“Moreover you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, with cherubim. You shall make them with the work of a skillful workman. The length of each curtain shall be twenty-eight cubits, and the width of each curtain four cubits: all the curtains shall have one measure. Five curtains shall be coupled together to one another, and the other five curtains shall be coupled to one another. You shall make loops of blue on the edge of the one curtain from the edge in the coupling, and you shall do likewise on the edge of the curtain that is outermost in the second coupling. You shall make fifty loops in the one curtain, and you shall make fifty loops in the edge of the curtain that is in the second coupling. The loops shall be opposite one another. You shall make fifty clasps of gold, and couple the curtains to one another with the clasps. The tabernacle shall be a unit.
Parallel Translations
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“Moreover you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, with cherubim. You shall make them with the work of a skillful workman.
The length of each curtain shall be twenty-eight cubits, and the width of each curtain four cubits: all the curtains shall have one measure.
Five curtains shall be coupled together to one another, and the other five curtains shall be coupled to one another.
You shall make loops of blue on the edge of the one curtain from the edge in the coupling, and you shall do likewise on the edge of the curtain that is outermost in the second coupling.
You shall make fifty loops in the one curtain, and you shall make fifty loops in the edge of the curtain that is in the second coupling. The loops shall be opposite one another.
You shall make fifty clasps of gold, and couple the curtains to one another with the clasps. The tabernacle shall be a unit.
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Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them.
The length of one curtain shall be eight and twenty cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits: and every one of the curtains shall have one measure.
The five curtains shall be coupled together one to another; and other five curtains shall be coupled one to another.
And thou shalt make loops of blue upon the edge of the one curtain from the selvedge in the coupling; and likewise shalt thou make in the uttermost edge of another curtain, in the coupling of the second.
Fifty loops shalt thou make in the one curtain, and fifty loops shalt thou make in the edge of the curtain that is in the coupling of the second; that the loops may take hold one of another.
And thou shalt make fifty taches of gold, and couple the curtains together with the taches: and it shall be one tabernacle.
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Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains: of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, with cherubim the work of the skilful workman shalt thou make them.
The length of each curtain shall be eight and twenty cubits, and the breadth of each curtain four cubits; all the curtains shall have one measure.
Five curtains shall be coupled together one to another; and the other five curtains shall be coupled one to another.
And thou shalt make loops of blue upon the edge of the one curtain that is outmost in the first set; and likewise shalt thou make in the edge of the curtain that is outmost in the second set.
Fifty loops shalt thou make in the one curtain, and fifty loops shalt thou make in the edge of the curtain that is in the second set; the loops shall be opposite one to another.
And thou shalt make fifty clasps of gold, and couple the curtains one to another with the clasps, that the tabernacle may be one whole.
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Cross-references (47)
- Exodus 36:8-19 (v1) All the wise-hearted men among those who did the work made the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, blue, purple, and…
- Exodus 26:36 (v1) “You shall make a screen for the door of the Tent, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, the work of the embroiderer.
- 1 Chronicles 17:1 (vv1–2) When David lived in his house, David said to Nathan the prophet, “Behold, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of Yahweh’s covenant is…
- Exodus 25:18 (v1) You shall make two cherubim of hammered gold. You shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat.
- Exodus 26:31 (v1) “You shall make a veil of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, with cherubim. It shall be the work of a skillful workman.
Show all 45 cross-references
- Exodus 36:35 (v1) He made the veil of blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twined linen, with cherubim. He made it the work of a skillful workman.
- Numbers 4:25 (v2) they shall carry the curtains of the tabernacle and the Tent of Meeting, its covering, the covering of sealskin that is on it, the screen…
- 2 Samuel 7:2 (v2) the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but God’s ark dwells within curtains.”
- Ephesians 4:16 (vv3, 6) from whom all the body, being fitted and knit together through that which every joint supplies, according to the working in measure of each…
- Exodus 25:4 (v1) blue, purple, scarlet, fine linen, goats’ hair,
- Exodus 25:8 (v1) Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.
- Exodus 26:5 (v4) You shall make fifty loops in the one curtain, and you shall make fifty loops in the edge of the curtain that is in the second coupling.…
- Exodus 26:9 (v3) You shall couple five curtains by themselves, and six curtains by themselves, and shall double over the sixth curtain in the forefront of…
- Exodus 26:10-11 (v4) You shall make fifty loops on the edge of the one curtain that is outermost in the coupling, and fifty loops on the edge of the curtain…
- Exodus 26:11 (v6) You shall make fifty clasps of bronze, and put the clasps into the loops, and couple the tent together, that it may be one.
- Exodus 26:33 (v6) You shall hang up the veil under the clasps, and shall bring the ark of the covenant in there within the veil. The veil shall separate the…
- Exodus 35:6 (v1) blue, purple, scarlet, fine linen, goats’ hair,
- Exodus 35:11 (v6) the tabernacle, its outer covering, its roof, its clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars, and its sockets;
- Exodus 35:35 (v1) He has filled them with wisdom of heart to work all kinds of workmanship, of the engraver, of the skillful workman, and of the embroiderer,…
- Exodus 36:10 (v3) He coupled five curtains to one another, and the other five curtains he coupled to one another.
- Exodus 36:11-12 (v4) He made loops of blue on the edge of the one curtain from the edge in the coupling. Likewise he made in the edge of the curtain that was…
- Exodus 36:13 (v6) He made fifty clasps of gold, and coupled the curtains to one another with the clasps: so the tabernacle was a unit.
- Exodus 36:17 (v4) He made fifty loops on the edge of the curtain that was outermost in the coupling, and he made fifty loops on the edge of the curtain which…
- Exodus 36:18 (v6) He made fifty clasps of bronze to couple the tent together, that it might be a unit.
- Exodus 39:33 (v6) They brought the tabernacle to Moses: the tent, with all its furniture, its clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars, its sockets,
- Exodus 40:2 (v1) “On the first day of the first month you shall raise up the tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting.
- Exodus 40:17-19 (v1) In the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, the tabernacle was raised up. Moses raised up the tabernacle, and…
- 1 Chronicles 21:29 (v1) For Yahweh’s tabernacle, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon.
- John 1:14 (v1) The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
- John 2:21 (v1) But he spoke of the temple of his body.
- John 17:21 (v3) that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that…
- 1 Corinthians 12:4 (v3) Now there are various kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.
- 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 (v3) For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. For in one…
- Ephesians 1:22-23 (v6) He put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things for the assembly, which is his body, the fullness…
- Ephesians 2:21-22 (v3) in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together for a habitation of…
- Ephesians 4:3-6 (v3) being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, even as you also were called in one…
- Colossians 2:2 (v3) that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love, and gaining all riches of the full assurance of understanding, that…
- Colossians 2:19 (v3) and not holding firmly to the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and ligaments, grows with…
- Hebrews 8:2 (v1) a servant of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.
- Hebrews 9:9 (v1) This is a symbol of the present age, where gifts and sacrifices are offered that are incapable, concerning the conscience, of making the…
- Hebrews 9:23-24 (v1) It was necessary therefore that the copies of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves…
- 1 Peter 2:4-5 (v6) coming to him, a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God, precious. You also, as living stones, are built up as a spiritual…
- Revelation 19:8 (v1) It was given to her that she would array herself in bright, pure, fine linen: for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
- Revelation 21:3 (v1) I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his…
- Exodus 26:7-8 (v2) “You shall make curtains of goats’ hair for a covering over the tabernacle. You shall make eleven curtains. The length of each curtain…
45 distinct cross-references across this passage (47 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 6 That is, of most cunning or fine work.
That is, of most cunning or fine work.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6 Exo 26:1 Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle [with]…
Exo 26:1 Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle [with] ten curtains [of] fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: [with] cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them.
Ver. 1. Thou shalt make the tabernacle.] A type, (1.) Of Christ who "dwelt among us, full of grace and truth"; {Joh 1:14} (2.) Of the Church built by Christ; {1Co 3:9} (3.) Of every true Christian. {Eph 2:19-22}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 6 The tabernacle, or tent; a little house wherein the…
The tabernacle, or tent; a little house wherein the ark, table, and candlestick were to be placed. And scarlet, i.e. with materials of these colours, to wit, wool, as may be gathered from hence, that it is opposed to linen. Compare Exo 25:4. Of cunning work, either woven, or rather wrought with needle, wherein is most skill and curiosity.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 I. The house must be a tabernacle or tent,…
I. The house must be a tabernacle or tent, such as soldiers now use in the camp, which was both a mean dwelling and a movable one; and yet the ark of God had not better, till Solomon built the temple 480 years after this, Kg1 6:1. God manifested his presence among them thus in a tabernacle, 1. In compliance with their present condition in the wilderness, that they might have him with them wherever they went. Note, God suits the tokens of his favour, and the gifts of his grace, to his people's wants and necessities, according as they are, accommodating his mercy to their state, prosperous or adverse, settled or unsettled. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee, Isa 43:2. 2. That it might represent the state of God's church in this world, it is a tabernacle-state, Psa 15:1. We have here no continuing city; being strangers in this world, and travellers towards a better, we shall never be fixed till we come to heaven. Church-privileges are movable goods, from one place to another; the gospel is not tied to any place; the candlestick is in a tent, and may easily be taken away, Rev 2:5. If we make much of the tabernacle, and improve the privilege of it, wherever we go it will accompany us; but, if we neglect and disgrace it, wherever we stay it will forsake us. What hath my beloved to do in my house? Jer 11:15.
II. The curtains of the tabernacle must correspond to a divine pattern. 1. They were to be very rich, the best of the kind, fine twined linen; and colours very pleasing, blue, and purple, and scarlet. 2. They were to be embroidered with cherubim (Exo 26:1), to intimate that the angels of God pitch their tents round about the church, Psa 34:7. As there were cherubim over the mercy-seat, so there were round the tabernacle; for we find the angels compassing, not only the throne, but the elders; see Rev 5:11. 3. There were to be two hangings, five breadths in each, sewed together, and the two hangings coupled together with golden clasps, or tacks, so that it might be all one tabernacle, Exo 26:6. Thus the churches of Christ and the saints, though they are many, are yet one, being fitly joined together in holy love, and by the unity of the Spirit, so growing into one holy temple in the Lord, Eph 2:21, Eph 2:22; Eph 4:16. This tabernacle was very strait and narrow; but, at the preaching of the gospel, the church is bidden to enlarge the place of her tent, and to stretch forth her curtains, Isa 54:2.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–6 Moreover, thou shalt make the tabernacle,.... Which he was…
Moreover, thou shalt make the tabernacle,.... Which he was ordered to make before, the pattern of which was shown him in the mount: this was an habitation for God to dwell in, as the word properly signifies, and into which the furniture before described was to be put; this tabernacle was a type both of the human nature of Christ, which is the true tabernacle which God pitched, and not man, the greater and more perfect one, Heb 8:2 in which the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, where the glory of God is seen, in whom he grants his gracious presence to his people, and accepts of them and their sacrifices of prayer and praise; and also of the church of God, Psa 43:3. Here Jehovah dwells, grants his presence to his people, and comes and blesses them; here he is worshipped, and spiritual sacrifices are offered up to him with acceptance: the tabernacle of Moses was made
with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet; the ground of these curtains was fine linen, twined or doubled: and the Jewish writers, as Maimonides, Ben Gersom, and others, say it was six times doubled, the word "Shesh", here used, signifying six; and this was interwoven with threads of yarn dyed blue, purple, and scarlet; according to Jarchi, the threads of which this tapestry was made were twenty four times doubled: he observes,"there were four sorts in every thread, one thread of fine linen, and three of wool, and every thread was doubled six times; lo, the four sorts, when they were twined together, there were twenty four double to a thread;''which if so, must make a stuff of a very great consistence and stiffness. This, as applied to the human nature of Christ, the fine linen may denote the purity of it; the various colours the different graces of the Spirit, with which it is adorned; or else the wounds, bruises, bloodshed, sufferings and death he endured in it: as applied to the church, may signify the clothing of the saints with the righteousness of Christ, that fine linen clean and white, and their being washed in his precious blood, and beautified with the graces of his Spirit:
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with cherubim of cunning work shall thou make them; that is, with figures like those of the cherubim on the mercy seat, so disposed by the curious art and contrivance of the weaver, as to appear on both sides of this tapestry; for this was not wrought by a needle, which only shows the figure on one side, but by weaving, as Jarchi observes; and who says, that there was one figure on one side, and another on another; as, for instance, a lion on one side, and an eagle on the other; or, which is more likely, the same figure was seen on both sides, as Maimonides affirms, who says (e), the work called Chosheb (which is what is here spoken of) is that whose figures appear on both sides, before and behind: this in the mystical sense may point either to the ministration of angels to Christ in his human nature, and to his people the heirs of salvation; or else to the service of Gospel ministers, done for the honour and glory of Christ, and the good of his church and people: Josephus (f) thinks these curtains had a mystical meaning in them, and represent the nature of the elements, and so Philo (g).
(e) Hilchot Cele Hamikdash, c. 8. sect. 15. (f) Antiqu. l. 3. c. 7. sect. 7. (g) De Vita Mosis, l. 3. p. 667.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On v1 Moses here receives instructions,
Moses here receives instructions,
I. Concerning the inner curtains of the tabernacle, ver. 1-6.
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II. Concerning the outer curtains, ver. 7-13.
III. Concerning the cover which was to secure it from the weather, ver. 14.
IV. Concerning the boards which were to support the curtains, ver. 15-30.
V. The partition between the holy place and the most holy, ver. 31-35.
VI. The veil for the door, ver. 36-37. These particulars seem of little use to us now, yet having been of great use to Moses and Israel, and God having thought fit to preserve to us the remembrance of them, we ought not to overlook them.
The curtains were to be embroidered with cherubim, to intimate that the angels of God pitched their tents round about the church, Psalm xxxiv, 7. As there were cherubim over the mercy-seat, so there were round the tabernacle. There were to be two hangings, five breadths to each, sewed together, and the two hangings coupled together with golden clasps or tacks, so that it might be all one tabernacle, ver. 6. Thus the churches of Christ, though they are many, yet are one, being fitly joined together in holy love and by the unity of the Spirit, so growing into one holy temple in the Lord. This tabernacle was very strait and narrow, but at the preaching of the gospel, the church is bid to enlarge the place of her tent, and to stretch forth her curtains, Isaiah liv, 2.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On v1 The ten curtains of the tabernacle, and of what…
CHAPTER XXVI
The ten curtains of the tabernacle, and of what composed, 1.
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Their length, 2, 3;
their loops, 4, 5;
their taches, 6.
The curtains of goats' hair for a covering, 7;
their length and breadth, 8.
Coupled with loops, 9, 10,
and taches, 11.
The remnant of the curtains, how to be employed, 12, 13.
The covering of rams' skins, 14.
The boards of the tabernacle for the south side, 15;
their length, 16,
tenons, 17,
number, 18,
sockets, 19.
Boards, c., for the north side, 20, 21.
Boards, c., for the west side, 22
for the corners, 23
their rings and sockets, 24, 25.
The bars of the tabernacle, 26-30.
The veil, its pillars, hooks, and taches, 31-33.
How to place the mercy-seat, 34.
The table and the candlestick, 35.
The hanging for the door of the tent, 36;
and the hangings for the pillars, 37.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXVI
Verse 1. Thou shalt make the tabernacle] משכן mischan, from שכן shachan, to dwell, means simply a dwelling place or habitation of any kind, but here it means the dwelling place of Jehovah, who, as a king in his camp, had his dwelling or pavilion among his people, his table always spread, his lamps lighted, and the priests, c., his attendants, always in waiting. From the minute and accurate description here given, a good workman, had he the same materials, might make a perfect fac simile of the ancient Jewish tabernacle. It was a movable building, and so constructed that it might be easily taken to pieces, for the greater convenience of carriage, as they were often obliged to transport it from place to place, in their various journeyings. For the twined linen, blue, purple, and scarlet, See Clarke on Ex 25:4, c.
Cherubims] See Clarke on Ex 25:18.
Cunning work] חשב chosheb probably means a sort of diaper, in which the figures appear equally perfect on both sides this was probably formed in the loom. Another kind of curious work is mentioned, Ex 26:36, רקם rokem, which we term needle-work this was probably similar to our embroidery, tapestry, or cloth of arras. It has been thought unlikely that these curious works were all manufactured in the wilderness: what was done in the loom, they might have brought with them from Egypt; what could be done by hand, without the use of complex machinery, the Israelitish women could readily perform with their needles, during their stay in the wilderness. But still it seems probable that they brought even their looms with them. The whole of this account shows that not only necessary but ornamental arts had been carried to a considerable pitch of perfection, both among the Israelites and Egyptians.
The inner curtains of the tabernacle were ten in number, and each in length twenty-eight cubits, and four in breadth; about sixteen yards twelve inches long, and two yards twelve inches broad. The curtains were to be coupled together, five and five of a side, by fifty loops, Ex 26:5, and as many golden clasps, Ex 26:6, so that each might look like one curtain, and the whole make one entire covering, which was the first.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v1 Exo 26:1. Thou shalt make the tabernacle — The…
Exo 26:1. Thou shalt make the tabernacle — The word המשׁכן hammishchan, which we translate tabernacle, means a place to dwell in. And this was not only to be a sign of God’s presence with, and protection of his people, but his habitation or dwelling-place among them: the place where he would, in a peculiar manner, manifest his presence, display his glory, accept their oblations, prayers, praises, and other services, and by the intervention of Moses and Aaron first, and afterward of the high-priest for the time being, would communicate to them his mind and will. “It was a type,” says Mr. Brown, “1st, Of Christ’s person, Heb 8:2. 2d, Of the gospel church; the habitation of God by the Spirit, Eph 2:20-22; 2Co 6:16. 3d, Of every Christian, in whose heart God dwells, 1Co 3:16; 1Co 6:19. 4th, Of the new covenant and heavenly state, Isa 66:1. And according to these different significations may the furniture thereof be understood in different views.”
