The Tabernacle
‘’And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, On the first day of the first month shalt thou set up the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation; and thou shalt put therein the ark of the testimony,” etc. — Ex. XL. 1-38.
Israel had escaped from Egypt; the Moral Lawhad been given from Mount Sinai; the Most High had revealed Himself as the self-existent and eternal I AM, to the exclusion of the lords many and gods many which Egypt and other nations adored, and a very solemn transaction had just been completed, on which, as on a nail fastened in a sure place, hung the whole future of the peculiar people. To the nation whom He had so signally rescued, whom through the Eed Sea and across the burning sands He had borne on wings of His own omnipotence into the heart of Horeb, to the nation resting in this safe asylum on the way to its promised land, Jehovah drew near, and, claiming to be their God, He at the same time offered to be their King. He offered to bring them into a relation to Himself such as no other nation had ever occupied: — “If ye will obey my voice and keep my covenant, ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people;. ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” And God’s gracious overture the people joyfully reciprocated. On a set day and a solemn, they took the oath of allegiance to their Heavenly King, “All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient;” and thenceforward the Head of their nation was neither Pharaoh nor Moses nor any mortal man; they had a Sovereign who was deathless and invincible: their only and immediate Monarch was God; the Holy One of Israel was their King.
This theocracy or government by God was the great distinction of the Hebrew people; and the day when it was ratified by covenant maybe deemed the main hinge of Hebrew history. That great transaction, the National Covenant, we have already considered, and we must now turn our thoughts to some of those details which necessarily followed.
And in considering these, we must not forget that Israel’s King was also Israel’s God, and that in the peculiar politico-religious organization which the arrangement involved, it was needful to provide at once for the worship of God and for the social welfare of the people.
The Most High — the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him; but linked to matter as we are, living in these bodies and limited to a certain space, locality enters into our thoughts when we think of God; and ever since we were banished from the bowers of Eden, the longing of all earnest spirits has been after something palpable and near, a longing after God manifest and God in the midst of us as well as after God propitious and reconciled.
This longing of devout and earnest spirits was most graciously met in the camp of Israel. From the memorable night of the exodus there had always moved before the camp or hovered over it a mystic symbol, cloud by day and fire by night, the sign and cognisance of their celestial Leader. And now Jehovah said, “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them;”^ and to the invitation the people replied so willingly that gold and silver came in to the amount of a quarter of a million sterling.^ With this large offering, acting under Divine direction, and carrying out the work with the aid of Aholiab and Bezaleel, Moses reared and furnished forth the tabernacle.
It was a great day, that New -Year’s day when the tabernacle was at last erected. It was twelve months after their departure from Egypt, and the first New-Year’s day which they had spent in the
1 Ex. XXV. 8. 2 Ex. xxxviii. 24-31; see Kitto’s Pictorial Bible.
wilderness. Everything was ready. At measured intervals were placed sockets or pediments of silver, and on these were set up columns of acacia-wood so thickly overlaid that they stood up like eight-and-forty golden pillars, joined together by transverse beams, similarly resplendent. Inside of these pillars were suspended gorgeous tapestries, with cherubim wrought into a ground alternately blue, purple, and scarlet; and outside the walls were covered successively by hair- cloth, by a sort of morocco leather, and on the top of all, as a protection from the weather, by a stout pall of badgers’ skins; and the roof resembled the sides, so that if any one could have entered, he would have found himself in an oblong apartment, about fifty feet in length and one-third as broad, roofed over and hung round with curtains of delicate texture, all wimpling with the golden wings of cherubim. But inside the full length was never seen, for at the end ten cubits were cut off to form the Holy of Holies. This inner shrine was divided from the rest of the tabernacle by a veil or beautiful curtain of byssus, and contained the Ark of the Covenant. That ark was a golden chest, into which Moses put the two tables of the Law, Aaron’s blossoming staff, an urn full of manna, and the book of the Covenant;^ and it was surmounted by a
