The Hebrew Tabernacle Chapter 1

Chapter 1 Introduction

Exod 25:8 And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them…

The Hebrew Tabernacle was the place wherein Jehovah God dwelt with the Hebrews after their redemption from Egypt.  It did not just symbolize his presence, it was the housing of his presence.  Certain conditions needed to be met before our holy, all powerful Creator could make his tabernacle with mere man.  The study of these certain conditions makes for a powerful manifestation of the God-man relationship.  Chapter upon chapter of the Pentateuch are consumed with the detailed description of this tabernacling of God with man.  The Hebrew will comprehend no other portion of the Torah without ready access to these certain condition.  The Christian will not completely comprehend the completed work of his Christ and Saviour without studious entry into this sanctuary where God dwelt with mankind.  Indeed the second book of the Hebrew Pentateuch provides overwhelming detail about the construction and layout of this tabernacle.  The third book, Leviticus, describes the necessary procedures for man’s approach to God’s dwelling, and the forth God’s careful description of its mobility.   These wordy and detailed descriptions are a significant portion of God’s revelation to man.  They have carefully been copied and preserved word for word, yeah, letter for letter, yeah dot for dot and tittle for tittle!, for 3,500 years.  The Hebrew Tabernacle carries such weight in the Revelation of God that we are delinquent if we do not study and explore every revealed detail.  And this we will do in the pages which follow.

  Baptist preachers have made many good and intricate excursions into the Hebrew Tabernacle.  On these excursions they have always portrayed the tabernacle as a ‘type of Christ.’  Their excellent explanations have led us to see the tabernacle as a foreshadowing of the work of Christ, and the sacrificial systems accomplished within the tabernacle as a precursor to the ultimate sacrifice accomplished by the true “lamb of God,” the Christ, and Saviour of man.    Such studies have been good for comprehending what Christ  did for us, but they have not been complete in that revelation.  It is only slight in variation but a different perspective will be taken in this encounter.   Instead of examining the details of the Hebrew Tabernacle as a foreshadowing of Christ, we will examine it as an entity in itself, and entity that resulted in God tabernacling with man.  We will then relate it to God’s Christ as His perfecting of this tabernacling in such a way that “In the OT God built a tabernacle to dwell amongst his people, but in the New Testament, indeed, in Christ, God builds a people to be his tabernacle.¹”

God began this tabernacling with man in the Garden of Eden where he walked, talked and had fellowship with man in the cool of the day . He was separated from his ‘so loved’ creation, that he made in his image and likeness, and his first wholehearted tabernacling after man’s fall provides a setting for a tremendous study. It reveals God’s ultimate method and plan to make an eternal tabernacling with mankind as revealed in The Revelation of Jesus Christ 21:1-3.

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.”

Every detail recorded about this tabernacle will be found rich with insight in an ultimate quest to know the LORD my God.

The Hebrew Tabernacle finds its first depiction in heaven. Moses is repeatedly instructed to make everything after the image which he was shown in the mountain where he met with God. Thus the very first unfolding of this depiction begins in Exodus 25.

“And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering. And this is the offering which ye shall take of them; gold, and silver, and brass, And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ hair, And rams’ skins dyed red, and badgers’ skins, and shittim wood, Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense, Onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate. And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.” (Exod 25:1-8)

For our study purposes, however, the unfolding must begin on another page of Scripture. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” (2Tim 3:16-17) We must begin our study here because for our larger topic “believing is seeing.” This is a perfect opposite, yeah a sublime reversal, of the larger essence of this aged saying that “seeing is believing.” There have been multiple attacks against the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture until the Holy Bible is considered by modernist Christendom as a man made book, or at best only a man copied book which is filled with copyist errors that must be corrected by our post-modern era genius.

