TABERNACLE (Lat. tabernaculum, a hut, tent)

This article appears in Volume V26, Page 324 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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TABERNACLE (Lat. tabernaculum, a hut, tent) , specifically the name given in the English Bible to the portable sanctuary which, according to the priestly sources of the Pentateuch, was erected by 1`ioses in the wilderness as the place of

worship

WORSHIP (i.e. " worth-ship," O. Eng. weor8scipe)

of the Hebrew tribes (Exodus xxv. ff.).
(1) The Tabernacle and its Furniture.The Tabernacle proper is represented as

standing

STANDING

within a rectangular area, measuring loo cubits by 50, approximately 150 feet by 75, which formed the centre of the camp in the wilderness. This area, termed the " court of the tabernacle," was fenced off from the rest of the encampment by a series of curtains suspended from loo pillars

standing

STANDING

at intervals of 5 cubits, and lay east and west with its entrance on the eastern side. Of the two squares, each measuring 50 cubits by 50, into which the court may be divided, the more easterly was that in which the worshippers assembled. In the centre of this square stood the altar of burnt-offering, a hollow chest of acacia wood overlaid with bronze. The tabernacle itself also stood east and west, with its entrance towards the east, on the edge of the second square. The essential part of the structure, to which everything else was subsidiary, was that termed in the

original

ORIGINAL

the mishkdn, i.e. dwelling (Eng. Vers. tabernacle, but see Exod. xxv. 9, Rev. Vers. margin). It was formed of ten curtains, in two sets of five, of the finest linen with inwoven coloured figures of cherubim, the whole making an artistic covering measuring 40 cubits by 28. Instead of being suspended on poles after the manner of an ordinary tent, the curtains of the dwelling were spread over a series of open frames of acacia wood overlaid with gold, each to cubits in height by 11 in breadth.' These frames, 48 in all, were so arranged as to form the southern, western and northern sides of a rectangular structure, 30 cubits in length and ro cubits in breadth and height. Over the frames, as has been said, were thrown the two sets of tapestry curtains above described, while the eastern end, forming the entrance, was closed by a special portiere suspended from five pillars. The dwelling was divided into two parts by a second hanging, the " veil," to cubits from the western end. These two parts were termed respectively
' For the philological and other arguments in favour of open frames in place of the traditional solid beamsthe " boards ' of the English versionas supports of the curtains, see the writer's article " Tabernacle " in Hastings's Dict. of the Bible, iv. 659 f., with illustrative diagrams.the holy place, and the most holy place or " holy of holies." Within the latter stood, in solitary majesty, the ark of God, in which were deposited the two stone tables of the decalogue or " testimony." On the ark lay a solid slab of the finest gold, the propitiatory or mercy-seat, from which rose the figures of two golden cherubim. The propitiatory with its over-arching cherubim formed the innermost shrine of the wilderness sanctuary, the earthly throne of the God of heaven.
The furniture of the holy place consisted of the table of shewbread, the altar of incenseboth, like the ark, of acacia wood overlaid with goldand the golden " candlestick," the latter in reality a seven-branched lamp-stand. As a protection the delicate and artistic curtains of the dwelling were covered by two similar sets of goats'-hair curtains, which together measured 44 cubits by 3o; these, in their turn, were protected by a double covering, the one of rams' skins dyed red, the other made of the skins of a Red Sea mammal, probably the dugong (Exod. xxvi. 14).
(2) The Religious Significance of the Tabernacle.The aim of the priestly school, to whom we owe the conception of the tabernacle as above described, was to provide a sanctuary and a ritual worthy of the higher conceptions of the Deity, which had grown up as the fruit of the discipline of the

exile

EXILE (Lat. exsilium or exilium, from exsul or exul, which is derived from ex, out of, and the root sal, to go, seen in salire, to leap,
consul
- CONSUL
- CONSUL (in Gr. generally ihraros,ashortened form of errpavgybs 8hraeos, i.e. praetor maximus)
, &c.; the connexion with solum, soil, country is now generally considered wrong)

