In the Bible, the Lord often used imagery, figurative language and symbolism to create a mood and convey deeper meaning. We can spend a lifetime reading the word of God, searching out the gems therein. This is based on a revelation I received back in 1998.
God is so very much into relationships! Jesus even said in Jn.17:3, “This is eternal life, that they may know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent”. In this sense, eternal life is knowing, or having a relationship with, God. God desires intimacy with the humanity He created.
It’s more than socializing with people at church. Really knowing God involves learning God’s character, values, likes and dislikes. Learning His sense of justice and fairness, and His governing principles for man to live by in society…with liberty and true justice for all.
Here we’ll journey through Bible history and read how the Lord dwells or ‘tabernacles’ (verb) with humanity, past and future. Ultimately, a spiritual structure is being erected, which symbolizes a holy relationship. The Lord is building the house for us all. I’ll tie-together several images as we explore through scripture how God tabernacles.
David wrote in Ps.18:2, “The Lord is my rock and my fortress, my God, my Rock in whom I take refuge”. The Lord is symbolically a Rock, a safe secure fortress and place of refuge. God as the Rock is the first image presented here. Is.26:4 “In Yah the Lord we have an everlasting Rock.” He is the true Rock of ages! And in 1Co.10:4 Paul identifies the Rock, “That Rock was Christ”. (see the topic, “Jesus Was The Old Testament God”.)
Eden (Strongs h5729, Hebrew) existed as a place in or near Mesopotámia at the time Is.37:12 and Ezk.27:23 were written. Ge.2:8 the Lord had planted a garden in a Eden (h5731). The imagery of Ezk.28:13-14 set the king of Tyre (v.2, 18) with original man in the garden of Eden (according to Gill’s Exposition, Barnes Notes, JFB Commentary, and others). “You were in Eden, every precious stone was your covering. You were with [Septúagint/LXX] the cherub. You were on the holy mountain of God. You walked in the midst of the stones of fire.” Here we read of Eden, precious stones of fire, a mountain, and cherub in the domain of the Rock. These concepts will tie-together.
Although God created mankind for a relationship with Himself, the first humans sinned and were banned from the mountain garden. Ge.3:24 “So He drove the man out, and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed cherubim [plural] …to guard the way to the tree of life.” Cherubs guarded the way back to God and eternal Life. (Also see the topic “Tree Symbolism in Scripture”.) The close relationship God desired with the first humans ended. God’s holy Presence won’t cohabit with sin.
Much later God/YHVH/Christ/the Rock chose to dwell or ‘tabernacle’ (verb) with the descendants of Abraham, ancient Israel; to have a relationship with that people then above all others. Christ would dwell with them in His “tabernacle” (noun). The Hebrew Old Testament (OT) term is mishkán (h4908, noun).
The English word tabernacle comes to us from the Latin terms taberna and then tabernaculum. It means a tent, hut, or booth. A tabernacle is a portable dwelling, or place of worship or a shrine. Our word tabernacle is both a noun and a verb. The verb means ‘to dwell’, e.g. tabernacling, tabernacled. When citing the OT, I’ll also reference Young’s Literal Translation (YLT). It uses the term “tabernacle” for the Hebrew term “mishkan” (h4908), God’s OT sacred tent structure.
Christ the Lord told Moses how to construct the sacred mishkan/tabernacle of specific dimensions for Him to dwell in. He instructed Moses to build it in Ex.25:9 YLT. “According to all which I Am showing thee, the pattern of the tabernacle [mishkan h4908].” (cf. He.8:5.) This tabernacle would be God’s sanctuary and “tent of meeting”, e.g. Ex.27:21. (This wasn’t the temporary tent of meeting of Ex.33:7-9, which Moses had pitched to meet with the Lord prior to the tabernacle completion.)
In the Péntateuch, no subject has more written about it than God’s tabernacle. It is referred to over 100 times in the OT. Some details for its construction are recorded in Ex.26, e.g. Christ’s tabernacle resembled a series of overlapping wooden frames in a rectangle, with fabric covering and animal skins as a roof. This tent consisted of two compartments, a Holy Place (outer) and Holiest Place (inner). The tabernacle was a large frame of boards overlaid with gold, upon which precious carpets were spread.
It was constructed at Mt. Sinai (ref Nu.10:11-12). We don’t know exactly how the tabernacle was set up (ref Ex.40:1-8). It had two veils which separated Christ, who inhabited the innermost sanctuary, from the priests who offered sacrifices out in the tabernacle court area. He.9:3 “Behind the second veil there was a [inner] tabernacle [skené g4633, Greek] which is called the ‘Holy of Holies.”
Ex.25:10-22 in this inner Holiest Place (a 15-ft cube?) were two gold winged cherubs which guarded the mercy seat of the ark, above which Christ communed with Moses. (Cherubim had guarded the way back to the Lord God in the garden of Eden.)
