See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern that was shewed thee in the mount.- Heb_8:5.
1. In the course of the forty days' seclusion on the mountain, Moses is said to have received from God exact instructions for making a tabernacle, or portable sanctuary, with its various furniture for sacred purposes, and for the consecration of a permanent priesthood in Aaron and his family. This account, contained in Exo_25:1-40; Exo_26:1-37; Exo_27:1-21; Exo_28:1-43; Exo_29:1-46; Exo_30:1-38; Exo_31:1-18, is derived from another source than that of the previous events at Sinai, from a narrative embodying the ancient traditions of the priests of Israel. An ordered and pure and beautiful worship is certainly not unworthy to be one of the matters directly revealed by God, and the record of it would naturally be preserved by those who were most closely associated with it. There are traces in it of correspondences with the worships of other ancient nations, e.g., the Egyptians. This again is not unnatural, for it seems to be the method of Divine revelation to use and build upon pre-existing customs and ideas, while purifying and giving new meanings to them.
2. The plan of the tabernacle is stated to be in accordance with a Divine “pattern” shown to Moses in the mount (Exo_25:9). It was to be the material embodiment of an idea or purpose in the mind of God. And this is confirmed by the extraordinary way in which the tabernacle and the various arrangements for worship were seen in later times to be symbolical of the Incarnation and the Church. This correspondence is especially drawn out in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Just as the Covenant of Sinai was preparatory to the New Covenant ratified in the blood of the Redeemer, so the tabernacle was to be an anticipation of a permanent union of God with man. Its purpose is definitely stated in Exo_25:8 : “Let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.”
3. The tabernacle was designed on the model of a temple, that is to say, there was a large outer enclosure, in the midst of which was the shrine with the altar of burnt sacrifice standing before it. The shrine was constructed of boards of acacia covered by tent-curtains and carpets, and was divided into two parts called the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. In the inner sanctuary was the Ark of the Covenant, the most sacred possession of the nation, containing the Tables of the Testimony. Above the Ark was the Mercy-Seat, on each side of which were two winged figures or cherubim. The inner sanctuary was separated from the outer by a veil. Before the veil, in the Holy Place, stood the Altar of Incense, and the Table, on which was placed “bread of the faces” or shewbread, while the seven-branched candlestick stood on the south side of the Holy Place, facing the table of shewbread. The arrangements were such that the whole sanctuary could be transported without any difficulty, and at the same time it was well suited to a simple but orderly worship.
4. Many students of the Old Testament have come to the conclusion that the description of the tabernacle in the Book of Exodus is very highly idealized. There is no sufficient ground for questioning the existence of a simple tent in the earliest Mosaic period, which formed a shelter for the ark, and stood without the camp in accordance with ordinary Semitic usage. But what is called in question by criticism is the existence in the wilderness, among tribes living under nomad conditions, of a splendid, costly and elaborate structure, “wrought in the most advanced style of oriental art.” Apart from the character of the building there is the serious difficulty that Hebrew tradition appears to know practically nothing of such a shrine in pre-exilic days. It knows something of the ark and of a central sanctuary at Shiloh, but of the sumptuous tabernacle described in the Book of Exodus it makes no mention. A Christian apologist can afford to admit that the elaborate description of the tabernacle is to be regarded as a product of religious idealism, working upon a historical basis, and that the sketch as a whole is largely coloured by reminiscences or traditions of the splendid temple of Solomon.
But there is no reason for questioning the fact that, in a rudimentary form suited to the conditions of wilderness life, a simple tent of meeting was constructed by Moses as the place of Jehovah's abode. We might infer this not only from considerations of a priori probability and from the express testimony of tradition, but also from the very structure of the more elaborate sanctuary, which in its arrangements appears to be modelled on the ancient shepherd's tent, with its open court, its large outer apartments, and its private sanctum.
5. The real sanctuary under Moses was called the “tent of meeting.” It was a tabernacle of perfectly simple design, an open tent pitched outside the camp. There was no ceremonial in the service and no Levite attached. Moses' servant Joshua had sole charge of it. But if this tabernacle was free from all ritual, the religion of which it was the centre was alive and intensely spiritual. In it was continued the intercourse which began on Mount Sinai; in it Moses spoke to Jehovah as a friend to his friend; in it the patriot-prophet in glowing entreaties pleaded for his rebellious people against the wrath of Jehovah; and there, lastly, in his solitary meditations he learned to discern the plan of God and His intentions towards Israel.
