We can gain basic insights into the nature and function of the tabernacle by considering the biblical terms and phrases used for that structure. Exodus 25:1-9 begins the lengthy instructions for the construction of the tabernacle, and it uses some of the key terms for understanding the theology of the sanctuary.
Israel is to construct a “sanctuary” (Exodus 25:8). The Hebrew term is miqdash, taken from the word qadash, which means “to be or make holy.” The tabernacle is going to be a “holy place.” Yahweh is holy, and wherever Yahweh appears in glory His holiness radiates and makes the surroundings holy. His holiness is contagious. This happens at the burning bush: When Yahweh appears to Moses in His glory, He consecrates the ground so that it becomes “holy ground” (Exodus 4). This is why the Lord says He will consecrate (a form of qadash) the tabernacle by His glory, and will also consecrate the altar and the priests (Exodus 29:43-44).
Holy things are things claimed by God. Where He comes to dwell, He claims the surrounding area, and everything in it, as His own. The tabernacle is His own place, the furnishings are Yahweh’s own stuff, the utensils are His, and the priests who minister in the house are His. As His property, they are to be used only for His purposes. He dwells in it to claim it. This is the basis of rules of holiness and the restrictions of access. Not just anyone can tread on Yahweh’s holy ground, use His holy things. Priests can do it only because they have been consecrated to do so. Anyone else who does it intrudes and trespasses on God’s holy things, and is guilty of the serious sin of sacrilege.
This is the basis for Paul’s use of the temple in ethical exhortations: Because the Spirit dwells in you, you are consecrated and claimed by God. You belong to Him. Therefore, do not use the temple in which God dwells for immoral things. Do not take God’s house and join it to a prostitute.
The construction of the miqdash creates a distinction between holy and common space, and thereby between holy and common people and things. The tabernacle is the center of an entire ordered map of the world that revolves around the concept of graded holiness. People, animals, materials, space, food, and the cosmos are organized by a system distinguishing between holy and most holy, holy and common, clean and unclean. Stationed at the center of things, the tabernacle establishes the map of Israel’s archaic world.
The purpose of the sanctuary is for Yahweh to “dwell” (shakan; Exodus 25:9) among the Israelites. The tabernacle is the place of Yahweh’s dwelling, His tent among the tents of Israel. This is the root of the word “tabernacle” itself, which is mishkan in Hebrew (first used in 25:9). That term can sometimes refer to a domicile (Job 18:21; Psalm 87:2), or to an animal den (Job 39:6), and is also used for the sanctuary in (Psalm 46:5; 84:2). Mostly, though, it is used for the tabernacle, the dwelling-place of Yahweh among the people of Israel. In some places in the Old Testament, the tabernacle is contrasted with a “house” of Yahweh, since the tabernacle is not a permanent dwelling place. But there are also a handful of texts that describe the tabernacle as a “house of Yahweh” (Exodus 23:19; 34:26). Yahweh comes to live among His people in the same kind of mobile and impermanent structure that they have. He is “incarnate” in a mobile tent, accompanying Israel through the wilderness.
The structure of the tabernacle is a house structure. There is a courtyard, with a place for cooking meals and washing. There is a “living” or “dining” room with a table of bread, a lamp and an incense altar. There is an inner throne room, where Yahweh is enthroned above the cherubim. The tabernacle is also describes as a “tent of meeting” (‘ohel mo’ed; first in Exodus 27:21), though this phrase might more specifically refer to the holy place, the portion of the tabernacle complex that is “outside the veil which is before the testimony (Exodus 27:21). After chapter 27, the phrase is used 34x in Exodus – a total of 35 (7 x 5).
Significantly, Exodus 27:21 is also the first time that the tabernacle texts refer to Aaron and his sons as ministers in the tent, and the text moves on to describe the priestly garments and lay out the rite of priestly ordination. The tent is described as a tent of appointment at the very moment when the text introduces those who are able to keep the appointments. mo’ed has a specific connotation in the Hebrew Bible.
The word is first used to describe one of the functions of the sun, moon, and stars, to “be for signs and for appointed times” (Genesis 1:14), and the other uses in Genesis describe a specific designated time set aside for an event. In the rest of the Pentateuch, a mo’ed refers more specifically to the appointed times for Israel’s assemblies. Israel is to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread at the “appointed time” (Exodus 23:15), and Leviticus 23 lays out the schedule of Yahweh’s appointed times during which Israel will proclaim holy convocations, gatherings for festivity and worship (v. 2 [2x]; cf. vv. 4 [2x], 37, 44).
This is consistent with the Deuteronomic vision of the tabernacle as the place where Yahweh sets His name so that Israel can assemble to sacrifice, and to eat, drink, and rejoice before Yahweh. As tent of appointment, or tent of assembly, the tabernacle is the place where Israel is gathered to worship.
All this comes to expression in the New Covenant in Jesus and His body. Jesus is the Holy One in human flesh, whose contagious holiness claims and consecrates everyone He touches. Jesus is the dwelling of God on earth, and He is the place where we have access to the Father. He is the One to whom we gather to offer our sacrifices of praise, and to eat, drink, and rejoice. Because Jesus comes to us now by the Spirit who inhabits His body, all this is also true of the church: The church is the assembly of “holy ones,” saints; the church is the dwelling of God in the Spirit; we rejoice before Jesus by assembling at the “tent of appointed assembly.”
Peter J. Leithart is President of Trinity House.