. The ideal relation of

Jehovah

JEHOVAH (YAHWEH2)

(Yahweh) to the theocratic community of

Israel

ISRAEL (Hebrew for " God strives " or " rules "; see Gen. xxxii. 28; and the allusion in Hosea xii. 4)

had already been described by Ezekiel in the words " my dwelling shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people " (xxxvii. 27). That this was the religious ideal in the mind of the author of Exodus xxv. if. is evident from the characteristic name which he gives to the essential part of the tabernacle, the dwelling (see above, and cf. Exod. xxv. 8). All the arrangements of the camp and of the tabernacle are intended to secure the presence of a holy God in the midst of a holy people. The thought of the almost unapproachable holiness of the Deity underlies not only the gradation of the parts of the tabernaclecourt, holy place and holy of holies being each marked by an ascending degree of sanctitybut also the careful gradation of the materials employed in its construction. In the proportion and symmetry, which are strongly marked features of the tabernacle, we may further trace the

earnest

EARNEST (probably a corruption of the obsolete arles or erles, adapted from Lat. equivalent arrha, due to a confusion with the adjective " earnest," serious, O. Eng. eornust, cognate with Ger. ernst)

endeavour to reflect the harmony and perfection of the Deity whose

glory

GLORY (through the O. Fr. glorie, modern gloire, from Lat. gloria, cognate with Gr. KXebs, abets)

filled the dwelling (Exod. xl. 34).
(3) As regards the historicity of this elaborate sanctuary modern historical criticism has pronounced a negative judgment. This verdict is based not so much on the many difficulties presented by the narrative itself, or suggested by the unexpected wealth of material and artistic skill, as on the impossibility of reconciling the picture of the tabernacle and its

worship

WORSHIP (i.e. " worth-ship," O. Eng. weor8scipe)

, which is found in the middle books of the Pentateuch, with the religious history of

Israel

ISRAEL (Hebrew for " God strives " or " rules "; see Gen. xxxii. 28; and the allusion in Hosea xii. 4)

as reflected in the older historical books. There is absolutely no place for the tabernacle of the Priests' Code in the history of the worship of the Hebrews before the

exile

EXILE (Lat. exsilium or exilium, from exsul or exul, which is derived from ex, out of, and the root sal, to go, seen in salire, to leap,
consul
- CONSUL
- CONSUL (in Gr. generally ihraros,ashortened form of errpavgybs 8hraeos, i.e. praetor maximus)
, &c.; the connexion with solum, soil, country is now generally considered wrong)

. It cannot be reconciled with the account of the historical " tent of meeting " (Auth. Vers. tabernacle of the congregation) of the oldest Pentateuch sources in any particular except the common designation, and in the later history of the ark, whether at Shiloh or at Jerusalem, the older records of Samuel and Kings are silent as to the tabernacle.
The sections of the Pentateuch devoted to the tabernacle and its worship, therefore, are not to be treated as history but as the expression of a religious ideal. Building on the traditions of the simple Mosaic " tent of meeting " (Exodus xxxiii. 7 if. and elsewhere), and believing that the temple of Solomon was its replica on a larger scale and in more solid materials, the priestly idealists followed the example of Ezekiel, and elaborated an ideal sanctuary to serve as the model for the worship of the theocratic community of the future. " Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them " (Exod. xxv. 8).
See " Tabernacle " in Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. iv., with which may be compared the corresponding articles in

Cheyne

CHEYNE, THOMAS KELLY (1841— )

and Black's Encycl. Biblica by Benzinger, and in the Jewish Encyclopedia by Konig. The views of the first-named article, summarised above, as to the framework of the Tabernacle, have been adopted and reinforced by A. H. M'Neile in his Commentary on The Book of Exodus (1908), pp. lxxiii. if. (A. R. S. K.)

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