With ten curtains — These curtains formed the principal covering of the sanctuary, and are called the tabernacle or dwelling-place of God. They were made of the finest linen, dyed with the richest colours, spun and woven in the most curious manner, and beautifully embroidered all over with cherubim, the emblematic representations of angels. This last circumstance was not only intended to signify that the angels joined in the worship of the God of Israel; but also that they attend continually upon him in his holy habitation as “his ministers to do his pleasure,” Psa 103:21; that they encamp around his church, Psa 34:7; and are always in waiting, so to speak, and ready to minister to the heirs of salvation, Heb 1:14. For, as there were cherubim over the mercy- seat, so there were also round the tabernacle. It must be observed, likewise, that there were to be two hangings, five breadths in each, sewed together, and the two hangings coupled together, with golden clasps, or tacks, so that it might all be one tabernacle. Thus the churches of Christ, though they are many, yet are one, being fitly joined together in holy love, and by the unity of the Spirit, so growing into one holy temple in the Lord. This tabernacle was very straight and narrow, but at the preaching of the gospel the church is bid to enlarge the place of her tent, and to stretch forth her curtains, Isa 54:2.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On v1 (Compare Exo. 36:8-33.) The tabernacle was to comprise three…
(Compare Exo. 36:8-33.) The tabernacle was to comprise three main parts, the tabernacle Exo 26:1-6, more strictly so-called, its tent Exo 26:7-13, and its covering Exo 26:14 (Compare Exo 35:11; Exo 39:33-34; Exo 40:19, Exo 40:34; Num 3:25, etc.). These parts are very clearly distinguished in the Hebrew, but they are confounded in many places of the English Version (see Exo 26:7, Exo 26:9, etc.). The tabernacle itself was to consist of curtains of fine linen woven with colored figures of cherubim, and a structure of boards which was to contain the holy place and the most holy place; the tent was to be a true tent of goats’ hair cloth to contain and shelter the tabernacle: the covering was to be of red rams’ skins and “tachash” skins Exo 25:5, and was spread over the goats’ hair tent as an additional protection against the weather. On the external form of the tabernacle and the arrangement of its parts, see cuts at the end of the chapter.
Exo 26:1
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The tabernacle - The משׁכן mı̂shkân, i. e. the dwelling-place; the definite article regularly accompanies the Hebrew word when the dwelling-place of Yahweh is denoted. But in this place the word is not used in its full sense as denoting the dwelling-place of Yahweh: it denotes only the tabernacle-cloth Exo 26:6. The word is, in fact, employed with three distinct ranges of meaning,
(1) in its strict sense, comprising the cloth of the tabernacle with its woodwork (Exo 25:9; Exo 26:30; Exo 36:13; Exo 40:18, etc.);
(2) in a narrower sense, for the tabernacle-cloth only (Exo 26:1, Exo 26:6; Exo 35:11; Exo 39:33-34, etc.);
(3) in a wider sense, for the tabernacle with its tent and covering (Exo 27:19; Exo 35:18, etc.).
With ten curtains - Rather, of ten breadths. Five of these breadths were united so as to form what, in common usage, we should call a large curtain Exo 26:3. The two curtains thus formed were coupled together by the loops and taches to make the entire tabernacle-cloth Exo 26:6.
Of cunning work - More properly, of the work of the skilled weaver. The colored figures of cherubim (see Exo 25:4, Exo 25:18) were to be worked in the loom, as in the manufacture of tapestry and carpets (see Exo 26:36 note). On the different kinds of workmen employed on the textile fabrics, see Exo 35:35.
Exo 26:3
Each curtain formed of five breadths (see Exo 26:1), was 42 feet in length and 30 feet in breadth, taking the cubit at 18 inches.
Exo 26:4
The meaning appears to be, “And thou shalt make loops of blue on the edge of the one breadth (which is) on the side (of the one curtain) at the coupling; and the same shalt thou do in the edge of the outside breadth of the other (curtain) at the coupling.” The “coupling” is the uniting together of the two curtains: (“selvedge” is the translation of a word signifying extremity or end).
Exo 26:5
The words “in the edge,” etc. mean, “on the edge of the breadth that is at the coupling in the second (curtain).”
Exo 26:6
Taches of gold - Each “tache,” or clasp, was to unite two opposite loops.
Couple the curtains - i. e. couple the two outside breadths mentioned in Exo 26:4.
Exo 26:7
A covering upon the tabernacle - A tent over the tabernacle. The Hebrew word here used, is the regular one for a tent of skins or cloth of any sort.
Exo 26:9
tabernacle - tent, not tabernacle. The passage might be rendered, “thou shalt equally divide the sixth breadth at the front of the tent.” In this way, half a breadth would overhang at the front and half at the back.
Exo 26:10
Or: “And thou shalt make fifty loops on the edge of the outside breadth of the one (curtain) at the coupling, and fifty loops on the edge of the outside breadth of the other (curtain) at the coupling.”
Exo 26:11
In the tent, clasps of bronze were used to unite the loops of the two curtains; in the tabernacle, clasps of gold, compare Exo 26:6, Exo 26:37.
Couple the tent together - Not “covering,” as in the margin. By “the tent” is here meant the tent-cloth alone.
Exo 26:13
The measure of the entire tabernacle-cloth was about 60 ft. by 42; that of the tent-cloth was about 67 ft. by 45. When the latter was placed over the former, it spread beyond it at the back and front about 3 ft. (the “half-curtain,” Exo 26:9, Exo 26:12) and at the sides 18 inches.
Exo 26:16
The board would therefore be about 15 ft. long, and 27 in. broad.
Exo 26:18
The entire length of the structure was about 45 ft. in the clear, and its width about 15 ft.
The south side southward - Or, the south side on the right. As the entrance of the tabernacle was at its east end, the south side, to a person entering it, would be on the left hand: but we learn from Josephus that it was usual, in speaking of the temple, to identify the south with the right hand and the north with the left hand, the entrance being regarded as the face of the structure and the west end as its back.
Exo 26:19
Sockets - More literally, bases, or foundations. Each base weighed a talent, that is, about 94 lbs. (see Exo 38:27), and must have been a massive block. The bases formed a continuous foundation for the walls of boards, presenting a succession of sockets or mortices (each base having a single socket), into which the tenons were to fit. They served not only for ornament but also for the protection of the lower ends of the boards from the decay which would have resulted from contact with the ground.
Exo 26:22
The sides of the tabernacle westward - Rather, the back of the tabernacle toward the west. See Exo 26:18.
Exo 26:23
In the two sides - Rather, at the back.
Exo 26:24
The corner boards appear to have been of such width, and so placed, as to add 18 in. to the width of the structure, making up with the six boards of full width Exo 26:22 about 15 ft. in the clear (see Exo 26:18). The “ring” was so formed as to receive two bars meeting “beneath” and “above” at a right angle.
Exo 26:27
For the two sides westward - For the back toward the west. Compare Exo 26:22,
Exo 26:28
In the midst of the boards - If we suppose the boards to have been of ordinary thickness Exo 26:16, the bar was visible and passed through an entire row of rings. In any case, it served to hold the whole wall together.
Exo 26:31
Vail - Literally, separation (see Exo 35:12 note).
Exo 26:33
Taches - Not the same as the hooks of the preceding verse, but the clasps of the tabernacle-cloth (see Exo 26:6).
Exo 26:34-35
See Exo 25:10-16, Exo 25:23, Exo 25:31.
Exo 26:36
The door of the tent - The entrance to the tent, closed by the “hanging” or curtain Exo 27:16.
Wrought with needlework. - The work of the embroiderer. The entrance curtain of the tent and that of the court Exo 27:16 were to be of the same materials, but embroidered with the needle, not made in figures in the loom (see Exo 26:1; Exo 35:35).
Exo 26:37
Rice pillars - These, it should be observed, belonged to the entrance of the tent, not, in their architectural relation, to the entrance of the tabernacle.
Sockets of brass - Their bases (see Exo 26:19) were of bronze (like the taches of the tentcloth, Exo 26:11), not of silver, to mark the inferiority of the tent to the tabernacle.
We are indebted to Mr. Fergusson for what may be regarded as a satisfactory reconstruction of the sanctuary in all its main particulars. He holds that what sheltered the Mishkan was actually a tent of ordinary form, such as common sense and practical experience would suggest as best suited for the purpose.
According to this view the five pillars at the entrance of the tent Exo 26:37 were graduated as they would naturally be at the entrance of any large tent of the best form, the tallest one being in the middle to support one end of a ridge-pole.
Such a ridge-pole, which must have been sixty feet in length, would have required support, and this might have been afforded by a plain pole in the middle of the structure. Over this framing of wood-work the tent-cloth of goats’ hair was strained with its cords and tent-pins in the usual way. (See cut.)
Above the tent-cloth of goats’ hair was spread the covering of red rams’ skins.
The five pillars, to reach across the front of the tent, must have stood five cubits (about 7 1/2 ft.) apart. Their heads were united by connecting rods (“fillets” Exo 27:10) overlaid with gold Exo 36:38. The spaces at the sides and back may have been wholly or in part covered in for the use of the officiating priests, like the small apartments which in after times skirted three sides of the temple. It was probably here that those portions of the sacrifices were eaten which were not to be carried out of the sacred precincts Lev 6:16, Lev 6:26. We may also infer that priests lodged in them. Compare 1Sa 3:2-3.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 6 Twisted, for greater strength, with double threads. (Du Hamel)…
Twisted, for greater strength, with double threads. (Du Hamel) --- Diversified, &c. Hebrew, "cherubim wrought by a skilful workman." A cherubic work is one extremely diversified, and wonderful; representing birds, flowers, monsters; either in gold, wood, painting, or tapestry. When it is done with a needle, it is styled rokom, "feathers," (plumarium opus.) But when the variety of colours is done with the loom, being more ingenious, the Hebrew call it essob "of an inventor." Such were these curtains.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 4. The Tent, or the Dwelling itself. Exo_26:1-30
4. The Tent, or the Dwelling itself. Exo_26:1-30
I. The Component Parts of the Tent as to Form.
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a. The tent itself. (1) Ten curtains of byssus each 28 cubits long, and 4 cubits wide. (2) Fifty loops to each curtain, to connect together five curtains. (3) Five times fifty golden clasps, to connect the loops1
b. The covering of the tent. First covering, of goats’ hair: eleven curtains, each 30 cubits long, and 4 cubits wide, divided into sets of 5 and 6. For them 50 [or rather, 100] loops and 50 copper clasps. One curtain is folded double on the front side of the tent. The surplus cubits hang over on the two sides. A similar excess hangs over on the back end of the tent.—Second covering, rams’ skins dyed red.—Third covering, the outer one, seal-skins.
c. The supports of the tent. The boards of acacia wood. Each board 10 cubits long, 1½ cubits wide. Two tenons in each board. Twenty boards on the south side resting on forty silver sockets (feet).—Twenty boards on the north side with the same number of sockets. Six boards for the rear. Two boards for the corners of the rear. In addition, the bars (cross-bars or connecting bars), 5 for each side, the middle one passing the whole length of the framework. The bars and boards gilt. Also the rings for the bars.2
II. The Component Parts as to material. Byssus, linen, goats’-hair, and the two kinds of skin. Acacia wood, gold, silver, copper.
III. The Colors. Especially significant. The covering proper of the tent contains the four colors: white, purplish-blue, purplish-red, crimson.
IV. The Work of the Curtains. The work of skilful weavers, i.e., with figures interwoven, viz., with figures of cherubim.
V. The different kinds of woven work.
5. The Veil. Exo_26:31-37
The division between the holy place and the Holy of holies. According to modern notions there is no difference between the wide, savage world and the court, no difference between the court and the holy place, none, in fine, between the holy place and the most holy. The Biblical notions are infinitely purer and finer. Even between the holy place and the most holy hangs a thick curtain, as between the Old and New Testament. The passage from the holy place into the Holy of holies has been made free to His people by Christ.
As the heaven of heavens is to be conceived as a high heaven consisting of individual heavens, the age (æon) of ages (æons) as an age which consists of individual ages, the Sabbath of Sabbaths as one whose several week days are seven Sabbaths; so the Holy of holies is a sanctuary of sanctuaries, קֹדֶשׁ קֳדָשִׁים, and so, most holy. Especially is it to be observed that the three principal features of the holy place, viz., the table of shew-bread, the candlestick, and the altar of incense, here coalesce into one.
As there were three altars, so three curtains. The first screened the court; the second, the holy place; the third, the Holy of holies. The latter was the principal one. Keil and Knobel give details about the construction and arrangement of the curtain, as also about the Arab tents and Egyptian temples.3
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6. The Altar of Burnt-offering. Exo_27:1-8
The fact that the altar of burnt-offering was separated not only from the Holy of holies, but also from the holy place, and stood in the court, serves to express this religious idea: that faith begins with the first approach to God, with obedience to His law and surrender to His judgment; but that it does not for that reason entitle one to an entrance into the interior communion with God in the sanctuary, still less to a complete union with God in the Holy of holies; although it has this as its aim, and is a preparation for it, and also through religious fellowship with the high-priest gives to him who makes the offering a conditional participation in the blessing of the Holy of holies, and gives him a hope of future entrance into the Holy of holies itself.
This distance between the holy place and the Holy of holies is also represented by the gradations in the value of the metallic ornamentations. The altar of burnt-offering was overlaid with copper: the seven-branched candlestick in the holy place consisted of fine or hollow vessels; the table of shew-bread was gilt; the ark of the covenant was gilt inside and outside, while its lid and the cherubim on it, as also the rim of the ark, were of solid gold. A similar relation exists between the curtains. The veil of the Holy of holies was the work of a skilled weaver, adorned with figures of cherubim in which the reflection of the cherubim in the Holy of holies appears. The second curtain, which screened the holy place, was simply woven in variegated colors, striped, or perhaps checkered; so also the screen at the entrance of the court. Significant special features in the altar of burnt-offering are particularly its horns, the points of the corners, the permanent power of the altar, so to speak, in contrast with the fire which now appears and now disappears; “hence,” as Keil says, “the blood of the sin-offering was put upon them (Lev_4:7), and also those who sought the protection of their lives at the altar seized hold of them (vid. Exo_21:14).” Among the vessels bowls appear again, but here to be used for sprinkling the blood. Special mention, moreover, is made of the grating of the altar under the ledge or rim (כַּרְכֹּב), and of this ledge itself. “Upon the karkob, the ledge or rim, the priest stepped when an offering was made, or when he wished to add more wood, or do anything else on the altar” (Keil). Knobel has a different view, holding [that the rim was only an ornament, that such a ledge to step on would have disfigured the altar, and moreover] that the altar was so high that it could not have been served without steps; which is contrary to Exo_20:26. Keil, on the contrary, supposes that the earth was slightly heaped up, so that the priest could step from it to the ledge. Neither does the height of the altar in Solomon’s temple (2Ch_4:1) exclude the assumption of such a gradual ascent. The grating was an enclosure to protect the altar; the rings by which the altar was carried were also fastened to it. The altar itself was a wooden structure consisting of four plane sides overlaid with copper, forming a hollow square, which was probably filled with earth, gravel, or stones (vid. Exo_20:24). The place for the fire had to be adequately separated from the wooden border.
7. The Court. Exo_27:9-19
The hangings which enclosed the court were not wrought in the four sacred colors, like the covering of the tabernacle itself, but were simply white. Moreover, they formed no roof, as that did, but only a boundary, an enclosure. The pillars here, moreover, have copper sockets, not silver ones; only the hooks of the pillars and the rods connecting them were of silver, the latter perhaps only overlaid with silver, as the pillars at the entrance of the tabernacle were gilt. It is to be further observed, that the court properly unites the notions of a porch and of a quadrangular wall of enclosure, since it passed around the tabernacle from east to west.
iii. the persons and things occupying the building. the ritual worship. Exo_27:20 to Exo_30:38.
In speaking now exclusively of the features of the ritual worship, it is to be observed that we must distinguish the general worship of the house of God from the specific, Levitical worship, the sacrificial ritual described in Leviticus.
1. The Oil for the Light. The Lamps. Exo_27:20-21
The first condition of life, in the house of the Lord as well as elsewhere, is light; and the prerequisite of that is oil. Light is the spirit in action, symbolized by oil, which is a symbol of the spiritual life itself. The first business of the priest was to be to prepare and produce light—even in the Old Testament. How is it in this respect with the sacrificial priesthood of the present time? The text says that this is to be a perpetual statute. On the oil vid Knobel.4
2. The Sacerdotal Vocation. The Priest—his Assistants and Apparel. Exodus 28
The consecration of the priests is not treated of here, as Knobel thinks, but the priestly calling and its symbolic representation by means of the clothing; the consecration is not distinctly spoken of till the next chapter.
First, then, the vocation of the Priest, Exo_28:1-5. That Aaron is to be the priest (i.e., high priest), is presupposed; or, rather, it is Jehovah’s commandment which is fulfilled by his coming before Moses, the prophet of God. The prophetic order is therefore perpetually the medium through which, and the condition on which, the priestly order officiates. But the priest is essentially only one—a truth which in the N. T. is fulfilled in the high-priesthood of Christ. His sons therefore must approach with him, as being his descendants and legal successors, and as being his actual assistants. So they are first publicly presented to the congregation, and the latter take part in their appointment by furnishing men of sacred skill able to prepare the sacred garments which are to portray the symbolic phenomenon of the sacerdotal vocation, and by furnishing the materials for them (all of which is shadowed forth in Christianity, but not in the least in the “infallible” Pope). The main particulars are given in a significant order. As in the house of Jehovah the chief thing is the ark, so in the service of Jehovah is the breast-plate of the high-priest, with which, however, the shoulder-piece or ephod is immediately connected; for the priest is not only as a sympathizing intercessor to bear his people on his heart, but also, as a fellow-sufferer and laborer, on his shoulders. The shoulder-piece and the breast-plate form substantially one whole, whose most important part is the breast-plate; just as the mercy-seat is connected with the ark of the law, and yet forms in itself the principal thing in the Holy of holies, being, so to speak, the New Testament in the Old. So also in the breast-plate the eternal intercession of the eternal High Priest is adumbrated. Then follow the robe, the coat, the turban, and the girdle.
