1-29). A veil worked with cherubim separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place, where the ark of the Testimony stood with the mercy seat upon it (Exodus 26:31-34). Outside the veil stood the table for the Bread of the Presence on the north side, the gold lampstand on the south, and the gold-covered altar of incense in front of the veil (Exodus 25:30; Exodus 26:35; Exodus 30:1-6).

Its furnishings were made to be carried, the ark, the table and both altars with poles (Exodus 25:14; Exodus 25:28; Exodus 27:7; Exodus 30:4). When the camp moved, the Kohathites carried the holy objects after Aaron and his sons had covered them, and others carried the curtains and coverings and the frames, crossbars, posts and bases (Numbers 4:15; Numbers 4:25; Numbers 4:31). On the march the Tent of Meeting traveled in the middle of the camps with the camp of the Levites (Numbers 2:17).

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Worship and Atonement

There the LORD promised to meet with Moses "above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim" (Exodus 25:22), and from the Tent of Meeting He spoke to him (Leviticus 1:1). Aaron was to burn fragrant incense on the incense altar every morning and at twilight, and to tend the lamps from evening until morning (Exodus 30:7-8; Exodus 27:21). He was not to enter the Most Holy Place behind the veil freely, "or else he will die, because I appear in the cloud above the mercy seat" (Leviticus 16:2). Once a year atonement was made for the Most Holy Place and the Tent of Meeting "because of the impurities and rebellious acts of the Israelites", and on the horns of the incense altar with the blood of the sin offering (Leviticus 16:16; Leviticus 16:34; Exodus 30:10).

Built to "the pattern shown you on the mountain" (Exodus 25:40), the tabernacle was "a copy and shadow of what is in heaven" (Hebrews 8:5), and it points forward to "the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made by hands" (Hebrews 9:11).

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From Shiloh to the Temple

With the land subdued before them, the whole congregation of Israel assembled at Shiloh and set up the Tent of Meeting there (Joshua 18:1). Women served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting in the days of Eli's old age (1 Samuel 2:22). A psalm recalls that God "abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men" (Psalm 78:60). The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia next places the tabernacle at Nob, where Ahimelech the priest gave David the Bread of the Presence (1 Samuel 21:1-6).

Under David, the tabernacle of the LORD that Moses had made in the wilderness stood with the altar of burnt offering at the high place in Gibeon, where David left Zadok the priest and his fellow priests (1 Chronicles 16:39; 1 Chronicles 21:29). The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia describes two tabernacles in this period, "the original one with its altar at Gibeon, and the new one with the original ark in Jerusalem". The LORD told David that from the day He brought Israel out of Egypt He had not dwelt in a house but had "moved about with a tent as My dwelling" (2 Samuel 7:6). Solomon and the whole assembly went to the high place at Gibeon because God's Tent of Meeting was there (2 Chronicles 1:3). The priests and Levites later brought up the ark of the LORD and the Tent of Meeting with all its sacred furnishings (1 Kings 8:4). The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia takes this to mean that the tabernacle was brought up to Jerusalem and kept, "apparently, as a sacred relic in the temple".

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Ancient Near Eastern Setting

Kenneth A. Kitchen argues against the view that the tabernacle was a priestly fiction from the time of the Babylonian Exile or later, pointing to extra-biblical evidence for "epochs long predating the Exile". Victor Avigdor Hurowitz compares the biblical account of building the tabernacle with temples known from Mesopotamian and Ugaritic sources.