The Prophetic Tradition, speaking of this sanctuary where God, day by day, was perfecting the education of His messenger, has preserved, in a naive but suggestive form, the memory of all the anxieties which perpetually carried back the fervent soul of Moses towards God. For instance, the episode of Moses beseeching his God to accompany him in his stern mission and asking Jehovah for a material proof of His presence: “Shew me, I pray thee, thy glory.” Jehovah's reply teaches us that whoever wishes to know Him must seek Him, not in any dazzling and impressive vision, nor in any bewildering external prodigy, but in the secret depths of the heart: “I will make all my goodness pass before thee,” and in an attentive observation of the way in which Providence asserts itself and reveals the presence and intentions of God: “Thou shalt see my back.” The religion inaugurated by Moses was very slow in winning the soul of his people. Among the Israelites who during the long wanderings in the desert came daily before the Tent of Meeting to know Jehovah's will and receive Moses' instruction, who knows how many grasped the true meaning of the teaching of their God? Their coarse misconceptions and perpetual backslidings are sufficient proof that at no period of their history were the true worshippers very numerous. But the fact remains that, from the very outset, the proper course of the worship in spirit was admirably mapped out. The Tent of Meeting and the altar of unhewn stones are marvellously suited to the demands of the religion of the Decalogue and the law of love. The worship and the law combine to evoke in the Israelite's still dark and carnal soul the piety due to the God who “looketh on the heart.”1 [Note: A. Westphal, The Law and the Prophets, 203.]
6. What are the lessons to be taught by the tabernacle thus understood as an idealization?
(1) The supreme idea of the Priests' Code is the realization of the presence of God in the midst of His people (Exo_25:8; Exo_29:42). Other ideas, closely associated with this, are the unity of God, which required the unity and centralization of His worship; and the holiness of God, which required as its correlative the holiness of His people (Exo_19:6; Deu_14:2; Lev_19:2, and elsewhere). In the tabernacle, and the ceremonial system of which it is the centre, these ideas find a concrete, symbolical expression. The tabernacle is a carefully planned and splendid structure, designed to honour worthily the God who is to make it His abode. By its position in the very centre of the camp, it is a significant visible symbol of the presence of Jehovah in the midst of His people. Its holiness is at the same time guarded by its being encircled by a cordon formed by the camps of the Levitical families and the priests, the other tribes being encamped outside these, three on each side. By the details of its structure, and by the significant gradations in the costliness and splendour of the materials of which it is made, it at once gives expression to, and guards, the supreme holiness of Jehovah. The imageless, inmost shrine is an acknowledgment of His spirituality, as its splendour does homage to His sovereignty; while the limitations on even the high priest's access to it are an indication of the conditions on which God is accessible to man. The unity of God is marked by the fact that the sanctuary is one, and the worship one. The ceremonial of purification and sacrifice which centres in the tabernacle is the means by which the ideal relation of holiness and good-will subsisting between Jehovah and His people is maintained.
Cosin preached, at the close of 1626, at the consecration of Francis White as Bishop of Carlisle. In his sermon, which was based on Joh_20:21-22, he remarked: “No doubt but Christ (an it had pleased Him) might have given His Apostles the Spirit without any breathing upon them at all; the substance without the ceremony. And had He so done He had got some men's hearts by it for ever, which now He is like to lose; theirs that condemn all ceremonies in religion for vanity and superstition. Now much pity it was that these ceremony-haters of our day had not then been living and standing by, to advise and to put Christ in mind what a foundation He would lay here for superstition and Popery, and how much better it had been to have made no more ado but to have come, as they used to do, with the Spirit only, and so be gone. Yet thus it was not … the truth is, He did seldom or never any great act without a ceremony.”1 [Note: P. H. Osmond, A Life of John Cosin (1913), 41.]
(2) But the lessons which the historical interpretation may draw from the tabernacle are chiefly, as in Heb_8:10, lessons of contrast. In the New Testament the self-revelation of God is seen, not in a building, however perfect, but in a Person, Jesus Christ, who tabernacled among us (Joh_1:14), ate with publicans and sinners, and denied that unwashen hands or unclean meats defile a man. In Him revelation became unrestricted, access to God universal, the thought of God's holiness subordinated to the thought of His Fatherhood, the necessity of man's ceremonial cleanness abrogated, and the ancient, timorous, ethical purity, which scrupulously sought to protect itself against defilement, transformed into a courageous, hopeful, all-conquering love; while the tent of the ancient national sanctuary has become in the world-religion conterminous with the arch of heaven, under which the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
And so through all, the veil of form and type
Kept men from gazing on the perfect truth,
Sense-bound they waited, as the heir, in youth,
Waits for the time of will and judgment ripe.
But now the veil is drawn aside, and we
The words of prophets, kings, and psalmists scan,
Find in the Christ the one true Son of Man,
In Him the one true Lord and Saviour see.
No fear lest we behold the glory fade:
The more we gaze, intenser grows the light,
Till we too mirror back the radiance bright,
And heaven's own sunshine lightens earth's cold shade.
So pass we on through Christ-like youth and age,
Till God's full image shines on us imprest,
And we, in being like Him fully blest,
Reach the high bliss of God's own heritage.1 [Note: E. H. Plumptre.]