Next, therefore, is described the shoulder-piece or ephod, this being designed to underlie the breast-plate, Exo_28:6-14. From the whole cast of the precept it is evident that the culminating feature was its serving to bear the breast-plate. The material of the shoulder-piece is of as costly work, in all the four colors of the covenant, as the veil of the Holy of holies, “except that instead of the figures of cherubim woven into the veil, this is to be artistically inwrought with gold, i.e., gold threads” (Keil). According to Knobel, the ephod consisted of one piece, which had holes slit in it for the arms. But this leaves us no clear conception of it, for in this case there must have been another slit for the head too; and moreover in that case the symbolic reference to the two shoulders would be lost. According to Keil’s representation, the two shoulder-pieces seem to be too much separated; but they are not “connecting” so much as connected. The Rabbinical conception which he accepts seems quite untenable. It seems almost necessary to suppose that there was a connection not only on the front side, but also on the back; for only on this condition could the girdle, of like material and color, fasten the ephod.5 The girdle itself also is of one piece with the ephod; for firmness and collectedness are necessary in order to bear the burden of the people on the shoulders. That this was to be done by the high-priest, is expressed by the onyx (shoham) stones which were fastened on the right and left shoulder pieces and had engraved on them the names of the sons of Israel in the order of age—a foreshadowing of the names on the breast-plate, as the cherubim in the veil foreshadow the cherubim in the Holy of holies itself, and the altar of burnt-offering (used also for sin and trespass-offerings, and for the great sin-offering) foreshadows the propitiatory lid or mercy-seat. Finally in the ephod are to be considered the golden settings or rings, with their golden chains, by means of which the breast-plate is to be fastened to the ephod.
Now follows the most important article—the breast-plate
Exo_28:15-30 : the breast-plate of judicial sentence. By this phrase would we represent the meaning of מִשְׁפָּט, because it comprises both factors, light and right [Urim and Thummim], the sentence of salvation or of righteousness, and the sentence of judgment. The source and combination of both elements is found in the sympathy of the high-priest with the people of God. The material of the breast-plate is like that of the shoulder-pieces. Its form is square; for the people of God signify symbolically God’s perfect world; they are eventually to dwell in the Holy of holies (Rev_21:24). The doubling of it, aside from any other reference (e.g., to make it a pocket for the stones used in drawing lots), may have this meaning: that the inner fold represents the divine justice; the outer one, the people. The people are laid upon the heart of the high-priest, with the twelve precious stones set in four rows: four, the mundane number [the four points of the compass], multiplied by three, the number of the spirit [intellect, feelings, will], thus pointing to the world as made complete in and by the people of God. The twelve precious stones denote the variety, manifoldness, and totality of the natural and gracious gifts bestowed on the people of God, and united in the one spirit of heavenly preciousness. This wonderful idea goes from the twelve sons of Jacob through the whole Bible, and at last, proceeding from the number of the twelve apostles, attains its complete expression in the Apocalypse, vid. Comm. on Revelation, p. 385. The rows are as follows:
SARDIUS.
(Flesh Color.)TOPAZ.
(Golden-Yellow.)EMERALD.
(Brilliant Green.)CARBUNCLE.
(Red.)SAPPHIRE.
(Sky-Blue)DIAMOND.
(Transparent or Reddish-Yellow.)LIGURE (HYACINTH?)
(Pale—Variegated.)AGATE.
(Glistening—Variegated.)AMETHYST.
(Mostly Violet.)BERYL (CHRYSOLITE.)
(Yellow-Green.)ONYX (BERYL.)
(Greenish.)JASPER.
(Dull-Red—Cloudy.)For archæological and other details, see Knobel, p. 283, and my Vermischte Schriften, I. p. 18.
The fastening of the breast-plate to the ephod was an important task; no part was to be injured in the process. The description is hard to understand. We find a clue by the use of two suggestions. First, by determining that two golden chains hang down from the ephod towards the breast-plate. Secondly, by determining that the breast-plate must be loose at the top, as a pocket, for which reason also only two corners, viz., those at the bottom, are spoken of. On these corners two golden rings are fixed, into which the golden chains of the ephod are inserted, they themselves passing down by the breast plate and then returning into the connecting hooks of the ephod. Thus the breast-plate is held secure from falling, but may still become displaced. Hence two more golden rings have to be put upon the corners of the edge of the pocket, towards the inner part, i.e., on the inside part of the pocket, in order that the pocket itself may be left open. These rings correspond to two golden rings on the ephod which are fixed upon the breast side of it above where the two parts are joined together. These corresponding rings are tied fast together with a purplish-blue cord. So much importance and particularity belong to the business of fastening the breast-plate to the high-priest’s breast; and this fact has doubtless its significance. Knobel has a different conception.6 The ordinance that Aaron must appear with the breast-plate before Jehovah (Exo_28:29) is designed to be a symbolical reference to the high-priestly intercession; and so the opposite of this is quite appropriate, viz., the direction that he shall proclaim light and right to the people in the name of Jehovah, with royal authority, as it were, after he has consecrated this commission in Jehovah’s presence, Exo_28:30. Vid. Num_27:21; Deu_33:8. Comp. Comm. on Joh_11:51. On the various explanations of אוּרִים and תֻּמִּים [Urim and Thummim] see the Dictionaries and Commentaries. Luther’s translation, “Licht und Recht” [“light and right (justice)”] is much better than that of the LXX., δήλωσις καὶ ἀλήθεια, or that of the Vulg., doctrina et veritas. We translate: “Lights and decision,” connecting תֹּם with the meaning “to be finished,” “to be at an end,” which תָּמַם has in Kal; and “to finish,” “to terminate,” in Hiphil. So also Symmachus and Theodotion translate φωτισμοὶ καὶ τελειώσεις. As to the question what the object of them was, as stated in Num_27:21, the Urim and Thummim mark a kind of permanent judgment-hall where prophetico-royal decisions were rendered. There were not always prophets in Israel, and also not always kings; but the priest was always to be found, and so also the living God, who was the King of Israel, and after whose will Israel was always to inquire. Hence it was the high-priest’s duty, when the prophetic voice was wanting, always to give answer when the people asked what was to be done. Herein the priest was the vicar of the prophet, as in other cases the reverse happened. But because the priest was a hereditary one, he was as such neither prophet nor king, and could therefore give answer only through a special medium, the oracle of the Urim and Thummim. In many cases the answer of Jehovah was at once light and right; in favorable cases, when the inquirers were pious, as is assumed in the case mentioned in Num_27:21, it was Urim; also in the worst case, such as is implied in Joh_11:51, the decision, necessary in all cases, took the form of Thummim in bringing on judgment. It was regarded as a condition of peculiar distress when, there was at hand neither a prophet, nor a king, nor the priest with Urim and Thummim (Ezr_2:63; Neh_7:65), or when the oracle Urim gave no answer—a circumstance which might grow out of the institution itself (1Sa_14:37), or out of a variance between the high-priest and the inquirer. As to the question what the Urim and Thummim were, they could not have consisted in the stones of the breast-plate themselves, which, as Josephus and Saalschütz suppose, inspired the high-priest as he looked down upon them; still less in two small oracular images, teraphim, which, as Philo probably or perhaps conceives, were inserted in the orifice of the breastplate. The Urim and Thummim must certainly have been an object distinct from the breast-plate itself, and something which Moses was to put into it. The Rabbins conceived that in the inside of the breast-plate was the sacred tetragrammaton (Jehovah), and that this illuminated the names on the breast-plate; the Cabbalists assumed, instead of this, two similarly efficacious names of God. Züllig understands the object to have been two diamond dice to be used in drawing lots (Apokalypse, I. p. 408). So much is established, that the phrase “to ask of Jehovah” may be explained both by the phrase “ask of the Urim and Thummim,” and by the notion of decision by lot (1Sa_10:20; 1Sa_14:36). It is noticeable that in 1Sa_28:6 the lot is not mentioned in connection with Urim. Comp. on the lot Winer, Realwörterbuch, II. p. 31. On the derivation of the Urim and Thummim from an Egyptian judicial symbol, vid. Winer, II. p. 644 [and Smith’s Bible Dictionary, Art. Urim and Thummim]. Reference can only be assumed to something analogous in the Egyptian institution. The main point is that the resolute spirit of the Holy Scriptures regarded hesitation as the evil of evils—e.g., in the life of Saul and of Judas. Hence the lot, hence the need of decision. In accordance with his coarse anthropopathic conceptions, Knobel holds that the precious stones were in the proper sense to remind Jehovah of Israel, p. 287. The directions concerning the Urim and Thummim seem to have been intentionally made very brief and kept mysterious. Vid. more in Knobel.
The outer robe, Exo_28:31. Luther’s translation is here very arbitrary, but was probably occasioned by the desire to leave the breast-plate uncovered: “Thou shalt also make the silk robe under the coat all of yellow silk.” For if a מְעִיל, a covering (not to be absolutely confounded with the ordinary מְעִיל), was made for the ephod, such an over-garment must necessarily have covered the breast-plate also, if it was a long robe closely fitting (according to Keil), reaching to the knees, and, according to the Alexandrians, even reaching, as ποδήρης, to the feet. Against both assumptions is not only the fact that in that case the breast-plate would have been covered, but also the manner in which the robe was put on, viz., over the head, by means of an opening (as in the case of a coat of mail)—which also implies the absence of sleeves. Besides, there would then come two girdles at nearly the same place, since the coat had its own girdle, vid. Exo_28:39. The representation in Lev_8:7 seems, it is true, somewhat inexact.7 The significance of this hyacinth-colored, dark-blue, purple ornament may be sought in this, that the burden of the high-priest symbolized by the ephod was not to be made a spectacle to the world, but was to be hidden by a symbol of the royal splendor of his vocation. Two questions are raised by this conception of the covering for the ephod. First: If the robe was so short, what was the case with the rest of the garments? This is answered by Exo_28:39 and the parallel description, Exo_39:27. They made the coats (הַכָּתְנֹת) of white byssus. Secondly: How could the bells ring, if they lay so high up that even the breast-plate was to be exposed? This question is solved if we take שׁוּלָיו [“its skirts”] in its original sense, i.e., not as its hem, but its train, and assume that the robe was so cut that it left the breast-plate free, while it flowed out sidewise in trains.
On the various interpretations of the bells and pomegranates, vid. Keil.8 According to Keil or Bähr, the pomegranates are symbols of the word and testimony of God; the bells, with their ringing, symbols of the sound of this word. But in this case Moses the prophet would have abdicated his functions to Aaron the priest. The symbolic meaning of the pomegranate is very hard to fix (vid. Friedrich, Symbolik und Mythologie der Natur); perhaps the most natural assumption is that in the alternation of pomegranates and bells is to be discerned the connection of nature, as represented in its abundance and beauty by the pomegranate, with the theocracy as designed to manifest, itself in the sacrificial vocation of the high-priest through holy time, and through the awakening voice of the thunder, the trumpet, and the bells. The gifts of nature and of grace are the offerings which the high-priest brings to Jehovah over his shoulders.
The clause, “that he die not,” can hardly mean that sudden death would follow the neglect of the precept, but that this would be an official misdemeanor worthy of death, an offence consisting chiefly in contempt of Jehovah and of the customs of the sanctuary, but also particularly in the fact that the connection between Jehovah and the congregation is not only effected in general by means of these bells, but is also enlivened by the sacred moment [the advent of which they announce]. From the farthest distance, as it were, the sound of the bells is heard, indicating holy time (as the organ indicates the holy place), although the large bell is not immediately derived from an enlargement of these small ones.
The plate of gold for the forehead, Exo_28:36. A plate of gold fastened to the turban by a dark-blue purple string, with the inscription, “Holiness (or holy) to Jehovah,” and designated in Exo_39:30 as the holy crown. The meaning is that Aaron is to bear the expiation (עֲוֹן, i.e., expiation of the guilt) of the gifts of the sanctuary, which the children of Israel shall hallow, etc. That is, the high-priest has to effect the expiation of the expiations before Jehovah. The children of Israel also bring expiatory offerings of all kinds before Jehovah; but guilt cleaves even to their offerings; the high-priest, however, is symbolically to accomplish the expiation of all these guilt-stained expiations. Thus, then, the high-priest’s plate of gold points to the chief function which he was to discharge on the great day of atonement, on which day, even on his entrance into the Holy of holies, he had, if not exactly to supplement, yet to complete, the whole abundance of the expiatory offerings of the children of Israel, to cleanse them from the stain of guilt (the negative guilt of deficiency, and the positive guilt of wrong-doing) which cleaves to them. How rich in instruction this symbol is in its relation to the high-priesthood and sacrifice of Christ! From the instituting of this plate to the fulfilment of the prophecy in Zec_14:20 is a great distance. The general fulfilment is announced in John 17.; the eschatological fulfilment is pictured in Revelation, Exodus 21. Knobel, referring to ancient heathen customs, resolves the thing itself wholly into sensuous conceptions, speaking of “external lapses of the children of Israel in connection with their offering of gifts—the conciliatory appearance of the high-priest,” and referring to a custom of the ancients, in offering sacrifices to put garlands on themselves and on the victims. But vid. the quotation from Calvin in a note in Keil, II. p. Exodus 204: [“The iniquity of the sacred offerings was to be borne and cleansed by the priest. It is a frigid explanation to say that whatever error crept into the ceremonies was remitted through the prayers of the priest. For we must look further back, and see that the iniquity of the offerings was obliterated by the priest for the reason that no offering, so far as it is man’s, is wholly free from defect. It sounds harsh and almost paradoxical to say that holy things themselves are unclean, so as to need pardon; but it is to be held that there is absolutely nothing so pure but that it contracts some stain from us… Nothing is more excellent than the worship of God; and yet the people could offer nothing, even when it was prescribed by law, without the intervention of pardon, which they could obtain only through the priest.”]
Aaron’s coat, Exo_28:39. The tunic proper, with which also his sons were clothed. It reached to the ankles, and was also provided with sleeves. It was made of white byssus; but Aaron’s coat was, distinguished by being more artistically wrought. The girdle of his coat was also of variegated work. According to Josephus (Ant. III. 7, 2) purple and crimson flowers were woven into the linen girdles of the priests.
The clothing of the sons, Exo_28:40. Of Aaron’s assistants, or the ordinary priests. It consisted in the coat of white byssus, the girdle, and the cap. These articles are not included in the description of Aaron’s clothing, because there were differences. The sons do not receive the prerogatives of the high-priest; and Aaron’s head-gear is the turban with the gold plate, while the sons receive caps. “מִגְבָּעָה is only used of the headdress of the common priests, Exo_29:9; Exo_39:28; Lev_8:13. The word is related to גָבִיעַ, goblet, cup (Exo_25:31), so that these head-tires seem to have had a conical form. This was also customary in reference to other sacerdotal persons of antiquity” (Knobel). The passage, 1Sa_22:18, seems to merge the whole family of priests into one, as inheriting in that capacity the high-priesthood, and therefore the ephod. A different point of view would lead critics to make a sharp distinction between the time of the original giving of the law and the time of Samuel.
The investment, anointing, and consecration of the priests, Exo_28:41. This equipment is common to all, but conferred wholly by Moses, not even in part by Aaron after he himself has been equipped. Nor does Aaron anoint even his sons, but the prophet does it. That which was genealogically transmitted from Aaron to his descendants must therefore be continually supplemented by the transmission of spiritual life in the theocracy. The clothes denote the dignity and burden of the office; the anointment is a symbol of the Spirit; the hands filled are the signs of the sacrificial gifts furnished by the congregation,—of the emoluments which they themselves first of all have to bring as an offering to Jehovah. With this investment is completed the potential sanctification or consecration; the strict, actual consecration of the priests is yet to follow.
The breeches and the object of them, Exo_28:42-43. This ordinance forms a transition to the actual consecration of the priests. It is significant that it follows the official investment. The official clothing in the narrow sense conferred dignity and ornament; these, on the other hand, were only to avert dishonor and disgrace. The reason for this covering, according to Baumgarten, lay in the fact that “the sins of nature have their principal seat in the ‘flesh of nakedness!’ ” According to Keil the physical members mentioned, “which subserve the natural secretions, are pudenda, or objects of shame, because in these secretions is made evident the mortality and corruptibility of the body which through sin has permeated human nature.” Neither the first, theosophic explanation, nor the latter, most peculiarly orthodox one, can be derived from Genesis 3. The organs of the strongest impulses, those which through sin have been morbidly deranged, belong, even physiologically, to the dark side of life, and are therefore to be kept mysterious, like births themselves, in connection with which there can be no thought of lust; but in an ethical respect, affecting the whole human race, they are not objects of a dispassionate æsthetic contemplation, but confusing to the senses, for which reason also there is a difference between naked children and naked adults: religiously considered, finally, they are indeed signs of the moral nakedness of man, of his natural and hereditary guilt. Furthermore, “religious reverence demands that, when they officially approach the altar, they should cover still more the above-mentioned parts, which, even in common life, through natural bashfulness are carefully covered, whereas for the rest of the body a single covering suffices” (Knobel). But in a sense the altar also becomes to the mind of the priest, according to chap. 23, a symbol of God as seeing. This duty, too, is declared to be most holy for ever, and so it obtains also a symbolic character, signifying that everything sexual is to be avoided in the service of the sanctuary. It marks the opposite extreme of the voluptuous rites of the heathen, and of the commingling of sexual passion with the religious fanaticism. But as shamelessness in worship is particularly designated as a capital offence, so in general every other shameless act.
Footnotes:
[1][This is incorrect. Fifty loops to each curtain would make five hundred loops, whereas there were only one hundred. For these loops were not to connect the five curtains to one another, as Lange says, but to connect the one curtain made up of five (coupled together we are not told how) with the curtain made up of the other five. Accordingly, also, there were only fifty clasps, not two hundred and fifty.—Tr.].