1 Kalisch {Exochis, p. 479) says that the two tables alone were in the ark, the other objects before or beside it.
throne entirely golden, backed and over-canopied by two clierubs with outspread wings — a mercy-seat or throne of grace reserved for the Shekinah, for Him who, marching in the cloudy pillar, also sat between the cherubim. This inner shrine — the throne -room and presence-chamber of the Eternal — was trod by mortal foot but once a year, on that great day of atonement when, protected by sacrificial blood, the High Priest entered — entered to present the propitiation for the people, and returned to show that God was still good to Israel; but inside the tabernacle the more spacious anteroom called ‘“‘the Holy Place” was accessible to all the priesthood. By night and day it derived its illumination from a massive candelabrum of seven branches, with lamps of oil-olive, softly burning; and this apartment had an atmosphere exquisite with odour: for another prominent object in it was a golden altar on which no victim was ever laid, but on which Aaron burned incense twice each day. The other remarkable object in the furniture of this Holy Place was a golden table on which every Sabbath twelve loaves of unleavened bread were placed — the shew-bread or loaves of presentation — on behalf of the twelve tribes, a recognition or remembrance to Him who day by day was giving them their daily bread. All round the tabernacle ran a spacious enclosure, open overhead, but fenced round by curtains, with an entrance from the east, and open to every Israelite. The most striking objects within this court of the congregation were a large altar and a basin- fountain of brass. This fountain or laver was intended for the priests, who there washed their hands and feet before engaging in any sacred service; and it was interesting as a memorial of female piety. Brass was scarce in the camp of Israel, but the ladies surrendered their burnished mirrors in number sufficient to construct this ornamental tank, a free-will offering.^
The tabernacle was a peripatetic shrine, — a cathedral that could be carried about, — a temple of canvas and tapestry which accompanied Israel in their wanderings, and which sufficed as a visible centre of worship, till such time as the waving tapestry solidified into carvings of cedar, and the badgerskins were replaced by tall arcades of marble, and the tent had grown to a temple. And that New-Year’s day, when Aaron and his sons came forth in the gorgeous garments which they now for the first time put on, and when over the dedicated shrine the cloud descended, and such a glory filled the tabernacle that Moses and the attendant ministers were forced to withdraw, devotion must have felt something like what, on a similar occasion, Solomon expressed,” Will God in very deed dwell with man
1 Ex. xl. 17-33.
upon earth? “and as all through that New- Year’s night and the many nights succeeding, above the the tent of the testimony there was seen “the appearance of fire until the morning,” each believing Israelite laid him down and took his quiet sleep, fearing no evil, for He that keepeth Israel would neither slumber nor sleep.
It was a fine ending to that first year in the wilderness, and it is a fine ending to the book of Exodus (xl. 34-38). “At the beginning of the book we found the descendants of Jacob a multitude of iUtreated and idolatrous slaves; we leave them a free nation, the guardians of eternal truth, the witnesses of overwhelming miracles. Released from the vain and busy worldliness of Egjrpt, they encamp in the silent desert, in isolated and solemn solitude, holding converse only with their thoughts and with their God. Before them stood the visible habitation of Him whom they acknowledged and adored as their rescuer from Egyptian thraldom; the mysterious structure disclosed to them many profound ideas of their new religion; and they respected the priests as their representatives and their mediators. Between God and His people communion was opened; life had its aim, and virtue its guide.”
In order to complete our view of the Hebrew religion and worship, we ought to examine its
1 Numb. ix. 15. Kalisch on Exodus, p. 621.
various sacrifices and ceremonies; the sin-offerings, the trespass- offerings, the thank-offerings; the festivals, the passover, the feast of tabernacles, the great day of atonement; the law of the leper, the laws about priests and Levites. But to do this would need many lectures. Those who would like to examine the subject fully will find abundant information in Bonar on Leviticus, in Principal Fairbairn’s Tyyology of Scri2Jture, and in Dr. Gordon’s Christ in the Old Testament. Of the entire subject there is an excellent epitome in Cowper’s hymn on the “Old Testament Gospel,” which even those who are most familiar with it will forgive me for reading over: —
Israel, in ancient days,
Not only had a view
Of Sinai in a blaze,
But learn’d the Gospel too;
The types and figures were a glass
In which they saw a Saviour’s face.
The Paschal sacrifice,
And blood-besprinkled door,
Seen with enlighten’d eyes
And once applied with power.
Would teach the need of other blood
To reconcile an angry God.
The Lamb, the Dove, set forth
His perfect innocence.
Whose blood of matchless worth
Should be the soul’s defence;
For He who can for sin atone,
Must have no failings of his own.
The scape-goat on his head
The people’s trespass bore,
And to the desert led,
Was to be seen no more:
In him our Surety seem’d to say,
‘Behold, I bear your sins away.’”
Dipt in his fellow’s blood,
The living bird went free;
The type, well understood,
Expressed the sinner’s plea;
Described a guilty soul enlarged.