When Paul wrote this verse in the Holy Bible, the verse about “all Scripture”, the Scripture he was addressing was a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy et. al. And the Bible is still emphatic that it is inspired of God. The modernist tries to sell us the argument that ‘only original written manuscript’ was inspired, i.e. “the ‘autographs that dripped from the Apostle pen’ is the only inspired and inerrant version of Holy Scripture” they say. Careful believers are not buying it. Less careful ones want to give the Roman Catholics and other Protestants another opportunity to re-version the Bible to make it say what they are sure that God meant to say in those “lost original manuscripts.” They thus carefully reconstruct the ‘autographs’ by tossing out with carte-blanche, the things that Origin of Alexandria Egypt did not have in his version of the text.

They, these scholarly copy right seekers, assure us that their rabid revisions of the Bible do not make any change in doctrine and we should just trust them. The vast majority of Christendom has bought their line, but there is a small remnant of careful believers who never will. To trust every word and detail in this tabernacle study well involve NOT trusting the Bible revisers nor any of their revision, and this will be the tact of this study because “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” You will thus need a King James Bible to follow this careful study of God’s Words about His Tabernacle.

It is best to begin this analysis of the tabernacling of God with man exactly as God does. It would be natural and would be expected that this examination would begin as a man would enter through an eastern entry point and make his way with a sacrificial goat up to the brazen alter where it would be offered to atone for ones sin. God, however, begins the presentation with the inner most heart of the tabernacle, wherein, enshrined in the holy of holies, is found the ark of the covenant. Curious.

Even before this introduction of this ark is an inventory of the free will offering which was to be collected. So to shall we begin. Trinities are emphasized throughout God’s revelation to man. God begins this inventory with three precious metals: gold, silver, and brass, a trinity of colors: blue, purple and scarlet: a quadrupole of coverings and a single construction wood called, by no clumsy or vulgar coincidence, ‘shittim wood.²‘ Let’s pay each much attention.

The Trinity of Precious Metals, Gold, Silver, and Brass

And this is the offering which ye shall take of them; gold, and silver, and brass, …

The precious metals are not precious for their rarity or costly value, but for their quality and qualities. It is their quality and qualities that make them rare and costly. Gold is most precious because of its enduring luster and perfect malleability. Gold does not break down, corrode or tarnish when exposed to the elements. It remains pure and retains a high luster. Gold is the most malleable and ductile of all metals; able to be beat into a sheet thinner than a human hair, and stretch into a thread finer than such. Gold was not scarce but it was precious, it might be more scarce now, but it has always been precious because of these qualities.

Silver, as a precious metal, shares these qualities but not to such perfection. Anyone familiar with grand mother’s silverware knows that before our formal Thanksgiving dinner the tarnished silverware needed to be polished. Silver is a precious metal that needs perpetual attention to maintain its high luster and purity. It oxidizes into a thin layer of tarnish that must be removed to expose the pure, high luster silver beneath. Silver is likewise malleable but hardly comparable to gold. Silver does exceed gold in two areas, it has the highest thermal and electrical conductivity of all metals. It is thus used in modern circuit boards and such. These qualities could make silver more optimal for house wiring than is copper. The significant cost difference in the two, however, has caused that silver might be better but is surely is not used to wire houses. Compared to gold silver is less stable, less malleable, less ductile, less lustered but a better conductor of heat and electricity, that is an interesting list for its symbolic use in God’s tabernacling picture.

When I was young I played in my dad’s garage, and I played the trumpet. In the former I found various grades of steel wool. I found that when I polished my trumpet with the very fine grade steel wool it would shine with a glister never before seen by a 9 year old. For two days I played the most beautiful trumpet ever seen by the human eye. A week later at band practice my teacher explained what I had done. A lacquer I had stripped off is what kept my trumpet from being the ugliest thing ever seen in his trumpet section. The very high luster of brass tarnishes rapidly and uglylee. (I know that is not a word, but it ought2be.) Brass has a crispness which makes it resonate well in a trumpet, mine then was not actually a trumpet but a cornet, which I still have, quite tarnished.) This crispness makes brass less malleable and ductile than other precious metals. It is still a precious metal because of its very high luster and other qualities, but you might classify it as barely precious. Brass is also not a pure metal but an alloy of 67% copper and 33% zinc. To much zinc makes brass brittle, to much copper makes brass soft. We will soon find brass representative of judgment, and judgment can be to hard or to soft. Other qualities will also relate well so keep these qualities of brass in mind. There is reason for God’s choice of all three of these precious metals in his tabernacling with mankind; they will be very illuminating, … even revealing.