[2] [Lange says nothing about the shape of the tabernacle, or about the manner in which the curtains are arranged. It is a vexed question. The following are the principal views: (1) It being clear and undisputed that the board framework was 30 cubits long, 10 broad, and 10 high, one theory is that the ten curtains, called “the tabernacle” in Exo_26:1, were so joined together side to side as to form two curtains of equal size, each 28 cubits long, and 20 cubits broad; that these two were looped together (Exo_26:5), and the whole was spread horizontally over the tops of the boards, thus hanging down 9 cubits on each side, i.e., within one cubit of the ground, since the two sides (each 10 cubits) and the width (10 cubits) together are equal to 30 cubits. The breadth of both curtains being 40 cubits, and the length of the wooden structure only 30, and the entrance (according to Exo_26:9; Exo_26:36) being provided with a special curtain, it follows that 10 cubits must have hung down on the west (back) end, and so the curtain just reached the ground. (2) Another view (brought into favor by Bähr) differs from this in that the lower (linen) curtains are conceived as hanging down inside, not outside, of the boards. (3) Saalschütz supposes that the curtains formed a roofed tent above the boards, the bottom of the under-curtain just touching the top of the boards. This roof would reach about 13 cubits above the top of the boards, the ridge having an angle of about 40°. Paine’s theory is somewhat similar, but in its details is so fantastical and arbitrary as hardly to merit a full statement. (4) Fergusson (in Smith’s Bible Dictionary, Art. Temple) also holds that there was a ridge above the boards and half-way between them, so that the goats’-hair curtain formed a tent proper (as it is called in Exo_26:7, where A. V. mistranslates, “covering”). But his view differs from that of Saalschütz, in that he makes the angle at the ridge a right angle (the more natural angle for a roof), so that the two sides of the roof projected beyond the boards, the lower point being 5 cubits above the ground and 5 cubits horizontally from the boards. He also assumes that the roof extended 5 cubits beyond the boards in the front and in the rear, so that the extra 10 cubits did not hang down at all over the west end. The accompanying diagram exhibits a section of the tabernacle according to Fergusson’s theory. The apparent absence of all allusion to a ridge-pole Fergusson would supply by explaining “the middle bar” of Exo_26:28 as referring not to a bar like the others at the side, but to the ridge-pole. He supposes also (though no express mention is made of it) that the sides of the verandah and the western end were enclosed with curtains, and that the ridge-pole must have been supported at the middle by a pillar.—The principal reasons urged by Mr. Fergusson for this theory are the following: (1) According to the common view only about one-third of the inner or ornamental curtain would have been visible. Bähr’s theory obviates this difficulty, but creates another, viz., by making out that the gilded boards were almost entirely covered up. If so, why so expensively constructed? (2) The curtains spread flat over the boards would have been no protection against the rain. The skins above the cloth and hair curtains would, when wet, only have depressed the centre and torn the curtains under them. (3) The common view contradicts the description in Exo_26:9; Exo_26:12-13, according to which only two cubits of the goats’-hair curtain hung over at the west end, and only one cubit at each side; whereas the other theory assumes that 10 cubits hung down on every side but the front.—The latter argument may be met by the supposition that the Biblical statements referred to only assert that the goats’-hair curtain hung over the tabernacle, i.e., the linen curtain, half a cubit at the west end, and one cubit at each side.—The second reason is undoubtedly the strongest one. The tabernacle, according to the traditional view, is an ungainly structure, ill protected against rain or snow, and unlike either house or tent; while yet a part of it is distinctly called a tent.—Mr. Atwater points out the most obvious objection to Mr. Fergusson’s theory, viz., that, according to Exo_26:33, the veil of the Holy of holies was hung under the clasps that connect the two parts of the covering. These must have been 20 cubits from the front of the building, and 10 cubits from the rear, according to the traditional view, entirely in accordance with the supposed position of the veil, the Holy of holies being in the form of a cube, 10 cubits in every direction, while the holy place was 20 cubits long. But Fergusson’s theory would bring the clasps 15 cubits from each end, though he distinctly adopts the view that the veil was 10 cubits from the western end. This difficulty seems entirely to have escaped his attention. Mr. Atwater calls it “fatal,” and deems it useless to consider the theory any further, remarking that “nothing is more certain in regard to the tabernacle, than that the two apartments into which it was divided by this partition-veil were of unequal size, the eastern being thirty feet long and fifteen wide, and the western an exact cube of fifteen feet in dimension.” It might be asked, however, how is it made so certain that the two apartments were of the size specified? The Bible nowhere gives the slightest information respecting this matter, excepting the statement of Exo_26:33 above cited. Where the clasps were, depends on what disposition was made of the curtains; and it we choose to adopt Mr. Fergusson’s theory respecting them, it would follow that the building was equally divided; and where is the proof that it was not? Only Josephus’s assertion, and the corresponding apartments of Solomon’s temple, in which the Holy of holies was half the size of the other part of the sanctuary. It must be admitted that these two items of evidence are very weighty; but they by no means prove the theory so incontestably as to make it unwarrantable to hold a different one. At all events, if any stress had been meant to be laid upon the dimensions of the Holy of holies, it is singular that they were not plainly given, instead of being left to be inferred from the very indefinite directions concerning the position of the curtains.—Tr.].
[3][“The temples of the ancient Egyptians were constructed as follows: First, a square in front 100 or less feet wide and three or four times as long; then porticoes (προπύλαια), indefinite in number; next the νεώς itself with a πρόναος, and finally the σηκός with a sacred animal as the object of worship (Strabo, 17, p. 805). The Egyptian temples still preserved confirm in general this description. A large gateway leads into the court, surrounded with pillars; then follows a ‘portico, and often a second one; then two or three halls, in the last of which the sacred animal or the idol-image stood.’ Heeren, Ideen, II. 2, p. 173).” Knobel, Comm., p. 275—Tr.].
[4]“The oil which the children of Israel were to bring to Moses was to be oil of the olive tree, זָךְ, pure, i.e., made of olives which, before being crushed, were cleansed from leaves, twigs, dust, etc.; and כָּתִית, beaten, i.e., obtained from crushed olives. The olives, when plucked, were beaten and crushed, and put into a basket; thence the oil was allowed to run out of itself. This was the finest of all kinds; what was secured afterwards by pressing was poorer, and the more so the longer the olives were pressed.” Knobel, p. 279.—Tr.]
[5][The meaning of this apparently is that the shoulder-pieces were joined not merely to the two parts of the ephod, but also to one another, both in front of and behind, the neck, so that the girdle passing around at the bottom of the ephod would close it together thoroughly, not leaving the upper parts loose, as they would be if they were only connected by two disconnected pieces passing over the shoulders.—Tr.]
[6][Knobel’s description is as follows: The two chains which pass down from the shoulder-pieces of the ephod (Exo_28:13; Exo_28:25) are connected with two rings at the upper corners of the breast-plate. Then two more rings at the lower corners of the same are connected by means of two more chains to two lings “underneath, on the fore part” of the ephod (Exo_28:27), i.e., lower down than the shoulder-pieces, but “close by the coupling,” i.e., at the place where the shoulder-pieces are connected with the upper part of the ephod. Thus the lower part of the breast-plate is joined by the chains to the upper part of the ephod.—Tr.]
[7][Lange’s notion of the robe seems to be rather peculiar, viz., that it was a very short garment, covering the shoulder-pieces of the ephod, but, leaving the breast-plate exposed under it. He seems to assume that the ephod and breast-plate were to be put on before the robe, though for what reason it is difficult to imagine. The reason cannot be found in the circumstance that the robe is described after the ephod and breast-plate; for the coat is described still later, and the linen breeches last of all. Besides, we have in Lev_8:7 a clear indication of the order in which these articles were put on. Josephus (Ant. III. 7, 4) says that the robe, though without sleeves, had arm-holes, and this sufficiently harmonizes all the apparent difficulties.—Tr.]
[8][Keil rejects the view propounded by the son of Sirach (from Sir_45:9, “that as he went there might be a sound, and a noise made that might be heard in the temple, for a memorial to the children of the people”), on the ground that the last clause of the verse is evidently borrowed from Exo_28:12, where the stones of the ephod are spoken of, and also on the ground that the clause “that he die not” is not explained by this hypothesis; for the assumption is that the high-priest’s life would be endangered if he went into the Holy of holies without being accompanied by the prayers of his people—which would make his life depend on their caprice, irrespective of his own character. He also rejects as trivial the notion that the ringing of the bells was intended to be equivalent to rapping at the door, so as not to enter info the presence of Jehovah unannounced, as well as Knobel’s notion that the sound was to stand for a reverential greeting and a musical ascription of praise. Keil holds that the reason for Aaron’s not, dying lies “in the significance that belongs to the ringing of the bells or the garments of Aaron, with their appendages of artificial pomegranates and ringing bells.”—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 6 length--Each curtain was to be fifteen yards in length…
length--Each curtain was to be fifteen yards in length and a little exceeding two in breadth.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4 1. The tabernacle — The word here is המשׁכן,…
1. The tabernacle — The word here is המשׁכן, and denotes more strictly the board structure described below, Exo_26:15-30, but came to be used of the entire structure, including the curtains. These golden plated boards were to be securely covered above, and the coverings are first described.
Ten curtains — Or, hangings, so called, according to Gesenius, from their tremulous motion. Of the fabrics and colours of which they were made see Exo_25:4, notes. Here it is noted that the fine linen was twined, or twisted. The material, in various colours, was twisted or woven together, by the most skilful workmanship, and upon the whole cherubim of cunning work, that is, figures of the cherubim, the skilful work of a weaver, were to be embroidered. These highly ornamental curtains were to form the visible ceiling of the sanctuary.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4 1. the tabernacle] the Dwelling,—used here, as the passage…
1. the tabernacle] the Dwelling,—used here, as the passage itself clearly shews, in its stricter sense (see on Exo_25:9) of the structure formed by the tapestry hangings. Cf. Exo_40:2 (with the note), 3, Num_3:25.
fine twined linen] i.e. linen of superior fineness: see on Exo_25:4.
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blue, &c.] i.e. threads dyed with these colours (Exo_25:4).
cherubim] the composite animal figures described on Exo_25:18.
the work of the designer] or, of the pattern-weaver. ‘Cunning workman’ is not a good rendering; for it lacks the necessary distinctness. ‘Cunning’ (i.e. kenning, knowing) is an archaism for skilful—or (Exo_31:4) skilfully made—used often in AV., and retained mostly in RV., to denote various kinds of technical skill (Exo_38:23, Gen_25:27, 1Sa_16:16, 2Ch_2:7, Jer_9:17 al.). Even ‘skilful workman’ would not however be sufficiently distinctive: the Heb. word means deviser or designer, viz. of artistic designs in weaving, and is one of three terms, used repeatedly in these chapters, to distinguish three different grades of textile work. We have viz.:—
(1) the work of the weaver (Exo_28:32, Exo_39:22; Exo_39:27), i.e. simple weaving, work woven of one material only: as of blue, Exo_24:4 (the loops for the curtains), Exo_28:28 (the lace attaching the sacred pouch to the ephod), 31 (the robe of the ephod), 37 (the lace attaching the gold plate to the high priest’s turban); of white linen Exo_28:39 (the turban), Exo_39:27 f. (the priests’ tunics and caps); or of fine twined linen, Exo_27:9 (the hangings of the court), Exo_39:28 (the priests’ drawers).
(2) the work of the variegator (or embroiderer): Exo_26:36, Exo_27:16 (the screens for the entrances to the Dwelling and the court); Exo_28:39, Exo_39:29 (the sash of the high priest). There is no doubt that this term denotes work variegated in colours: but it is disputed whether it means work woven in colours, or embroidered in colours. According to Kn. Di. it is work woven of blue, purple, scarlet, and white yarns, arranged in stripes or checks, but without figures or gold thread (as No. 3): Kennedy (EB. iv. 5289) thinks that it is embroidery proper, i.e. woven work, decorated afterwards by the needle with figures embroidered on it in colours. The cognate subst. variegated (or embroidered) work occurs Jdg_5:30, Eze_16:10; Eze_16:13; Eze_16:18; Eze_17:3 (of variegated plumage), Eze_26:16, Eze_27:7; Eze_27:16; Eze_27:24, Psa_45:14, 1Ch_29:2†; and the verb in Psa_139:15 (‘curiously wrought’). When the white woollen carpet which separates the men’s from the women’s compartment in a Bedawi tent is ‘interwoven with patterns of flowers,’ it is denoted in Arabic by the corresponding partic. marḳûm, ‘variegated’ (Burckh. Bedouins, i. 40).
(3) the work of the designer, i.e. work woven of blue, purple, scarlet, and white yarns, with figures (as here and v. 31), or gold thread (Exo_28:6; Exo_28:15), artistically interwoven: Exo_26:1 (the curtains of the Dwelling), 31 (the veil), Exo_28:6 (the ephod), 15 (the pouch for the Urim and Thummim).
1–6 (cf. Exo_36:8-13). The ornamented curtains, forming the Dwelling itself. These were ten in number, each 28 cubits (42 ft.) long, and 4 cubits (6 ft.) wide, all made of richly coloured tapestry, with figures of cherubim interwoven (the ‘work of the designer’). When joined together, they formed a single large curtain, 40 cubits (60 ft.) long, and 28 cubits (42 ft.) broad.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–5 (1) The tabernacle.—Literally, the dwelling (see Exo_25:9, where mishkân…
1. THE FINE LINEN COVERING.
(1) The tabernacle.—Literally, the dwelling (see Exo_25:9, where mishkân first occurs). It is a derivative from shakan, translated by “dwell” in the preceding verse.
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Ten curtains.—The same word (yĕri’ah) is used for the constituent parts of the covering, and for the entire covering, or, at any rate, for each of the two halves into which it was divided (Exo_26:4-5). In the first use, it corresponds to what we should call “a breadth.”
Fine twined linen—i.e., linen thread formed by twisting several distinct strands together. Egyptian thread was ordinarily of this character.
Blue, and purple, and scarlet.—See the Notes on Exo_25:4.
Cherubims of cunning work.—Rather, cherubim, the work of a cunning weaver. Ma’asêh khoshêb and ma’asêh rokêm (Exo_26:36) seem to be contrasted one with the other, the former signifying work where the patterning was inwoven, the latter where it was embroidered with the needle. The inweaving of patterns or figures was well understood in Egypt (Herod, iii. 47; Plin. H. N., viii. 48).
XXVI.
THE TABERNACLE.
(1-37) The sacred tent which was to form the “House of God,” or temple, for Israel during the continuance of the people in the wilderness, and which in point of fact served them for a national sanctuary until the construction of the first temple by Solomon, is described in this chapter with a minuteness which leaves little to be desired. It is called ham-mishkân, “the dwelling,” and ha-’ohel, “the tent” (Exo_26:36)—the former from its purpose, as being the place where God “dwelt” in a peculiar manner (Exo_25:22); the latter from its shape and general construction, which resembled those of other tents of the period. The necessary foundation was a framework of wood. This consisted of five “pillars,” or tent-poles, in front (Exo_26:37), graduated in height to suit the slope of the roof, and doubtless five similar ones at the back, though these are not mentioned. A ridge-pole must have connected the two central tent-poles, and over this ridge-pole the covering of the tent, which was of goats’-hair (Exo_26:7), was no doubt strained in the ordinary way by means of cords and “pins,” or tent-pegs (Exo_35:18). Thus an oblong square space was roofed over, which seems to have been sixty feet long by thirty broad. Within this “tent” (‘ohel) was placed the “dwelling” (mishkân). The “dwelling” was a space forty-five feet long by fifteen broad, enclosed on three sides by walls of boards (Exo_26:18-25), and opening in front into a sort of porch formed by the projection of the “tent” beyond the “dwelling.” Towards the open air this porch was closed, wholly or partially, by a curtain (Exo_26:36). The “dwelling” was roofed over by another “curtain,” or “hanging,” of bright colours and rich materials (Exo_26:1-6). It was divided into two portions, called respectively “the Holy Place,” and “the Holy of Holies”—the former towards the porch, the latter away from it. These two places were separated by a “vail” hung upon four pillars (Exo_26:31-32). Their relative size is uncertain; but it may be suspected that the Holy of Holies was the smaller of the two, and conjectured that the proportion was as one to two, the Holy of Holies being a square of fifteen feet, and the Holy Place an oblong, thirty feet long by fifteen. The whole structure was placed within an area called “the Court of the Tabernacle,” which is described in the next chapter.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain On v1 Exodus 26
Exodus 26
The section of our book which now opens before us contains the instructive description of the curtains and coverings of the tabernacle, wherein the spiritual eye discerns the shadows of the various features and phases of Christ’s manifested character. "Moreover, thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet : with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them." Here we have the different aspects of "the man Christ Jesus." The "fine twined linen" prefigures the spotless purity of His walk and character; while the "blue, the purple, and the scarlet" present Him to us as "the Lord from heaven," who is to reign according to the divine counsels, but whose royalty is to be the result of His sufferings. Thus we have a spotless man, a heavenly man, a royal man, a suffering man. These materials were not confined to the " curtains" of the tabernacle, but were also used in making "the veil," (ver. 31,) "the hanging for the door of the tent," (ver. 36,) "the hanging for the gate of the court," (Ex. 27: 16,) "the cloths of service and the holy garments of Aaron." (Ex. 39: 1.) In a word, it was Christ everywhere, Christ in all, Christ alone.*
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{*The expression, "white and clean," gives peculiar force and beauty to the type which the Holy Ghost has presented in the "fine twined linen." Indeed, there could not be a more appropriate emblem of spotless manhood.}
"The fine twined linen," as expressive of Christ’s spotless manhood, opens a most precious and copious spring of thought to the spiritual mind; it furnishes a theme on which we cannot meditate too profoundly. The truth respecting Christ’s humanity must be received with scriptural accuracy, held with spiritual energy, guarded with holy jealousy, and confessed with heavenly power. If we are wrong as to this, we cannot be right as to anything. It is a grand, vital, fundamental truth, and if it be not received, held, guarded, and confessed, as God has revealed it in His holy word, the entire superstructure must be unsound. Nothing can be more deplorable than the looseness of thought and expression which seems to prevail in reference to this all-important doctrine. Were there more reverence for the word of God, there would be more accurate acquaintance with it; and, in this way, we should happily avoid all those erroneous and unguarded statements which surely must grieve the Holy Spirit of God, whose province it is to testify of Jesus.
When the angel had announced to Mary the glad tidings of the Saviour’s birth, she said unto him, "How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" Her feeble mind was utterly incompetent to enter into, much less to fathom, the stupendous mystery of "God manifest in the flesh." But mark carefully the angelic reply - a reply, not to a sceptic mind, but to a pious, though ignorant, heart. "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; wherefore, also, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." (Luke 1: 39, 35) Mary, doubtless, imagined that this birth was to be according to the principles of ordinary generation. But the angel corrects her mistake, and, in correcting it, enunciates one of the grandest truths of revelation. He declares to her that divine power was about to form A REAL MAN - "the second man the Lord from heaven" - one whose nature was divinely pure, utterly incapable of receiving or communicating any taint. This Holy One was made "in, the likeness of sinful flesh," without sin in the flesh. He partook of real bona fide flesh and blood without a particle or shadow of the evil thereto attaching.