And by a Saviour’s death discharged.
Jesus, I love to trace,
Throughout the sacred page.
The footsteps of Thy grace, — The same in every age!
Oh! grant that I may faithful be
To clearer light vouchsafed to me!”
Eeverting to the Tabernacle: It served its purpose. At the time it was set up the worship of the one living and true God had become almost extinct; but the Tabernacle, with its successor the Temple, was a perpetual protest against idolatry, — a centre and rallying-point to monotheistic worship. And the doctrine of the Divine unity and spirituality has triumphed. Monotheists, or believers in one God, supreme, self- existent, and distinct from the universe He has created, are not only counted by hundreds of millions, but they include all that is worth naming of the world’s intelligence and civilisation. All the inhabitants of Europe are Monotheists. Every Christian is a Monotheist, so is every Jew, so is every Mussulman.
But the tabernacle had a purpose still more precise, more practical and home-coming. So to speak, it brought God again into the midst of men. He who in the bowers of Eden had been so friendly and familia,r, but who at man’s sin withdrew, and who from that time had rarely broken the silence, this God it again brought into our midst, and recording His name in His appointed place. He declared it to be His fixed abode and chosen dwelling.
And yet condescending, close-coming as was this sojourn of Deity in the Tabernacle of the Testimony — assuring as it was to see in the midst of the camp those symbols of propitious and protecting Omnipotence, and in cases of emergency delightful as it was to be able to inquire at the oracle, and from the Urim and Thummim receive a decisive response, there was still in the midst of the manifestation something withheld, and notwithstanding the local proximity there remained on many a mind a certain sense of remoteness. The symbols were there, and Omnipotence was there; but the cloud was not God, the fire was not God, the tabernacle was not God; and there still was room for the prayer, “0 Thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth,” and in sight of the Shekinah, and his own face shining with insufferable lustre, Moses still could pray, “0 Lord, I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory.” But as soon as a body was prepared for God’s beloved Son, as soon as the Word came and tabernacled amongst us, the glory was beheld for which an expectant Church had sighed and waited, — the glory of the only- begotten, the express image of the Father, full of grace and truth. His name was called Immanuel, God-with-Us; and so express, so complete, so conclusive was the manifestation, above all, so fitted to our frame, so personal, so human, so brotherly, that neither heart nor intellect should ask for more, and none need now repeat the behest of Philip, “Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us,” for he that seeth Jesus seeth God.
“Destroy this temple;” it was no longer a tent but a temple, — “Destroy it,” said Jesus, alluding to the tent or temple of His body, “and in three days I will build it up again.” Yes, this was the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man! the body that was born of the Virgin Mary, and about to be crucified by Pontius Pilate, — the holy and beautiful house in which the Godhead had dwelt for years, and in whose “moving tent” He had perambulated the towns and villages of that Holy Land, giving forth oracles, attracting to Himself the guilty, the sin-laden, and such as were out of the way, and finishing off by that great oblation in which the Priest Supreme offered up the Victim Divine, — in which the series ended and the symbols were fulfilled, for the Son of God had offered up Himself.
That temple they destroyed, but in three days the Divine inhabitant had built it up again — this time a body more beautiful than ever, indestructible, immortal, death- defying, a norm or pattern of that glorious body which the Saviour designs to give to each disciple. And there is in the thought something truly animating. Of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man, there is now a restoration unspeakably glorious and absolutely indestructible. Over that celestial body in which Christ hath ascended death hath no dominion; and in due season each ransomed spirit shall be the tenant of such another temple. The holy and beautiful house on the heights of Zion was not a greater advance on the tabernacle, with its ropes and its poles and its canvas, than will be the improvement on the present imperfect and disordered materialism of your house from heaven. It will be a glorious body, one which pain cannot prostrate, which accident cannot damage, which advancing years cannot render less efficient, and one which has for ever done with dying. It will be a body exquisitely organized, where the mind shall have no volitions for which the members shall not find the instrument or the vehicle; where the heart, the understanding shall have no thoughts nor feelings for which the lips, the eyes, shall not find language. And although looking at some countenance, venerable or lovely, behind whose translucent veil something of Heaven’s glory was enshrined, we may have felt for the moment, “How amiable are Thy tabernacles, 0 Lord of hosts!” could we draw nearer and listen to the language of the actual inmate, we should sometimes find him complaining of straitened space and inappropriate accommodation.” For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; for we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens ‘Now he that hath
wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who also hath given to us the earnest of the Spirit.”