The Trinity of Colors, Blue, Purple and Scarlet

And this is the offering which ye shall take of them, … blue, and purple, and scarlet.

God purposefully chose the representative colors that would fill his tabernacle. Each tells a story. You cannot consider the question “Why blue?” without hearing a 6 year old ask “Why is the sky blue?”

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.” (Psalm 19:1-3) When we look up to those sunlight heavens and glimps into his firmament³ we see a sky that is purest of all blue. Ergo the color blue shall be representative of the glory of God.

The sky is not blue because of the Tyndall effect discovered by John Tyndall in 1859, nor because of the Rayleigh effect defined by Lord Rayleigh only a few years later wherein he showed that blue light hitting molecules of air is scattered more than red light by a factor of 700/400 raised to the forth power. Nor is the sky blue because the human eye has three types of cones and one is the most sensitive to the blue wavelength of visible light, and less sensitive to the indigo⁴ and violet colors which approach the ultra violet invisible light. No, the sky is blue because there is a God in heaven who designed and created the light spectrum with such perfect grandeur that when it strikes the molecules of air in his atmosphere design the Red, orange, yellow and Green spectra⁵ light pierce right through while the blue spectrum is scattered by the molecules, indeed scattered to such an extent that an effervescent blue glow seems to carpet the sky and produce a closed curtain to the heavens beyond. Now the Blue, indigo and violet spectra of light all experience this scattering effect but the Blue marks the breakpoint in the effect and demonstrates the most scatter. Also as previously mentioned the design of the human eye is such that three cones in the retina respond most markedly to Red, Green, and Blue light. (Which is why our mnemonic acronym, Roy G. Biv, used to tract the seven major light divisions keeps these three capitalized.) Thus some of the Blue sky phenomenon is contained in His design for light energy penetrating the atmosphere molecule matter, and some of it is in the eye of the beholder, created in his image and likeness. Indeed some of the indigo and violet light are somewhat scattered into the atmosphere, but the eye of the beholder does not respond so aptly to this presence.

We must not slight the genius of John Tyndall⁶ who observed that light passing directly through a glass of pure water turned somewhat redish when drops of milk were suspended in it, and also noticed that the suspended milk particles produced the blue glow of the sky. Lord Rayleigh’s genius⁷

found means to precisely measure the effect and how it related too the wavelengths within visible light⁸. Remember while we may call this the Tyndall effect, or the Rayleigh effect it is in actuallity an effect from God our creator. That is a lot of analysis for a single color in God’s Tabernacle, but it can develop a resounding appreciation of the glory of God. The curtain that God daily draws across the heavens, which declare his glory, is a rich vibrant blue curtain. The purer the atmosphere, the clearer the blue curtain. The blueness of the blue is only observable because of its resonance from the material world he created coupled with its resonance in the eye of the beholder, the only creation holding the image and likeness of the creator, who has this glory. Awesome.