This is a cardinal truth which cannot be too accurately laid hold of or too tenaciously held. The incarnation of the Son - His mysterious entrance into pure and spotless flesh, formed, by the power of the Highest, in the virgin’s womb, is the foundation of the "great mystery of godliness" of which the topstone is a glorified God-man in heaven, the Head, Representative, and Model of the redeemed Church of God. The essential purity of His manhood perfectly met the claims of God; the reality thereof met the necessities of man. He was a man, for none else would do to meet man’s ruin. But He was such a man as could satisfy all the claims of the throne of God. He was a spotless, real man, in whom God could perfectly delight, and on whom man could unreservedly lean.
I need not remind the enlightened reader that all this, if taken apart from death and resurrection, is perfectly unavailable to us. He needed not only an incarnate, but a crucified and risen Christ. True, He should be incarnate to be crucified; but it is death and resurrection which render incarnation available to us. It is nothing short of a deadly error to suppose that, in incarnation, Christ was taking man into union with Himself. This could not be. He Himself expressly teaches the contrary. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." (John 12: 24) There could be no union between sinful and holy flesh, pure and impure, corruptible and incorruptible, mortal and immortal. Accomplished death is the only base of a unity between Christ and His elect members. It is in beautiful connection with the words, "Rise, let us go hence," that He says, "I am the vine, ye are the branches." "We have been planted together in the likeness of his death." "Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed." "In whom also are ye circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ; buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." I would refer my reader to Romans 6 and Colossians 2 as a full and comprehensive statement of the truth on this important subject. It was only as dead and risen that Christ and His people could become one. The true corn of wheat had to fall into the ground and die ere a full ear could spring up and be gathered into the heavenly garner.
But while this is a plainly revealed truth of Scripture, it is equally plain that incarnation formed, as it were, the first layer of the glorious superstructure; and the curtains of "fine twined Linen" prefigure the moral purity of "the man Christ Jesus." We have already seen the manner of His conception; and, as we pass along the current of His life here below, we meet with instance after instance of the same spotless purity. He was forty days in the wilderness, tempted of the devil, but there was no response in His pure nature to the tempter’s foul suggestions. He could touch the leper and receive no taint. He could touch the bier and not contract the smell of death. He could pass unscathed through the most polluted atmosphere. He was, as to His manhood, like a sunbeam emanating from the fountain of light, which can pass, without a soil, through the most defiling medium. He was perfectly unique in nature, constitution, and character. None but He could say, "Thou wilt not suffer thine holy One to see corruption." This was in reference to His humanity, which, as being perfectly holy and perfectly pure, was capable of being a sin-bearer. "His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree." Not to the tree, as some would teach us; but "on the tree." It was on the cross that Christ was our sin-bearer, and only there. "He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Cor. 5: 21)
"Blue " is the ethereal colour, and marks the heavenly character of Christ, who, though He had come down into all the circumstances of actual and true humanity - sin excepted - yet was He "the Lord from heaven." Though He was "very man," yet He ever walked in the uninterrupted consciousness of His proper dignity, as a heavenly stranger. He never once forgot whence He had come, where He was, or whither He was going. The spring of all His joys was on high. Earth could neither make Him richer nor poorer. He found this world to be "a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;" and, hence, His spirit could only find its refreshment above. It was entirely heavenly. "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man who is in heaven." (John 3: 13)
"Purple" denotes royalty, and points us to Him who "Was born King of the Jews;" who offered Himself as such to the Jewish nation, and was rejected; who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, avowing Himself a king, when, to mortal vision, there was not so much as a single trace of royalty. "Thou sayest that I am a king." And "hereafter ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." And, finally, the inscription upon His cross, "in letters of Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin" - the language of religion, of science, and of government declared Him, to the whole known world, to be "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." Earth disowned His claims - so much the worse for it but not so heaven; there His claim was fully recognised. He was received as a conqueror into the eternal mansions of light, crowned with glory and honour, and seated, amid the acclamations of angelic hosts, on the throne of the majesty in the heavens, there to wait until His enemies be made His footstool. "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Be wise, now, therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. BLESSED ARE ALL THEY THAT PUT THEIR TRUST IN HIM." (Ps. 2)
"Scarlet," when genuine, is produced by death; and this makes its application to a suffering Christ safe and appropriate. "Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh." Without death, all would have been unavailing. We can admire "the blue" and "the purple" but without "the scarlet" the tabernacle would have lacked an all-important feature. It was by death that Christ destroyed him that had the power of death. The Holy Ghost, in setting before us a striking figure of Christ - the true tabernacle-could not possibly omit that phase of His character which constituted the groundwork of His connection with His body the Church, of His claim to the throne of David, and the headship of all creation. In a word, He not only unfolds the Lord Jesus to our view, in these significant curtains, as a spotless man, a royal man, but also a suffering man; one who, by death, should make good His claims to all that to which, as man, He was entitled, in the divine counsels.
But we have much more in the curtains of the tabernacle than the varied and perfect phases of the character of Christ. We have also the unity and consistency of that character. Each phase is displayed in its own proper perfectness; and one never interferes with, or mars the exquisite beauty of, another. All was in perfect harmony beneath the eye of God, and was so displayed in "the pattern which was showed to Moses on the mount," and in the copy which was exhibited below. "Every one of the curtains shall have one measure. The five curtains shall be coupled together one to another; and other five curtains shall be coupled one to another." Such was the fair proportion and consistency in all the ways of Christ, as a perfect man, walking on the earth, in whatever aspect or relationship we view Him. When acting in one character, we never find ought that is, in the very least degree, inconsistent with the divine integrity of another. He was, at all times, in all places, under all circumstances, the perfect man. There was nothing out of that fair and lovely proportion which belonged to Him, in all His ways. "Every one of the curtains shall have one measure."
The two sets of five curtains each may symbolise the two grand aspects of Christ’s character, as acting toward God and toward man. We have the same two aspects in the law, namely, what was due to God, and what was due to man; so that, as to Christ, if we look in, we find "thy law is within my heart;" and if we look at His outward character and walk, we see those two elements adjusted with perfect accuracy, and not only adjusted, but inseparably linked together by the heavenly grace and divine energy which dwelt in His most glorious Person.
"And thou shalt make loops of blue upon the edge of the one curtain, from the selvedge in the coupling; and likewise. shalt thou make in the uttermost edge of another curtain, in the coupling of the second.... And thou shalt make fifty taches of gold, and couple the curtains together with the taches; and it shall be one tabernacle." We have here displayed to us, in the "loops of blue," and "taches of gold," that heavenly grace and divine energy in Christ which enabled Him to combine and perfectly adjust the claims of God and man; so that in responding to both the one and the other, He never, for a moment, marred the unity of His character. When crafty and hypocritical men tempted Him with the enquiry, "Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?" His wise reply was, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s."
Nor was it merely Caesar, but man in every relation that had all his claims perfectly met in Christ. As He united in His perfect Person the nature of God and man, so He met in His, perfect ways the claims of God and man. Most interesting would it be to trace, through the gospel narrative, the exemplification of the principle suggested by the "loops of blue," and "taches of gold;" but I must leave my reader to pursue this study under the immediate guidance of the Holy Ghost, who delights to expatiate upon every feature and every phase of that perfect One whom it is His unvarying purpose and undivided object to exalt.
The curtains on which we have been dwelling were covered with other "curtains of goats’ hair;" (Ver. 7-14) Their beauty was hidden from those without by that which bespoke roughness and severity. This latter did not meet the view of those within. To all who were privileged to enter the hallowed enclosure nothing was visible save "the blue, the purple, the scarlet, and fine twined linen," the varied yet combined exhibition of the virtues and excellencies of that divine Tabernacle in which God dwelt within the veil - that is, of Christ, through whose flesh, the antitype of all these, the beams of the divine nature shone so delicately, that the sinner could behold without being overwhelmed by their dazzling brightness.
As the Lord Jesus passed along this earth, how few really knew Him! How few had eyes anointed with heavenly eyesalve to penetrate and appreciate the deep mystery of His character! How few saw "the blue, the purple, the scarlet, and the twined linen!" It was only when faith brought man into His presence that He ever allowed the brightness of what He was to shine forth - ever allowed the glory to break through the cloud. To nature’s eye there would seem to have been a reserve and a severity about Him which were aptly prefigured by the "covering of goats’ hair." All this was the result of His profound separation and estrangement, not from sinners personally, but from the thoughts and maxims of men. He had nothing in common with man as such, nor was it within the compass of mere nature to comprehend or enjoy Him. "No man," said He, "can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him;" and when one of those "drawn" ones confessed His name, He declared that "flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." (Comp. John 6: 44; Matt. 6: 17) He was "a root out of a dry ground," having neither "form nor comeliness" to attract the eye or gratify the heart of man. The popular current could never flow in the direction of One who, as he passed rapidly across the stage of this vain world, wrapped Himself up in a "covering of goats’ hair." Jesus was not popular. The multitude might follow Him for a moment, because His ministry stood connected, in their judgement, with "the loaves and fishes" which met their need; but they were just as ready to cry, "Away with him!" as "Hosanna to the Son of David!" Oh! let Christians remember this! Let the servants of Christ remember it! Let all preachers of the gospel remember it! Let one and all of us ever seek to bear in mind the "covering of goats’ hair!"
But if the goats’ skins expressed the severity of Christ’s separation from earth, "the rams’ skins dyed red" exhibit His intense consecration and devotedness to God, which was carried out even unto death. He was the only perfect Servant that ever stood in God’s vineyard. He had one object which He pursued, with an undeviating course, from the manger to the cross, and that was to glorify the Father and finish His work. "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business" was the language of His youth, and the accomplishment of that "business" was the design of His life. "His meat was to do the will of him that sent him and to finish his work." "The rams’ skins dyed red" formed as distinct a part of His ordinary habit as the "goats’ hair." His perfect devotion to God separated Him from the habits of men.
"The badgers’ skins" may exhibit to us the holy vigilance with which the Lord Jesus guarded against the approach of everything hostile to the purpose which engrossed His whole soul. He took up His position for God, and held it with a tenacity which no influence of men or devils, earth or hell, could overcome. The covering of badgers’ skins was "above," (ver. 14,) teaching us that the most prominent feature in the character of "the man Christ Jesus" was an invincible determination to stand as a witness for God on the earth. He was the true Naboth, who gave up His life rather than surrender the truth of God, or give up that for which He had taken His place in this world.
The goat, the ram, and the badger, must be regarded as exhibiting certain natural features, and also as symbolising certain moral qualities; and we must take both into account in our application of these figures to the character of Christ. The human eye could only discern the former. It could see none of the moral grace, beauty, and dignity, which lay beneath the outward form of the despised and humble Jesus of Nazareth. When the treasures of heavenly wisdom flowed from His lips, the inquiry was, "Is not this the carpenter?" or "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?" When He asserted His eternal Sonship and Godhead, the word was, "Thou art not yet fifty years old," or "They took up stones to cast at him." In short, the acknowledgement of the Pharisees, in John 9, was true in reference to men in general. "as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is."
It would be utterly impossible, in the compass of a volume like this, to trace the unfoldings of those precious features of Christ’s character through the gospel narratives. Sufficient has been said to open up springs of spiritual thought to my reader, and to furnish some faint idea of the rich treasures which are wrapped up in the curtains and coverings of the tabernacle. Christ’s hidden being, secret springs and inherent excellencies - His outward and unattractive form - what He was in Himself, what He was to Godward, and what He was to manward - what he was in the judgement of faith, and what in the judgement of nature - all is sweetly and impressively told out to the circumcised ear, in the " curtains of blue, purple, scarlet, and the twined `linen:’ and the "coverings of skins."
"The boards for the tabernacle" were made of the same wood as was used in constructing "the ark of the covenant." Moreover, they were upheld by the sockets of silver formed out of the atonement; their hooks and chapiters being of the same. (Compare attentively Ex. 30: 11-16, with Ex. 38: 25-28) The whole framework of the tent of the tabernacle was based on that which spoke of atonement or ransom, while the "hooks and chapiters" at the top set forth the same. The sockets were buried in the sand, and the hooks and chapiters were above. It matters not how deep you penetrate, or how high you rise, that glorious and eternal truth is emblazoned before you, "I HAVE FOUND A RANSOM." Blessed be God, "we are not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold,......But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."
The tabernacle was divided into three distinct parts, namely, "the holy of holies," "the holy place," and the court of the tabernacle. The entrance into each of these was of the same materials, "blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twined linen." (Compare Ex. 24: 31, 36; Ex. 27: 16.) The interpretation of which is simply this: Christ forms the only doorway into the varied fields of glory which are yet to be displayed, whether on earth, in heaven, or in the heaven of heavens. "Every family, in heaven and earth," will be ranged under His headship, as all will be brought into everlasting felicity and glory, on the ground of His accomplished atonement. This is plain enough, and needs, no stretch of the imagination to grasp it. We know it to be true: and when we know the truth which is shadowed forth, the shadow Is easily understood. If only our hearts be filled with Christ, we shall not go far astray in our interpretations of the tabernacle and its furniture. It is not a head full of learned criticism that will avail us much here, but a heart full of affection for Jesus, and a conscience at rest in the blood of His cross.
May the Spirit of God enable us to study these things with more interest and intelligence! May He "open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of his law."
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 6 Vers. 1-37. THE TABERNACLE. The sacred furniture which the…
Vers. 1-37. THE TABERNACLE. The sacred furniture which the tabernacle was to contain having been described, with the exception of the "altar of incense" the description of which is reserved for ch 30. (vers. 1-10)-directions were next given for the sacred structure itself. This was to consist of three main things
1. A quadrangular enclosure thirty cubits long by ten broad, open at oneend, and on the other three sides enclosed by boards of acacia-wood overlaid with gold called the mishkan, or "the dwelling-place," in our version usually translated "tabernacle.
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2. A tent of goat"s hair, supported upon poles, and stretched by means ofropes and tent-pegs in the ordinary manner over the mishkan. This is called the "ohel which is the usual word for a "tent" in Hebrew, and is so translated generally, (Gen_4:20 Gen_9:21 Gen_13:3 Gen_18:1, etc.) though in this chapter, unfortunately, "covering" (ver. 7); and
3. A "coveringmikseh, to be placed over the "ohel, composed of rams" skins dyed red, and seals" skins (ver. 14). Subordinate parts of the structure were
(a) The sockets, or bases, which were to receive and support the upright boards (vers. 19-25);
(b) The bars which were to hold the boards together (vers. 26-29);
(c) The veil, stretched on pillars, which was to be hung across the" dwelling-house," and to separate it into two parts, the "holy place" and the "holy of holies" (vers. 31-33); and
(d) The curtain or "hanging" at the open end of the "dwelling-place," where there were no boards, which was intended to close that side of the structure when necessary (vers. 36, 37).
The fine linen covering (vers. 1-6).
Ver. 1. Thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains. These "ten curtains" are explained in the verses which follow to be ten "breadths," so fastened together as to form practically a single curtain or awning, which constituted the cieling or inner covering of the tabernacle. The mode of its arrangement is not quite certain. Some suppose that it was really a part of the "tent," being laid over the same framework as the goats" hair curtain (Fergusson, Cook); others believe it to have been strained across the mishkan and fastened to the top of the boards on either side, thence depending, either inside or outside (Bahr, Keil). The former supposition appears the more probable. Fine twined linen is linen the threads of which are formed of several fine strands twisted together. This is often the case with Egyptian linen. On blue and purple and scarlet, see the comment upon Exo_25:4. Cherubims of cunning work . Rather, "cherubim, the work of a skilled weaver." Figures of cherubs were to be woven into the hangings in the loom itself, not embroidered upon them afterwards.
Vers. 1-37. The symbolism of the tabernacle structure.
I That the HOLY OF HOLIES typified heaven itself is declared in the Epistle to the Hebrews. (Heb_9:7-12) In it were the forms of cherubim, representing the angelic choir, and between them was the manifestation of the presence of God himself. It was cut off from the rest of the sanctuary by the veil, which none was to lift save the High Priest once a year: "the Holy Ghost thus signifying, that the way into the holiest of alli.e. , into heaven not made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing" (ib, ver. 8).
II THE VEIL thus typified and represented the separation between man and God the awful barrier which shuts out from the Divine presence all, even the holiest, unless they have with them the blood of expiation, "that speaketh better things than that of Abel." The veil was covered with cherubic forms, reminding men of those watchers at the gate of Eden, who with "a flaming sword that turned every way, kept the way of the tree of. (Gen_3:24) Men saw in the thick curtain that hid the holiest from view, that heaven was shut to them, unless a "new and living way" could be found, whereby they might enter. They had impressed upon them the awful holiness and inaccessibility of the Supreme Being, and their own unworthiness to approach him. They learnt that God had hidden himself from them, until some "better time," When the veil would be rent, and in and through their true High Priest, and through faith in his blood, they might "have boldness to enter into the holiest.
III The tabernacle outside the veil THE HOLY PLACE, as it was called represented the church militant. Here was perpetual worship offered to the God behind the veil. Hither were all who had received the holy anointing, and so been made "priests to God" (Rev_1:6) privileged to enter. Here was a perpetual thank-offering presented to God in the shew-bread that lay always upon the table. Here was illumination from the sevenfold lamp which typified the Holy Spirit (see above on "the symbolism of the candlestick"). The place was "all glorious within" (Psa_45:13) on the wails "clothing of wrought gold, above, a canopy of fine twined linen, and blue and purple and scarlet, with cherubim of cunning work" interwoven into it at either end a curtain of nearly similar materials. Those who looked on the tabernacle from without saw the goats" hair, and the rams" skins, and seals" skins, and perceived in it no beauty that they should desire it. The beauty was revealed to those only who were within. So now, the Church is despised and vilified by those without, valued as it deserves only by those who dwell in it. Again, the structure seems weak, as does the structure of the Church to worldlings. A few boards, an awning, a curtain or two what more frail and perishable! But, when all is "fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth", (Eph_4:16) when by a machinery of rings and bars, and tenons and solid sockets, and pillars and hooks, the whole is welded into one, under Divine direction and contrivance, the fragility disappears. "God"s strength is made perfect in weakness." A structure is produced which continues, which withstands decay, which defies assaults from without, which outlasts others seemingly far stronger, and bids fair to remain when all else is shattered and destroyed. "Behold! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." The tabernacle, frail as it was, lasted from the exodus until the time when Solomon expanded it into the temple. Our tabernacle, the Church, will endure until it shall please God to merge it in a new and wonderful creation new Jerusalem". (Rev_21:2, 10-27 22:1-5)
IV THE CURTAIN AT THE ENTRANCE symbolises the fact, that there is a division between the Church and the world. The curtain may be lifted at times; but the world has only glimpses of the real inner life of the Church, does not fully see it, does not comprehend it. The life consists in worship in contemplation, prayer, and praise. The world "cares for none of these things." It may glance curiously at the external fabric, and scoff a little at the contrast between the homely goats" hair that shows itself in one part, and the "blue and purple and scarlet, and fine twined linen wrought with needlework" that is seen in another; it may be angered at the sight of "pillars overlaid with gold," and ask scornfully, "Wherefore this waste?" But it does not care to consider seriously the fitness of these things, or to weigh the reasons for them. The only interest which it feels is one arising from cupidity: the Church, it thinks, would be worth plundering; and it looks forward hopefully to the time when it will "divide the spoil.
V The support of the entire fabric upon TENONS and SOCKETS indicates that the Church is detached from earth, has here no resting-place, no continuing abode, awaits removal to heaven. What is of the earth, is earthy. If the Church were of the earth, if it were a human institution, if it rested on human wisdom, or power, or affection, it would be swayed by human emotions; it would seek those things which are the main objects of human desire; it would cease to witness for God; it would be powerless to raise man above himself and fit him for the life which is to come. But the Church is not of man"s building. Christ built it. It is his. He is its "chief corner-stone;" and there fore, "while it touches earth, it belongs altogether to heaven.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR Vers. 1-37. Jehovah"s dwelling.
Instructions are now given for the making of the "dwelling-place," of that sacred house or tent which was to be the special abode of Jehovah, and within which, when reared according to the fashion shown to Moses in the mount (ver. 30), the sacred articles described in the previous chapter were to be deposited. We need not encumber our homily with the minutiae of construction. It will suffice to direct attention to the general arrangement of parts, and to the costly and beautiful character of the erection as a whole.
1. General arrangement. The tabernacle may be described as a quadrangular enclosure of boards, sumptuously overlaid with gold, and fitted beneath into sockets of silver (vers. 15-30). Over this were placed
(1) the tabernacle-cloth proper a finely-woven double curtain of byssus, glowing all over with figures of cherubim, in blue, and purple, and scarlet (ver. 1).
(2) A tent cloth of goats" hair (ver. 7).
(3) Exterior coverings. These consisted of rams" skins dyed red, and of skins of seals (ver. 14). Loops and taches united the two divisions of the tabernacle and tent-cloths. The clasps in the one case were of gold (ver. 6), in the other of brass (ver. 11). Internally, four pillars supported a magnificent veil, also wrought in blue, and purple, and scarlet with figures of cherubim (vers. 31, 32). This divided the sacred enclosure into two apartments, the outer, the holy place, and the inner, the holy of holies, the true dwelling of Jehovah. The division, as already seen, "corresponded to the design of the tabernacle, where Jehovah desired not to dwell alone by himself, but to come and meet with his people" (Keil). The holy of holies, accordingly, contained the ark; the holy place, the symbols of the vocation of the people. It was the place of the people"s approach to God. Another curtain, "wrought with needlework," and, like the veil, suspended from pillars by hooks of gold, hung before the entrance in front. The pillars, in this case, were five in number (vers. 36, 37). For details, dimensions, and theories of arrangement, consult the exposition. No scheme yet propounded is entirely free from difficulties. The general measurements, and the mention of "pins" in Exo_27:19, point strongly in the direction of a tent form such as that suggested by Mr. Fergusson (Dict. of Bible, art. Temple) A difficulty, on this theory, arises from the statement that the veil was to be hung" under the taches" (ver. 33). But the expression, "under the taches," may be used of a high-roofed structure with some degree of latitude, otherwise we must suppose that the veil originally divided the sanctuary into two apartments of equal size.
2. Glory and beauty of the dwelling-place. Within the limits of its dimensions, the tabernacle was really a place of great splendour a costly and magnificent erection. We should err, however, in going much beyond the general effect to be produced in seeking for symbolical meanings. The shittim wood, the precious metals, the colours, the finely-embroidered linen fabrics, have significance only as adding to the beauty and richness of the place designed for Jehovah"s abode. The end was, as far as possible, to rear a residence worthy of" the King of glory," or, from another point of view, to set forth, by the external splendour of the dwelling, the surpassing glory and magnificence of him who dwelt in it. Thus also was enhanced the idea of the singular honour enjoyed by those who were permitted to minister before him (see Fairbairn). The cherubic figures woven into the tabernacle drapery, point, if our interpretation of these figures is correct to the host of angels who continually attend Jehovah, who are his willing servants in all that relates to his kingdom, who take so deep an interest in its progress, who furnish to his people a constant model of obedience, (Mat_6:10) and who may be viewed as joining with them, in all their services, in the worship of their King. They are part of the heavenly community, to which, as citizens in God"s kingdom, we belong. (Heb_12:22) The chapter suggests the following general reflections:
1. Whatever glory or beauty the tabernacle possessed was derivedultimately from God. Man could but work up materials furnished to him by the Maker of all. So with the "beauties of holiness" in the Church. It is God who gives us of his grace, and who works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure. (Php_2:13)
2. The tabernacle, in another aspect of it, was a product of human art andskill. The plan was Divine; the materials were from God; but the workmanship was man"s. It is a characteristic of the "spiritual house" which God is now building on earth, that it also is being reared by human agency, and that each individual has it in his power to contribute something to its beauty. Every holy life that is being lived is the weaving of a beautiful fabric for the adornment of this house.
3. God"s condescension is seen in his willingness to dwell with Israel in this wilderness-made abode. Magnificent as it was, it was but a paltry abode to offer to the maker of heaven and earth to the possessor of all things. Yet Jehovah did not spurn it. He sought an abode with men. His dwelling in the tabernacle was, in some aspects of it, a grander thing than his inhabitation of the infinities of space. It told of a God who does not spurn to enter into personal relations with his creatures. He will stoop as far as holiness permits, in his endeavour to reach them, and to lift them up to communion with himself.
4. The tabernacle, glorious as it was, was but the type of dwelling-placesmore glorious than itself. We have found the antitypes in the once abased, but now glorified, humanity of Christ; in the renewed heart of the believer; in the redeemed Church as a whole. God prefers the temple of the humble and contrite heart to the grandest building ever reared by hands of man. J.O. (Isa_57:15)
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG Vers. 1-37. The tabernacle itself.
Consider here
I GOD"S COMMANDMENT THAT A DWELLING-PLACE SHOULD BE PROVIDED FOR HIM. Against even the least degree of image-making there was a stern edict; and we might also have expected that there would be equal sternness in forbidding the creation of aught in the shape of a holy house. For what on the face of it would seem more probable than this, that the erection of a holy house would be a strong inducement towards the fashioning of some visible representation of Deity? Thus we might conjecture; but our conjectures soon get swept away as we are made clearly to understand that it was a good thing for Israel that Jehovah their God, their guide, and their unfailing support, should have a dwelling-place in the midst of their dwelling-places. Such a dwelling-place was no necessity for him, but to the people it was a help so great, that it became a necessity; and so we see they were more than permitted, they were even commanded, to construct an enclosure which should be reckoned the house of God. When we want to find one of our fellow-men, we reckon that it is at his house we shall find him easiest; and just as it is possible, by going and making proper request at the palace-gates, to get a great favour from a king without even a momentary vision of his face, so an Israelite was to be taught that by going to the holy dwelling of Jehovah whom no man had seen or could see he might unquestionably secure Divine benefits. As there was a condescension in the new dispensation, so there was in the old. He who became to a certain extent circumscribed in the limits of a human body, only carried out into a more abiding and far-reaching mystery, the circumscribing which first became a fact at Sinai. He who has the heaven for his throne and the earth for his footstool, chose to make the narrow limits of the tabernacle his peculiar dwelling-place. He meant Israel to understand that he was there, as he was nowhere else.
II THE PECULIAR FORM WHICH THIS DWELLING-PLACE ASSUMED. Ever.as the people dwelt in tents, easily set up and easily taken down, so God, in the midst of them, likewise dwelt in a tent. There was of course an elaboration and costliness about the tent of Jehovah, such as could not be found in the tents of even the noblest and wealthiest of the people; but still it was essentially a tent. A correspondence obtained between this tabernacle with all its splendid adornments which could not have obtained, if even the plainest of true buildings had taken its place. It is most needful for us to remember that the house of God in the midst of his people was not a building that had foundations. It was strictly suited to their wants. It was more suited to their immediate future than they themselves had any apprehension of; and we cannot but feel that for one thing, God had in view their forty years" wandering. They had not yet sinned the sin which led to this penalty; but that sin was before the mind of him who knew their expectations and their instability. Then it would appear also that God had nothing else than a tabernacle in view, even after his people secured each one their place in the lot of their temporal inheritance. It is not perhaps too much to say that the erection of the splendid temple which glorified Solomon"s reign was no part of the Divine intent. God made the erection of that imposing mass to work in with his intent; but in the end it proved to have no more stability than the tabernacle which preceded it. Bear in mind what Jesus said of the temple which was standing in his time. His disciples in admiration pointed to the great stones which went to compose it; hut Jesus in the discernment of his heart nevertheless was able to point out that not one stone should be left on another. The temple seemed more stable than the tabernacle; but it was only a seeming. Well-meaning men, not able to escape from carnal notions, may make God"s house to take the temple-form, but God himself will take care that it has the tabernacle-reality. It is not in what we can make with our hands, be we ever so liberal, be we ever so diligent, that God can find a real abode. His real abode is in ourselves, in each of us who are holy and perfected individuals through our believing connection with Christ, and still more in the midst of his perfected people, joined together in the inexpressible, indestructible harmony of heaven. Y.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v1 The curtains of the Tabernacle
Exo_26:1-14
Curtains.
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The curtains of the Tabernacle
I. That the glory of God is hidden to all who stand outside Jesus Christ. Man cannot surprise God and penetrate His secrets.
II. That in Christ the glory of God is most brightly revealed.
1. There is such a thing as regarding Christ from the outside; and then, as the Jews, we see no beauty in Him.
2. There is such a thing as knowing Christ as a great Teacher, a great Example; the goats hair curtains hooked with brass.
3. But it is only when we believe in Christ as the Son of God, and rest in Him as such, that we behold the fulness of His glory. The colours are the symbols of the different names of God; blue signifies the special revelation of God, being the colour of heaven and ether; red denotes the highest dignity, majesty, and royal power; crimson is that which fire and blood have in common, and symbolizes, therefore, life in its full extent. In Christ, the love, the life, the beauty, the majesty of God are most brightly expressed.
III. That in Christ is everlasting security and blessedness. (W. L. Watkinson.)
The curtains and the coverings
I. Let us look at the beautiful curtains that formed the Tabernacle.
1. If we view the Tabernacle as an emblem of Christ in His incarnation, the beautiful curtains of cunning work were emblematical of the attributes and perfections of Jehovah, In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Here every perfection meets and shines.
2. These beautifully-wrought curtains were emblems of the perfect graces which adorned the human nature of Jesus.
3. May we not see in this beautiful piece of tapestry the various characters of Christ? Here by faith we behold the Priest and His sacrifice, the King and His golden crown, the Prophet and His teaching, the Mediator and His fulness. Here by faith we behold the Shepherd and His watchful care, the Husband and His everlasting love, the Friend and His faithful counsel. Here in a mystery of grace we may discover the Root and the tree, the Vine and the branches, the Head and the members.
4. The curtains were the same in the holiest as in the holy place. The Church triumphant and the Church militant have the same Christ.
5. These curtains were fastened together by blue loops and taches of gold so as to form one Tabernacle. The loops and taches were exactly over the vail (Exo_26:33). This may teach us the connection between Christs work in heaven and His work on earth.
6. These curtains were full of cherubim. May not these cherubim be emblems of believers who are Christs mystical body? Christ and His members are one.
7. These curtains are emblems of the Churches of Christ adorned with the graces of the Holy Spirit.
8. The loops and golden clasps which united the curtains together show us the place for little deeds of kindness and little deeds of love. Kind words fitly spoken are golden clasps. There is far more power in kind words than some people think. Kind words are very uniting.
9. The Tabernacle was divided into two parts, but it was only one Tabernacle. The saints in heaven and the saints on earth make but one Church.
II. We may now look at the tent of goats hair, which formed a covering for the Tabernacle. The curtains of goats hair were emblematical of the righteousness of Christ, which is the justification of the Church. These curtains were joined together by clasps of brass. And he made fifty taches of brass to couple the tent together, that it might be one. Brass is an emblem of strength. In the Lord shall one say, have I righteousness and strength. In the Lord Jehovah --Jehovah Tsidkenu--is everlasting strength. May we not have an emblem in these two large goats hair curtains, of righteousness in its twofold aspect? Christs righteousness imputed is our justification. Christs righteousness imparted is our sanctification. We cannot have one without the other; they must be in our experience coupled together. Jesus Christ is our Righteousness and our Sanctification (1Co_1:30). Christ for us is our perfect righteousness. Christ in us is our perfect sanctification.
III. Over the tent was a covering of rams skins dyed red. Beautiful emblem of the protecting blood of Christ.
IV. Above the covering of rams skins dyed red was a covering of badgers skins. These skins were probably dyed blue. Perhaps a part were dyed purple. If so there would be seen on the outside, as well as the inside, the blue, purple, and scarlet. This outside covering teaches us that the Church is under the protection of heaven. The blue skins were over the red skins. Heaven only protects the blood marked. Kept by the power of God. (R. E. Sears.)
The beauty of holiness within
Observe:
1. As the outside of the Tabernacle was coarse and rough, the beauty all lying within, so those in whom God dwells must labour to be better than they seem to be. Hypocrites put the best side outward, like whited sepulchres, but the kings daughter is all glorious within (Psa_45:13); in the eye of the world black as the tents of Kedar, but in the eye of God comely as the curtains of Solomon (Son_1:5). Let our adorning be that of the hidden man of the heart which God values (1Pe_3:4).
2. Where God places His glory, He will create a defence; even on the habitations of the righteous there shall be a covert (Isa_6:5-6). The protection of Providence shall always be upon the beauty of holiness (Psa_27:5). (A. Nevin, D. D.)
The curtains
The materials used in the manufacture of this fabric were precisely the same as those which formed the vail; a different arrangement, however, is adopted as to the fine linen. In the vail, the blue first meets the eye; and the fine linen is last in the series. In these curtains, the fine linen stands, first, succeeded by the blue and the other colours. The vail, we know from Heb_10:20, was a type of the Lord Jesus in the days of His flesh, and was rent when He yielded up the ghost. The curtains, fastened together by golden taches, seem to foreshadow Christ in resurrection. The same glorious display of God and man, wondrously united, meets the eye of faith, whether the blessed Lord be contemplated when sojourning on this earth or raised to the right hand of the Majesty on high. Resurrection added to Him no new perfections; for He was, while on earth, the Resurrection and the Life. He was ever perfect. (H. W. Soltau.)
Analogies
The beautiful and costly cherub-curtained habitation bears some analogy to the believer, to the Church, to Christ, and to heaven.
I. To the believer. God, who dwelt within these curtains, condescends to dwell graciously in the heart of every true Israelite--saints are an habitation of God through the Spirit. As the Tabernacle was more beautiful within than without, so are Gods children. They are clothed with the spotless robe of Emmanuels righteousness, and adorned with humility, love, holiness, and heavenly-mindedness.
II. To the church. Believers, of whom the Church is composed, although scattered among many sects of professing Christians, are yet all one in Christ Jesus. As the curtains though woven separately were afterwards sewed together and formed two great curtains, which, when hung, were united into one by means of loops of blue and clasps of gold, so Gods children are knit together by the silver ties of affection and bound together by the golden clasps of love.
III. To christ. He was the true Tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man.
IV. To heaven. There angels and saints behold God-shining, not by a mere as symbol He did within the cherub-curtains, but in the face of Jesus Christ! There are those glorious beings who are mighty in strength (and whose perfections probably were shadowed forth in the cherubs that stood upon the mercy-seat and adorned roof and walls), even thousands and tens of thousands of holy angels, guardians of the saints while on earth, and their companions and fellow-worshippers for ever in the heavenly temple. (W. Brown.)
The golden and brazen taches
Fifty taches, or clasps of gold, linked together the innermost or beautiful curtains of the tabernacle. Fifty taches of brass coupled the goats-hair curtains. By the former one tabernacle--by the latter one tent was made. The vail, which divided the interior into two unequal portions, was hung up under the taches. As long as that vail remained entire, there might be said to be two tabernacles. At the same time, there was an intimation that the whole interior was but one holy place, in the fact of the curtains that covered, being connected by the taches, and forming one tabernacle, and one tent above it. All priestly service is now conducted in the holiest. Heaven itself is the place where Christ appears in the presence of God for us. The fifty taches of gold may be so many distinct presentations of the glories of Christ, expressed in His various names and titles, as seen crowned with glory and honour upon the throne of God. The taches of brass may exhibit the same names and titles as appertaining to Him when He was on earth, the Second Man, the Lord from heaven; as it will be found that the brass is used as a type of the Lord on earth in suffering and trial; while the gold has a resurrection aspect of the same glorious One. He has, as risen from the dead, retaken His own glorious titles; having, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross. The brazen taches seem appropriately to knit together the curtains of goats hair, which proclaim to us His sorrows and sufferings on the tree; while the golden taches, as appropriately coupled together the beautiful curtains, which manifest Him as received up in glory, because of the perfection of His labour and service in suffering on earth. (H. W. Soltau.)