And this is the offering … purple

Purple, the second color in God’s tabernacle, portrays the Majesty of God. We have always been told that. Purple, the color of majesty; the color of kings. God did not choose purple in his tabernacle because human kings liked it so and deemed it a color of majesty. No, kings choose purple because God first chose it for his tabernacle. You will be amazed how many times Bible teachers get the cart before the horse and then keep it there because some Bible commentary backs up their Tom-Foolery. Lets analyze purple for a moment. When I was young and time was slower, I bought a beret⁹ and a paillette and took up painting. I quickly found you do not need all the colors available to paint. You only need about a dozen base colors, and from them you can mix any possible color or hue. It is still awesome to recall, and I must take up the paillette and easel again some day. Purple is of great interest here. It is a combination of the first visible of the spectrum of visible light, red, and the very last visible of the spectrum of visible light, violet. As God revealed himself to be the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, so purple, in the visible spectra is both the beginning and the end. Ergo purple, in God’s Tabernacle represents his majesty. Don’t let the local phenomena where mere human kings where purple detract from this pure and powerful representation of God’s majesty. The color purple, being a combination of the most separated of the visible light spectra, is not readily found nor created naturally. When it is it is a representation of the first of the visible light combined with the last of the visible light, may it forever in depiction point you to the majesty of the only first and the last. Watch for purple in the world. Some in flowers. Rare in sunsets. Not really in purple mountains majesty. In English no word rhymes with purple. Its ingredients of red and violet are diverse and rarely find opportunity to mingle. Red pierces through the air, violet is scattered by molecules of air. These two do not naturally come together in nature. God’s majesty is of an un-natural nature, yeah even a supernatural. But it still shows up on occasions. God, the first and last, has majesty.

And this is the offering … and scarlet

The last of the colors represented in the Tabernacle of God is the color of blood. Being so, scarlet is the color of life, yeah the color of death. It is the color of sacrifice, yeah the color of grace. It is the color of relationship, yeah the color of scorning. Red is the beginning color of the visible light spectrum. As you approach the beginning of the beginning the red darkens and as you disappear into the invisible blackness of the infrared spectra of light, the very first of the visible light, being a deep, dark red, is called scarlet. Like Blue, but unlike purple, scarlet is monochromatic light. It stands on the boarder between visible and invisible, between light and darkness, and therein stands its representative likeness, between life and death, good and evil, sacrifice and offereing. When God chose colors for his tabernacling with man every color he choose is significant with symbol, and revelation. Every color, every metal, every fabric is significant and participates in his divine revelation of himself to man. Don’t miss a single aspect of it all.

The Fabrics of the Tabernacle

And this is the offering which ye shall take of them;…

fine linen, and goats’ hair, And rams’ skins dyed red, and badgers’ skins, …

The curtains and coverings of the Hebrew Tabernacle constitute an intriguing study and intricate symbology which dare not be dismissed. Here, in the list of tabernacle building materials they constitute 4 distinct types of coverings. First consider the fine linen often called fine twined linen. We often call bed sheets linens, because they were once made of linen. Not today. We have heard stories of linen underware but such has been entirely replaced with cotton briefs. In order to find information on fine twined linen, Beverly and I found it necessary to visit the agricultural museum at the New York State Fair. It was so intriguing that we made about ten visits over twelve years. Always digging a little deeper. It turns out that linen is woven from stalks of flax and no machine has yet been produced that can card and spin flax into thread; it must be done by hand. Today – hands are not that ‘handy’ in both senses. Isn’t it interesting how God required here the finest cloth, that would never be “cheapened” by mass production.

Linen has another unique characteristic in that the more it is used or worn, the softer it becomes. New linen like new denim, gets softer with use and better with age. That is just so fitting a trait for the tabernacling of God with man. We sang a sunday school song which said, “I love him better every D-A-Y,… close by his S-I-D-E, I will A-B-I-D-E, I love him better every D-A-Y.” Linen used regularly is like that.

Linen has one more trait that is worth mentioning in this application. It gets whiter and whither when exposed to sunlight, and yellower and yellower when packed away in the dark. That is an exact opposite of most other cloth materials and surely God had this trait in view when he chose linen for the primary cloth found in His holy tabernacle. The presence of God with man is not something that should be packed away for only special occasions. The more it is exposed to the Sun, the more refined and the more white and pure it becomes. Linen bleaches itself white in sun light. Someday saints will be robed in linen, pure and white. This speaks of our being robed in His righteousness. Here, Fine Twined Linen is a key curtain and covering in the tabernacleing of God with man. Never underplay the significance of linen and the charaacter of its traits while God uses it in splendid description to reveal intricouses of the God man relationship.