The coverings of the Tabernacle
The coverings of the Tabernacle were four in number, viz., badgersskins, ramsskins dyed red, goatshair, and the embroidered covering. Much difficulty has been felt, and is still felt, as to the animal which in our translation is called a badger. Some think it was a seal, and that the entire Tabernacle, excepting the east end where the door was placed, was covered with sealsskin. Others think that this covering was made of the skins of a species of stag goat; but be this as it may, it is clear that the outer covering was made of some hard and durable substance; so hard was it that shoes were sometimes made of the same material (Eze_16:10). In this covering there was nothing beautiful or attractive. I can suppose a man to have stood at the top of some high hill, and to have looked down on the long, dark, coffin-like structure, and to have said, Well, I have heard much about the Tabernacle as being a very costly building, but I see no beauty at all in this long, dark tent; but the priests who had been within could tell of gold, and silver, and the richest embroidery to be seen there. It was all glorious within, but rough and unsightly without. This badger skin covering sets forth the humility of Christ when on earth among men, who, judging of Him according to the outward appearance, said, He hath no form nor comeliness; there is no beauty in Him that we should desire Him; so they despised and rejected Him (Isa_53:2-3). But we know there was much in Christ which did not meet the eye of men generally; and those who, taught of the Father, knew Him as the Christ the Son of the living God (Mat_16:16-17) were attracted to Him, for He was to them the chiefest among ten thousand and altogether lovely (Son_5:10; Son_5:16). The rough badger skin outside was as needful as was the beautiful covering underneath; and the humility of Christ was as needful for us, and for the glory of God, as was His exaltation. This covering of badgers skins was thick enough and hard enough to be an effectual protection from the rain, dew, and fine sand of the desert, and nothing could get through it to stain the fine linen or to dim the gold within. This shadows forth to us the holy determination of Christ to stand as a faithful and true witness for God on earth: the truth was in Him, and He kept it to the end. (G. Rodgers.)
The ramsskins dyed red
This red covering was probably made of the skins of rams which had been devoted to God, and had suffered death as burnt-offerings--not as sin-offerings. The skin of the sin-offering was burnt to ashes outside the camp (Lev_4:11-12), but the skin of the burnt-offering belonged to the priest who offered it to God (Lev_7:8). If the badger-skin covering sets forth the humility of Christ, this covering dyed red sets forth the depth of His humility. This blood-red skin reminds me of Him who when pressed, crushed, and distressed in the garden of Gethsemane, did sweat as it were great drops of blood. (G. Rodgers.)
The goats-hair covering
This was the only covering that was permitted to hang over any part of the east end of the Tabernacle. The eleventh breadth, hanging over the door, would meet the eye of the worshipper the moment he came within the gate of the court. The spiritual teaching of this I think to be of the greatest importance, as we shall see when we understand what particular aspect of our blessed Jesus this covering was designed to teach. Observe, first of all, that the sin-offering whose blood was carried into the holy of holies, and sprinkled on the mercy-seat, and before the mercy-seat, to make an atonement for the people of Israel, was a goat (Lev_16:15-16). This was the blood of sprinkling, of which we read so much in the Bible. With this blood in his hand, the high priest entered once a year, and stood in the presence of God. This was the blood which he offered for the errors of the people, and which made atonement for them. This was the blood at which God looked, and with which He was satisfied; it had a voice, and spoke better things than the blood of Abel. When it was sprinkled on the mercy-seat, which covered up the tables of the law, it seemed to speak to God of punishment which had been borne and of a life which had been given up. Observe again, the animal that bore away the sins of the people into the wilderness, where they were found no more, was a goat. I refer to the scapegoat, of which we read in Lev_16:1-34. This goat going away with the peoples sins would show those outside of the Tabernacle what the blood of the slain goat had done within the vail, viz., that it had put away sin and had set them free; and as they gazed on the folded part of goats-hair cloth, as it hung over the east end of the Tabernacle, it would seem to preach the gospel to them by reminding them how their sin was put away on the tenth day of the seventh month. It would speak of abounding grace, telling them that they had received double for all their sins. The first covering told us of the humility of Christ; the next told us of the depth of His humility; this tells us of the blessed results of His suffering and death, viz., that the sins of the Lords people are put away, for ever put away. (G. Rodgers.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Exodus 26
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE TABERNACLE.
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Exodus 26
We now come to examine the structure of the tabernacle for which the most essential furniture has been prepared.
Some confusion of thought exists, even among educated laymen, with regard to the arrangements of the temple; and this has led to similar confusion (to a less extent) concerning the corresponding parts of the tabernacle. "The temple" in which the Child Jesus was found, and into which Peter and John went up to pray, ought not to be confounded with that inner shrine, "the temple," in which it was the lot of the priest Zacharias to burn incense, and into which Judas, forgetful of all its sacredness in his anguish, hurled his money to the priests (Luk_2:46; Act_3:3; Luk_1:9; Mat_27:5). Now, the former of these corresponded to "the court of the tabernacle," an enclosure open to the skies, and containing two important articles, the altar of burnt sacrifices and the laver. This was accessible to the nation, so that the sinner could lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and the priests could purify themselves before entering their own sacred place, the tabernacle proper, the shrine. But when we come to the structure itself, some attention is still necessary, in order to derive any clear notion from the description; nor can this easily be done by an English reader without substituting the Revised Version for the Authorised. He will then discover that we have a description, first of the "curtains of the tabernacle" (Exo_26:1-6), and then of other curtains which are not considered to belong to the tabernacle proper, but to "the tent over the tabernacle" (Exo_26:7-13), being no part of the rich ornamental interior, but only a protection spread above it; and over this again were two further screens from the weather (Exo_26:14), and finally, inside all, are "the boards of the tabernacle"--of which boards the two actual apartments were constructed (Exo_26:15-30)--and the veil which divided the Holy from the Most Holy Place (Exo_26:31-33).
"The curtains of the tabernacle" were ten, made of linen, of which every thread consisted of fine strands twisted together, "and blue and purple and scarlet," with cherubim not embroidered but woven into the fabric (Exo_26:1).
These curtains were sewn together, five and five, so as to make two great curtains, each slightly larger than forty-two feet by thirty, being twenty-eight cubits long by five times four cubits broad (Exo_26:2-3). Finally these two were linked together, each having fifty loops for that purpose at corresponding places at the edge, which loops were bound together by fifty golden clasps (Exo_26:4-6). Thus, when the nation was about to march, they could easily be divided in the middle and then folded in the seams.
This costly fabric was regarded as part of the true tabernacle: why, then, do we find the outer curtains mentioned before the rest of the tabernacle proper is described?
Certainly because these rich curtains lie immediately underneath the coarser ones, and are to be considered along with "the tent" which covered all (Exo_26:7). This consisted of curtains of goats' hair, of the same size, and arranged in all respects like the others, except that their clasps were only bronze, and that the curtains were eleven in number, instead of ten, so that half a curtain was available to hang down over the back, and half was to be doubled back upon itself at the front of "the tabernacle," that is to say, the richer curtains underneath. The object of this is obvious: it was to bring the centre of the goatskin curtains over the edge of the linen ones, as tiles overlap each other, to shut out the rain at the joints. But this implies, what has been said already, that the curtains of the tabernacle should lie close to the curtains of the tent.
Over these again was an outer covering of rams' skins dyed red, and a covering of sealskins above all (Exo_26:14). This last, it is generally agreed, ran only along the top, like a ridge tile, to protect the vulnerable part of the roof. And now it has to be remembered that we are speaking of a real tent with sloping sides, not a flat cover laid upon the flat inner structure of boards, and certain to admit the rain. By calling attention to this fact, Mr. Fergusson succeeded in solving all the problems connected with the measurements of the tabernacle, and bringing order into what was little more than chaos before (Smith's Bible Dict., "Temple").
The inner tabernacle was of acacia wood, which was the only timber of the sanctuary. Each board stood ten cubits high, and was fitted by tenons into two silver sockets, which probably formed a continuous base. Each of these contained a talent of silver, and was therefore more than eighty pounds weight; and they were probably to some extent sunk into the ground for a foundation (Exo_38:27). There were twenty boards on each side; and as they were a cubit and a half broad, the length of the tabernacle was about forty-five feet (Exo_26:16-18). At the west end there were six boards (Exo_26:22), which, with the breadth of the two posts or boards for the corners (Exo_26:23-24) just gives ten cubits, or fifteen feet, for the width of it. Thus the length of the tabernacle was three times its breadth; and we know that in the Temple (where all the proportions were the same, the figures being doubled throughout) the subdividing veil was so hung as to make the inner shrine a perfect square, leaving the holy place twice as long as it was broad.
The posts were held in their places by wooden bars, which were overlaid with gold (as the boards also were, Exo_26:29) and fitted into golden rings. Four such bars, or bolts, ran along a portion of each side, and there was a fifth great bar which stretched along the whole forty-five feet from end to end. Thus the edifice was firmly held together; and the wealth of the material makes it likely that they were fixed on the inside, and formed a part of the ornament of the edifice (Exo_26:26-29).
When the two curtains were fastened together with clasps, they gave a length of sixty feet. But we have seen that the length of the boards when jointed together was only forty-five feet. This gives a projection of seven feet and a half (five cubits) for the front and rear of the tent beyond the tabernacle of boards; and when the great curtains were drawn tight, sloping from the ridge-pole fourteen cubits on each side, it has been shown (assuming a right-angle at the top) that they reached within five cubits of the ground, and extended five cubits beyond the sides, the same distance as at the front and rear. The next instructions concern the veil which divided the two chambers of the sanctuary. This was in all respects like "the curtain of the tabernacle," and similarly woven with cherubim. It was hung upon four pillars; and the even number seems to prove that there was no higher one in the centre, reaching to the roof--which seems to imply that there was a triangular opening above the veil, between the Holy and the Most Holy Place (Exo_26:31-32).
But here a difficult question arises. There is no specific measurement of the point at which this subdividing veil was to stretch across the tent. The analogy of the Temple inclines us to believe that the Most Holy Place was a perfect cube, and the Holy Place twice as long as it was broad and high. There is evident allusion to this final shape of the Most Holy Place in the description of the New Jerusalem, of which the length and breadth and height were equal. And yet there is strong reason to suspect that this arrangement was not the primitive one. For Moses was ordered to stretch the veil underneath the golden clasps which bound together the two great curtains of the tabernacle (Exo_26:33). But these were certainly in the middle. How, then, could the veil make an unequal division below? Possibly fifteen feet square would have been too mean a space for the dimensions of the Most Holy Place, although the perfect cube became desirable, when the size was doubled.
A screen of the same rich material, but apparently not embroidered with cherubim, was to stretch across the door of the tent; but this was supported on five pillars instead of four, clearly that the central one might support the ridge-bar of the roof. And their sockets were of brass (Exo_26:36-37).
The tabernacle, like the Temple, had its entrance on the east (Exo_26:22); and in the case of the Temple this was the more remarkable, because the city lay at the other side, and the worshippers had to pass round the shrine before they reached the front of it. The object was apparently to catch the warmth of the sun. For a somewhat similar reason, every pagan temple in the ancient world, with a few well-defined exceptions which are easily explained, also faced the east; and the worshippers, with their backs to the dawn, saw the first beams of the sun kindling their idol's face. The orientation of Christian churches is due to the custom which made the neophyte, standing at first in his familiar position westward, renounce the devil and all his works, and then, turning his back upon his idols, recite the creed with his face eastward.
What ideas would be suggested by this edifice to the worshipper will better be examined when we have examined also the external court.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Exo_26:1. Of cunning work] = Mââsey CHOSHEB represents workmanship…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Exo_26:1. Of cunning work] = Mââsey CHOSHEB represents workmanship of a more skilful and costly kind, such as was used in the in working of the figures of the cherubim upon the inner covering of the roof of the tabernacle, the vail before the Holy of Holies, and upon toe ephod and the breast-plate of the High priest. Another peculiarity of this covering of this cunning work was, that its texture exhibited figures on both sides, while the needle-work= mââsey rokem—was without figures of the cherubim, and exhibited the pattern only on one side. The workmanship of the former, maasey chosheb = cunning work, being employed for decoractions of the interior of the tabernacle only, may be taken as symbolising the presence of God in the tabernacle.
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Exo_26:1-15
THE CURTAINS OF THE TABERNACLE
In its highest meaning the Tabernacle is the symbol of Christ, in whom God is revealed to His people. What practical truths, then, do these curtains suggest?
I. That the glory of God is hidden to all who stand outside Jesus Christ. These elaborate curtains were to veil the sacred furniture and services of the sanctuary from the vulgar or profane eye. Only such as entered the Tabernacle saw the glory; those who remained outside knew it not. God is only known in Christ. The people of Israel were face to face with nature; as they gazed on the pillar of fire and cloud, they were face to face with Providence; but it was only as they penetrated the Tabernacle that they felt themselves in the peculiar presence of God. The lights of the candlestick, the table of shewbread, the ark speaking of reconciling truth, the mercy-seat and the glory which lighted it, declaring the love and friendship of God,—all these were hidden from the careless and unbelieving outside the Tabernacle. The truth for us is, that the knowledge of God, the righteousness of God, the love of God, the beauty of God, are hidden from all who stand outside Christ. The bright stars are clouds which God has spread on His throne; the heavens He has spread out as a curtain; the course of history is full of mysteries, that is to say, God hides Himself in darkness; the nature of man is a darkened glass, through which filter perplexing gleams of the great Creator. “The world by wisdom knew not God.” In the ancient world man felt that God had hidden Himself in nature and the world’s government, and in the modern world all who reject Christ find the curtains between man and God, heaven and earth, denser than the ancients found them to be. There were many curtains; the curtains were closely linked to each other; they were fastened to the pillars by nails; there was curtain behind curtain. There was no possibility of any of the interior glories being witnessed by any outside the tent. Man cannot surprise God and penetrate His secrets.
II. That in Christ the glory of God is most brightly revealed. The innermost curtains were very beautiful. “Of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet,” and the cherubim worked in with golden thread. These curtains were hooked with golden hooks. Then came the second curtains, of goats’ hair, hooked with brass. Then the outermost curtains, of rams’ skins and badgers’ skins.
1. There is such a thing as regarding Christ from the outside; and then, as the Jews, we see no beauty in Him.
2. There is such a thing as knowing Christ as a great Teacher, a great Example; “the goats’ hair curtains hooked with brass.”
3. But it is only when we believe in Christ as the Son of God, and rest in Him as such, that we behold the fulness of His glory. “The colours are the symbols of the different names of God; blue signifies the special revelation of God, being the colour of heaven and ether; red denotes the highest dignity, majesty, and royal power; crimson is that which fire and blood have in common, and symbolises, therefore, life in its full extent.”—Kalisch. In Christ, the love, the life, the beauty, the majesty of God are most brightly expressed. The Tabernacle was a very different place seen from the outside, with its badgers’ skins, and seen within, where the richly-coloured curtains shone with their golden broideries; and it is only when we are “in” Christ that we behold the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Let us penetrate to the heart of the Gospel; let us go beyond the curtains of goats’ hair, and of rams’ skins, and badgers’ skins—the letter and circumstance of Christianity—to gaze with open face on the glory of the spiritual and redeeming Jesus.
III. That in Christ is everlasting security and blessedness. These are sheltering curtains—safety within the tent of the King. “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion: in the secret of His Tabernacle shall He hide me.” And everlasting blessedness: “And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying,” &c. (Rev_21:3-4). Here we are secure beyond all the tempests of life or death.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
The curtains on which we have been dwelling were covered with other “curtains of goats’ hair,” Exo_26:7-14. Their beauty was hidden from those without by that which bespoke roughness and severity. This latter did not meet the view of those within. To all who were privileged to enter the hallowed enclosure nothing was visible save “the blue, the purple, the scarlet, and fine twined linen,” the varied yet combined exhibition of the virtues and excellencies of that divine Tabernacle in which God dwelt within the vail—that is, of Christ, through whose flesh, the antitype of all these, the beams of the divine nature shone so delicately, that the sinner could behold without being overwhelmed by their dazzling brightness.
As the Lord Jesus passed along this earth, how few really knew Him! How few had eyes anointed with heavenly eye-salve to penetrate and appreciate the deep mystery of His character! How few saw “the blue, the purple, the scarlet, and fine twined linen!” It was only when faith brought man into His presence that He ever allowed the brightness of what He was to shine forth—ever allowed the glory to break through the cloud. To nature’s eye there would seem to have been a reserve and a severity about Him which were aptly prefigured by the “covering of goats’ hair.” All this was the result of His profound separation and estrangement, not from sinners personally, but from the thoughts and maxims of men.
—C. H. M.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON
Tabernacle-Thoughts! Exo_26:1-30.
1. Rosenmuller says that the portable temple of the Israelites had in its whole arrangement a resemblance with the temples of antiquity. Lachemacher states that in many of the Grecian temples the back part was not to be entered by anybody; and here the statue of the deity was placed. Spencer shows that in the Egyptian temples the inner or sacred part was shrouded in darkness, and divided from the front or outer portion by a curtain embroidered with gold.
2. Law sees in the Tabernacle a type of Christ—a sketch of that fair frame of Christ, which God the Holy Spirit wrought and planted in this earth. He is the true Tabernacle of Heb_8:2, the greater and more perfect Tabernacle of Heb_9:11. It points to a mystic fabric which human hands produce not—which human skill erects not—which human imperfection taints not. Christ is discerned, the end and excellence of the predictive house.
3. Macmillan suggests that it is an emblem of man indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Man’s body is a tabernacle sojourning in the wilderness of the world. In his constitution God has wrought out in higher form the great truths which were symbolised in the Jewish tabernacle. But what constituted its glory! The Shekinah—the token and symbol of God’s Presence. Without this, its golden furniture and priceless jewels were meaningless, as our world without the shining of the sun. So what constitutes the glory of man is Christ dwelling in the heart.
“As some rare perfume in a vase of clay
Pervades it with a fragrance not its own,
So when Thou dwellest in a mortal soul,
All heaven’s own sweetness seems around it thrown.”
Divine Æstheticism! Exo_26:1-37.
(1.) Henry Martyn wrote, “Since I have known God in a saving manner, painting, poetry, and music have had charms unknown to me before. I have received what I suppose is a taste for them; or Religion has refined my mind and made it susceptible of impressions from the sublime and beautiful. Oh, how Religion secures the heightened enjoyment of those pleasures which keep so many from God by their becoming a source of pride!”
(2.) Win-slow says that to the new creature in Christ Jesus even the world of nature seems as a newborn creation, now that he has passed from death unto life. The sun shines brighter—the air breathes softer—the flowers smell sweeter—the landscape is clad with deeper verdure and richer loveliness. In a word, the whole creation appears in newborn beauty and sublimity.
(3) Even so Christ is not seen to be full of loveliness outside. Once in Him, the soul perceives His exquisite beauty; “My Beloved is fair and ruddy, the chiefest amongst ten thousand; yea, He is altogether lovely.” Once, he could perceive no beauty in Him that He should desire Him; now he exclaims, “Thou art all my salvation, and all my desire!”
“All over glorious is my Lord,
Must be beloved, and yet ador’d;
His worth if all the nations knew,
Sure the whole earth would love Him too.”
—Erskine.
Fair Colours! Exo_26:6. They shall make the ephod of gold, blue, and purple. “Thou shalt make the breastplate of gold, blue, and purple.” Taches of gold were inserted into loops of blue, connecting together the curtains of the tabernacle. Laces of blue, passing through rings of gold. fastened the ephod to the breastplate; and a lace of blue bound the golden plate to the mitre of the high priest. The golden vessels of the sanctuary—with the exception of the ark—were all covered with a cloth of blue. A veil of blue separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies. Every Israelite wore a fringe of blue ribbon to his garments to remind him of the commandments of the Lord. These the Pharisees afterwards enlarged in order that men might praise their scrupulous adherence to the letter of the law. Jesus Himself carried this blue hem to His raiment; and from it, on one memorable occasion, the touch of faith drew out healing virtue.
“There’s nothing blue, above, below,
From flowers that bloom to stars that glow,
But in its hue my faith can see
Some feature of Thy SYMPATHY,”—Moore.
Tabernacle-Unity! Exo_26:6.
1. It was necessary that the tabernacle should consist of many parts, on account of its
(1) Movable and
(2) Mystical character. Yet though of many parts, particular emphasis is laid on its essential unity: “It shall be one tabernacle.” It does not mean that only one tabernacle was to be erected to His name. The oneness spoken of here is not singleness—not uniqueness—but UNITY.
2. If, as some say, the tabernacle is a type of the Church of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, we see the importance of this typical unity. Jews and Gentiles—Barbarians and Scythians—Britons and Red Indians—Germans and Japanese, are all different nationalities, and the Christian converts form themselves into different churches; but all are parts of one whole, and are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit (Eph_2:22).
“Like a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet a union in partition,
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeing bodies, but ONE HEART.”
—Shakespeare.
Curtain-Weaving! Exo_26:7-14. According to the Greek idea, the ancient art of weaving curtains was gathered from the web of the spider. The mythologies of the ancients relate how the goddess Minerva changed Arachne into a spider, because she surpassed the goddess in weaving; and hence we have a spider-species called “Arachnida.” So far as can be traced, weaving first assumed the form of matting—i.e., simple interlacings of shreds of bark, lacustrine plants, vegetable stalks, &c. By and by, skill employed fibres, such as flax, hemp, and silk. These were in turn supplemented by the introduction of wool and hair, if we credit Homer. These wools were dyed all colours, as here described by Moses. Homer, to whom we have already referred, narrates how Alcandria, the Queen of Egypt, presented Helen, the consort of Menelaus, with such gifts on their return from the siege of Troy:—
“And that rich vase, with living sculpture wrought,
Which, heap’d with wool, the beauteous Phyle brought;
The silken fleece, empurpled for the loom,
Rivall’d the hyacinth in vernal bloom.”
—Homer’s Odyssey.
Curtain-Coupling! Exo_26:3-11.
(1.) The tabernacle had two divisions, called respectively the holy place and the Holy of Holies, the one being separated from the other by a very thick veil. But the utmost care is taken to couple the curtains and tenons and taches. Under one covering, overshadowed by the same cloud, and filled by the same glory, were these two compartments, until the veil that separated them was rent (Mat_27:51).
(2.) This curtain-coupling signifies the essential oneness of the Hebrew and Christian Churches. The Great High Priest Himself declared that the saints of the Old Testament dispensation desired to penetrate the veil which concealed from them the mysteries within. Yet were they one, coupled together by the mystic bonds of faith and hope and love; and when the veil was rent, the new compartments of Hebrew and Christian became one in Christ Jesus.
(3.) In Hebrews 9 St. Paul says further that the outer room typified not only the Hebrew but the Visible Church, the “world-sanctuary,” and that the inner room was a peculiar type of heaven, whither the Forerunner hath for us entered; and if so, the twice-repeated caution to couple the curtains, taches, &c., plainly indicates the essential unity of the Church Militant and Church Triumphant. Over both is the covering of God’s omnipresence. Over both is the banner of His love waving. Between them and us hangs the veil, but each Christian has his turn to pass within. And as at His first advent the veil was rent, so in His second advent will the other veil be riven.
“One family, we dwell in Him,
One Church above, beneath,
Though now divided by the stream,
The narrow stream of death.”
—Wesley.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Tabernacle Proper
The Tabernacle Proper
This, which in the Hebrew is called 'the dwelling' (see on Exo_25:9), consists of an oblong tent, 30 cubits long, 10 broad, and 10 high, and stands within the 'court of the tabernacle' (Exo_27:9 -f.). It is formed of a frame of open woodwork, over which are spread four layers of coverings, the undermost being of linen embroidered with figures of cherubim, the second of goathair cloth, the third of ramskin, and the outermost of sealskin. Internally, therefore, the tabernacle had the appearance of rows of panels enclosing a pattern of cherubim. The tabernacle was divided into two chambers by means of a veil suspended from the roof at a distance of 10 cubits from the back wall. The innermost chamber, or Holy of Holies, was therefore in shape a perfect cube of 10 cubits in the side. The roof, of which nothing is said, is best understood as flat. At the time of the conquest and settlement in Canaan, we hear of a tabernacle being set up at Shiloh, where it seems to have remained during the time of the Judges (Jos_18:1; Jdg_21:19; 1Sa_1:3). In the time of David it seems to have been at Nob (1Sa_21:1), and afterwards at Gibeon (1Ch_21:29), where it was at the beginning of Solomon's reign (2Ch_1:13). After the building of Solomon's temple we hear no more of it, its furniture being then transferred to the more permanent building.
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1-14. The Coverings.
1-6. The undermost covering. This is of linen ornamented with cherubim of 'cunning work,' i.e. of tapestry or embroidery. Ten pieces of material, each 28 × 4 cubits, are sewn together in two sets of five (Exo_26:3), which are then joined at their edges by means of loops and golden 'taches,' i.e. clasps (Exo_26:4-6), to form one large covering 40 cubits long and 28 wide. Of this length, 30 cubits are taken up with the roof, leaving 10 cubits to hang down the back. The front is left open, to be afterwards closed with a separate hanging (Exo_26:36). Of the breadth, 10 cubits form the roof, leaving 18 to hang down and form the two sides. The covering, it will be observed, does not reach the ground at the sides, but this is not necessary, as there is a base running all round supporting the wooden frame (Exo_26:19).
7-13. The second covering. This is of goathair and is spread over the first. By joining eleven pieces, each 30 × 4 cubits, a covering is obtained 44 cubits long and 30 wide. The ampler width allows this covering to reach the ground at the sides. The extra length of 4 cubits is partly taken up by doubling back the edge a distance of 2 cubits, leaving 2 cubits the distribution of which is not clear (Exo_26:12-13).
14. The outer coverings. Over the goathair covering are spread two others, one of red leather made of ramskin, and the other, the outermost, of sealskin: see on Exo_25:5. The purpose of these opaque and heavy curtains is to exclude the light.
15-30. The wooden framework supporting the coverings.
15. The boards, as they are here called, are not solid, as then they would have been very heavy, and the cherubim embroidered upon the inner covering would not have been visible at all. It is best, with Professor Kennedy, to take them to be open frames consisting of two uprights connected with cross rails. These frames are 10 cubits in height and 1½ in width, and are kept upright by being let down with tenons and mortises into sockets (Exo_26:19), which rest side by side upon the ground, and form a continuous base or plinth all round. Rigidity is secured by means of long bars running round the structure (Exo_26:26). 18. The length of the side being 30 cubits, twenty frames are required for each side.
22. Sides] RV 'hinder part': the W. end is meant. The tabernacle is 10 cubits in width, measured from curtain to curtain. As only six frames, amounting to 9 cubits, are required for the end, it would appear that 1 cubit was taken up with the thickness of the side frames with their stiffening bars. The frames were probably 6 in. deep and the bars 3 in.
23, 24. The exact meaning of these vv. is obscure, but they suggest that the two corners of the back wall were strengthened by means of an extra frame in the form of a sloping buttress. In Exo_26:24 read with RV, 'they shall be double beneath, and in like manner they shall be entire unto the top thereof unto one (or, the first) ring.' The foot of the additional frame would be set back a little, giving the appearance of being 'double beneath,' and the frame would slope in to the top of the upright, where it would be fastened to it.
25 Eight boards] i.e. six upright and two extra for the sloping buttresses.
26-28. In order to give rigidity to the upright frames five bars are run along the three sides of the tabernacle through rings attached to the frames. The middle bar runs from end to end; the others, it is implied, do not (Exo_26:28).
27. The two sides westward] RV 'the hinder part westward,' as in Exo_26:22.
31-33. The dividing veil. This is of the same material as the inner covering, linen tapestry, embroidered with cherubim, and is supported upon four pillars at a distance of 10 cubits from the back wall or 20 cubits from the entrance (see on Exo_26:33). It screens off the Most Holy Place.
33. Under the taches] under the joining of the covering forming the roof which was at a distance equal to five widths of the material counting from the entrance: see on Exo_26:1-6.
36. The hanging curtain forming the door, RV 'the screen.' This closes the tabernacle on the E. side, and is supported by five pillars dividing the entrance into four equal spaces.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v1 fine twined linen Fine linen typifies personal righteousness Rev…
cherubims
fine twined linen Fine linen typifies personal righteousness Rev 19:8. The fine linen here typifies the sinless life of Christ.
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blue Blue. Christ’s heavenly origin; purple, His royalty as David’s son; scarlet, His sacrifice.
cherubims (See Scofield "Eze 1:5").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 CHAPTER 26 The Tabernacle and its Construction
CHAPTER 26 The Tabernacle and its Construction
1. The curtains (Exo 26:1-6)
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2. The coverings (Exo 26:7-14)
3. The boards (Exo 26:15-30)
4. The vail (Exo 26:31-35)
5. The hangings for the door (Exo 26:36-37)
While the tabernacle is a type of the heavenly places (Heb 9:23) it is also a type of Christ, who tabernacled among men. The wonderful foreshadowings we find here down to the minutest details is an evidence of inspiration. We must confine ourselves to a very few things.
The colors used were blue, purple, scarlet and white. Blue is the color of heaven, purple that of royalty, scarlet the color of blood, and the white tells of righteousness. The ten curtains of fine twined linen which surrounded the tabernacle typify the holy, spotless humanity of our Lord. How the colors tell out the blessed story of the gospel, that heaven’s King came down to shed His blood, we need not to follow in detail. The loops of blue and taches of gold which unite the curtains tell of Him likewise.
“We have here displayed to us, in the ‘loops of blue,’ and ‘taches of gold,’ that heavenly grace and divine energy in Christ which enabled Him to combine and perfectly adjust the claims of God and man; so that in responding to both the one and the other, He never for a moment marred the unity of His character.”
The curtains of goats’ hair were to be a tent over the tabernacle and the tent had other coverings of rams’ skins, dyed red, and covering of badgers’ skin. These coverings hid the ten curtains of the fine twined linen, and their beauty. Thus He was not beheld in His lovely character when on earth. The goats’ hair covering reminds us of the divine statement, “He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him” (Isa 53:2). The rams’ skins, dyed red, are the symbol of His devotion and obedience to God, even unto the death of the cross. The badgers’ skins are taken to mean His holy determination and steadfastness.
Christ and his people are typified in the board of shittim wood (the same as in the ark and the table) resting in the sockets of silver. The silver was the ransom money (Exo 30:11-13), out of it the sockets were made (Exo 38:25-28). The whole frame work of the tabernacle rested in that which tells of atonement. Thus we stand in Christ and we are one with Him, separated from the world as the boards were separated from the earthly sockets of silver. And as we look upon this frame work, with the bars of shittim wood uniting the boards (typical of Christ) we may well think of Eph 2:21: “In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.”
The vail as described in Exo 26:31-35 is interpreted in Heb 10:2. It marked the division of the holy and the most holy, or Holy of Holies. Like the inner curtains this vail typifies the holy humanity of our Lord. That vail barred the entrance into the presence of God. But it was rent by the hand of God, when our Lord had laid down His life on the cross. Christ is the way into the presence of God, “by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the vail, that is to say, His flesh.” Therefore we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. The hanging for the door of the tent has the same meaning, Christ the way.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Covering of the Tent
The Covering of the Tent
v. 1. Moreover, thou shalt make the Tabernacle with ten curtains, long pieces, or strips, corresponding to the canvas of modern tents, of fine twined linen, the silky byssus cloth, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, Exo 25:4; with cherubim of cunning work shalt thou make them. The work was to be that of an artist in weaving, the meaning evidently being that the white, shiny byssus threads were to be woven with similar fine yarns of hyacinth, purple, and crimson, to form figures of cherubim, the appearance of the cloth afterward being that of a heavy damask.
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v. 2. The length of one curtain shall be eight and twenty cubits and the breadth of one curtain four cubits; and everyone of the curtains shall have one measure, be exactly of the same size.
v. 3. The five curtains shall be coupled together one to another, five strips should be sewed together side by side to form a large piece twenty-eight cubits long and twenty cubits wide; and other five curtains shall be coupled one to another.
v. 4. And thou shalt make loops of blue, of hyacinth-colored material, upon the edge of the one curtain from the selvage in the coupling, along the seam where they were to be attached to each other; and likewise shalt thou make in the uttermost edge of another curtain, in the coupling of the second, at the place where the two should be joined together.
v. 5. Fifty loops shalt thou make in the one curtain, and fifty loops shalt thou make in the edge of the curtain that is in the coupling of the second, where it is attached to the first; that the loops may take hold one of another, be placed so exactly as to be just opposite one another by pairs.
v. 6. And thou shalt make fifty taches of gold, clasps to hold the loops together, and couple the curtains together with the taches; and it shall be one tabernacle, these fine curtains forming the inner covering.
v. 7. And thou shalt make curtains of goats’ hair to be a covering upon the Tabernacle, the outside covering, or tent proper; eleven curtains shalt thou make.
v. 8. The length of one curtain shall be thirty cubits and the breadth of one curtain four cubits; and the eleven curtains shall be all of one measure, of the same size.
v. 9. And thou shalt couple five curtain. by themselves and six curtains by themselves, just as it was done in the case of the fine inner covering, the extra length and width serving for the protection of the cherubim cloths, and shalt double the sixth curtain in the forefront of the Tabernacle, which consequently formed a projection or gable over the entrance.
v. 10. And thou shalt make fifty loops on the edge of the one (large) curtain that is outmost in the coupling, along the edge where the curtains were to be attached to each other, and fifty loops in the edge of the curtain which coupleth the second, the loops likewise being just opposite one another by pairs.
v. 11. And thou shalt make fifty taches of brass, copper or brass clasps, and put the taches into the loops, and couple the tent together, this covering being the tent proper, that it may be one.
v. 12. And the remnant that remaineth of the curtains of the tent, after the covering of the roof had been provided for, the half curtain that remaineth, shall hang over the back side of the Tabernacle, to form its rear wall.
v. 13. And a cubit on the one side and a cubit on the other side of that which remaineth in the length of the curtains of the tent, there being a total difference of two cubits between the inner and the outer covering, it shall hang over the sides of the Tabernacle on this side and on that side, to cover it. Thus the north, the south, and the west side of the Tabernacle received its tent-covering.
v. 14. And thou shalt make a covering for the tent, a protecting curtain, of rams’ skins dyed red, of a tawny color, and a covering above of badgers’ skins, of leather made from the skins of some marine animal, probably of the sea-cow. These outer coverings served to shield the tent against wind and weather. Just as God made the Tabernacle His dwelling in the midst of His people in the Old Testament, so His presence is with us to this day in His Word and Sacraments.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh continues telling Moses what the people must do. (See: Exodus 25:1)
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You must make
Yahweh is speaking to Moses, so the word "you" is singular. Yahweh probably expected Moses to tell someone else to do the actual work, but Moses would be the one responsible for seeing that the work was done correctly. "Tell a craftsman to make" (See: Forms of You)
curtains
These were large, heavy sections of woven cloth that were used to form the covering and dividing walls of the tabernacle.
scarlet wool
wool dyed a deep red color
craftsman
a person who is skilled in making beautiful objects by hand
twenty-eight cubits ... four cubits
"28 cubits ... 4 cubits." A cubit is 46 centimeters. (See: Biblical Distance and Numbers)
Five curtains must be joined to each other ... must also be joined to each other
This can be stated in active form. AT: "Sew five curtains together to make one set, and sew the other five curtains together to make another set" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
tabernacle
cherub
works
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1–2 26:1-37 The Tabernacle proper (as distinct from the surrounding…
26:1-37 The Tabernacle proper (as distinct from the surrounding courtyard) was not very large. It was approximately 15 feet wide and 45 feet long. The supporting framework consisted of 48 vertical frames, 15 feet high and 27 inches wide (26:16). They were made of acacia wood overlaid with gold (26:15, 29). The frames were locked together with horizontal crossbars to form a three-sided rectangle with an open end (26:26-28). Two large linen curtains (each composed of five smaller ones) were then linked together into one and draped across the top of this framework. The combined total was long enough to hang down on the sides and rear (26:1-6), forming coverings for the walls as well as the roof. Over the linen curtain was draped a curtain of goat-hair cloth constructed in the same way. It was three feet wider and six feet longer than the linen curtain (26:7-13), so that it hung down further than the linen curtain on all sides. Over these two curtains were two protective coverings, one of tanned ram skins and one of fine goatskin leather (26:14). The space so enclosed was divided in two with another beautifully embroidered curtain hanging crosswise on four posts of acacia wood. The resulting two spaces were the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place (26:31-33).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.