The Goat Hair

Cashmere and Mohair are words I want brought to mind when we think of God’s requirement of Goat hair in his required offering for the construction of the tabernacle. They don’t naturally come to mind when we hear ‘goat hair’. America recently crossed a divide wherein over 50% of our population lives in an ‘urban’ environment, in contrast to a ‘rural’ one. Even living in upstate New York, 200 miles from “the” city we shock people all the time because we get our eggs from chickens not ‘Walmart’, and we get our milk from cows not the ‘Tops Market.’ Such an urbanized world is given the 3^rd woe in Isiah 5 and has precious little chance of knowing much about goats and mohair. Consider that mohair is the long silky hair from the angora goat and cashmere is the fine down grown beneath the outer hair of the goat. These mostly show up in our market place as sweaters and it would behoove every Christian to own one of each just to properly reflect on God’s little lesson herein. Mine came from Peru, where Beverly and I visit six grandchildren as often as we can. If you go there to get yours, be careful; both will often be subsidized with lama.

Goat hair, mohair and cashmere, make for very fine, very eloquent, precious and coveted material. It is very soft, not very rugged, very thermal, not water resistant, very stretchable, not very restraining, very produceable but not so much as wool or cotton. It is distinctive. It is necessitated in this revelation that God is giving, necessitated in His tabernacling with man.

Rams Skin Dyed Red

There will be little mistaking the important symbology found in the rams skin dyed red. This is the first covering where an animal must be slain to acquire it, and the animal herein called out is remarkably specific. The ram is the adult male sheep, the ewe is the female, the lamb is the young. God calls out an ewe of the first year, but never so for a ram. One would not be so careful about rams and ewes and lambs except that God is. They are all sheep, they all sheer out wool, but God makes a careful distinction and it behooves us to do the same.

In the first occurrence of a ram we find Abraham offering a selection of animals to confirm God’s covenant with him. The list includes a heifer of three years old, a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, a turtle dove and a young pigeon. (Note Gen. 15:9 is worth its own study of why these animals in particular are called out for this covenant confirmation. It is expected that disciples impacted by this study will realize that precious revelations of our God are found in this type analysis of details and symbology and press for more analysis of Gen. 15:9.)

I must draw attention to the second occurrence of the ram being offered as a sacrifice because it presents a very unique play of words and insightful revelation. Abraham has been asked to sacrifice his only begotten son, Issac, on a particular mountain in the hills of Zion. [a side bar might be called for here because great focus has been put on two candidate mountains for this tremendously symbolic offering of an only begotten son. One is Mount Moriah where Solomon’s temple was constructed, the other is called Golgotha that got its name from either its appearance resembling a human skull or perhaps because it was the burial place of Goliath’s skull or perhaps both. This, as just a side bar should whet your appetite for more investigation into this scenario which unfolds; “Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.” perfectly intriguing.] His son asks about the sacrifice and Abraham responds with a marvelous play on words in the English language. “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.” This play on words is an English attribute and not found in the original Hebrew, but you still have to love it. God indeed provided himself for a burnt offering. The play on words captured in the Hebrew communication is that a ‘lamb’ would be provided as a substitute, and students of this portrayal know that after God stopped Abraham from taking his only begotten son’s life, he provided a substitute burnt offering, a ‘ram’ caught in a thicket by his horns. God promised a lamb, an only begotten son sacrifice that would be the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Here a ‘ram’ was the substitute and the ram is the picture and symbol of this substitution throughout his revelation. This especially comes to the forefront in the construction of the Hebrew Tabernacle. Two things clarified in Scripture, the life is in the blood (Lev 17:11,14, Deut 12:23) and without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. (Heb 9:22) The red dye adds this emphasis to this symbol of the ram as a sacrifice.

Badgers Skins

Nothing of the animal kingdom,(verse addition @ offering….), could better represent rugged individualism and tenacious, independent survival in a barren wilderness than the badger. But when God requires badger skins, what was he symbolizing, what was he thinking? The badger is a carnivorous (meat eating) mammal with short legs and long claws on the front feet which it uses for burrowing. Since it can burrow faster than a rodent or rabbit you can figure out some of its diet. Badger hide is still a commercial interest today because it makes a very thick and strong leather. Even in Bible times we see it used for shoe leather when God says, “I shod thee with badgers skin.” (Eze. 16:10) Of greater commercial use is the heavy grizzled hair that covers the badger. It was used in all kinds of brushes, most commonly in shaving brushes. The badger got its name from the white strip sided with the Hebrew word “shittah” is of uncertain origin, but carries the connotation of refuse or discarded. This gives some insight to the character of the badger and insight to why God required badger skins in his tabernacle. If it was just a need for a coarse grizzly haired hide, a camel hide would have sufficed well. Camel hair is also widely used to make brushes. If it was just an animal plentiful in their wilderness, a fox would suffice, or even the everywhere present skunk. Well okay we might understand why the skunk was not a solid candidate for this symbolism.

Consider the sequence of the fabrics selected for God’s tabernacle. First, linen, made wholly from the flax plant with amazing characteristics, then goats hair, from an animal but not requiring the shedding of blood, again having amazing character, then rams skin dyed red, from a slain, domesticated ‘clean’ animal and finally the badgers skin, the thick grizzly hide from a slain, wild carnivorous, unclean animal. It has got to capture ones interest in how these materials will be used in tabernacling God in the midst of man. All are laden with symbolism and illustrative quality.

One more building material called out in the offering list for the tabernacling of God with man, the primary wood for building is called out as shittim wood. In God’s Holy Word God is careful about his words, The Word. Shittim is such an embarrassment to modernists scholars that modernist bibles refused to use God’s word. Shame on them. Every modernist bible that pretends to “translate” God’s word’s in this instance discarded His word and substituted what they though he should have said. They think he should have said, “acacia”. His word captures well in linguistics that which should be discarded, worthless, or less than worthless; that is the linguistics of the word description for the wood in this construction. The English translation that exactly captures the linguistics is shittim, almost a transliteration of the Hebrew word. The root of this word is exactly the four letter slang word that you think of when you say shittim wood and it is altogether accurate and wholesome to use this word to capture God;s word.

I have told teenagers “you just had in your mouth what I don’t even like on the sole of my shoe.” Do not let their slack use of the slang here detract from the detestable, stentch and filth that associates with shittim wood. It is not the sweet smelling, straight grained Acacia wood that modernists scholars ignorantly, even maliciously substitute for God’s word. They take God’s Word and unanimously substitute their own palatable word that makes them feel much better about themselves and about a worthy wood that God would use to make his tabernacle and its furnishings. They are liars, they are deceivers. The wood which will represent the flesh of humanity in this construction is meant to be as vile, degenerate and worthless as that flesh and the word of God just what he meant to say. Don’t let modernists tamper with God’s word just because their noble guess supposes God meant to use a noble acacia tree. God’s word never needs ‘fixed’ by translators and every modernist translation takes undo liberty to change God’s wording. Know that they need over 60,000 significant deviations from an original in order to secure a new copyright, and once you know that, stick with a King James Original translation. The wood used in the construction of the tabernacle of God was shittim wood. Not at all glamorous. The offerings enlisted for the construction of a tabernacle, whereby God could tabernacle with man are thus listed, precious metals, precious colors, four fabrics and a base of shittim wood. Additionally the offering request includes, “oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense, onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate. It is almost poetic how they are listed and the similar pattern between the oil and the stone suggests there is more involved here than a functional list. The particulars of these will be set in order in their use.