Ps.80:1 “Shepherd of Israel…You who are enthroned above the cherubim.” Christ was the Shepherd of Israel, and He dwelt in the Holy of Holies. Jesus said in Jn.10:11, “I Am the good shepherd”.
After Moses, only the Aaronic high priest was allowed to enter the Holiest compartment, once a year on the Day of Atonement. (A non-priest trespasser must be killed.) However, the Shekínah glory cloud of God was with them for 40 years, guiding Israel’s journey in the wilderness, Ex.40:34-36. (Also see “Feast of Booths” and “Day of Atonement”.)
During their first few centuries in the Promised Land of Canaan, this portable tabernacle of God was transported to Gilgál, Shilóh, Bethél, Nob. Then 2Ch.1:3, “At Gibeón, for God’s tent of meeting was there, which Moses had made in the wilderness.” (see “Ark of the Testimony – Journeys”.)
King David wanted to build a stationary house (or temple) for the Lord, who’d accompanied Israel from place to place in His sacred tabernacle tent (1Ch.17:1-5). David wrote in Ps.27:4-5, “That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord. In the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock.” Also Ps.61:4 “Let me dwell in Thy tent forever; Let me take refuge in the shelter of Thy wings.” David deeply desired a relationship with YHVH/Jesus, his Lord and Protector, who “dwelled” between the cherubs’ wings. (David wrote in Ps.110:1, “The LORD said to my Lord”.)
2Sm.6:17 David pitched a temporary tent for the ark of God by his palace in Jerusalem. The tent housed the ark for close to 40 years total. (see “Tent/Tabernacle of David” and “Zion in the Bible”.) Christ tabernacled with David there for nearly 30 years, until David died.
But it was David’s son Solomon, not David, who built the ornate two-room first temple, a more permanent structure as a house for God. Dr. Spiros Zódiates defines a temple as ‘a habitation of God’. In the Holiest room, the inner wings of the two sculptured cherubim touched, while their outer wings touched opposite outside walls…so the four wings stretched from wall-to-wall (2Ch.3:8-13).
Although cherubs have been pictured as babies, or young adults, there is more evidence that their appearance resembled winged sphinxes. Raanan Eichler What Kind of Creatures are the Cherubim? “The prevailing opinion in current scholarship is that the cherub is a winged sphinx.” Professor W.F. Albright What Were the Cherubim? “The cherub…is the winged sphinx or winged lion with human head.” The sphinx had the head of a human, a lion’s paws and tail, a bull’s body (hind), and an eagle’s wings. ref Re.4:7, Ezk.1:10. (also see “Spirits – Made by God in Light”.)
Josephus said in Antiquities of the Jews 8:4:1 that the wings of the cherubs in the first temple were spread to appear even as a “tent” covering the ark. (The roof of Moses’ tabernacle was a tent.)
The grounds of the first temple also included a porch with two pillars (1Ki.7:21), chambers (1Ki.6:5-8), a court for the priests and a great court where the people worshiped (1Ki.6:36, 2Ch.4:9, Je.26:2).
The old tabernacle of Moses, with the holy utensils and the ark, was brought into Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem, 1Ki.8:4. The glory cloud appeared as in the days of Moses (Ex.40:34-35)…it was so glorious, the priests couldn’t stand to minister (1Ki.8:6-11)!
Was the old tabernacle measurements equivalent to the space within the cherubim wings in the Holy of Holies of Solomon’s temple? 2Ch.3:8 indicates the inner room was 20 cubits square. Historians have said the length of a cubit changed over time. It’s unclear whether the original tabernacle was actually set into that space, or stored away. Anyway, the tent ‘tabernacled’ in the first temple, so to speak!
From the heavenly vision of 1Enoch 39:6-7, “Mine eyes saw the Elect One of righteousness and faith, and I saw his dwelling place under the wings of the Lord of Spirits”. (Symbolizing the prototype overall loving protection of Father God in the heavenlies?)
Christ the Word of God dwelt or tabernacled in His earthly temple sanctuary, in the midst of the OT people of Israel He loved.
Then in 586 BC, Nebuchadnézzar’s Babylon destroyed Solomon’s temple. Christ departed His earthly sanctuary (Ezk.10:18-19)!
Exiled Jewish returnees from Babylon and Persia built Zerubbabél’s temple. But there was no ark or mercy seat in it. (see “Temple of Zerubbabel”.)
Neither was the ark in Herod’s temple sanctuary in the 1st century. Josephus Wars of the Jews 5:5:5 “The inmost part of the Temple…in this there was nothing at all…it was called the Holy of Holies.”
At that time a great event happened! The primordial Word of God (Jn.1:1), the chosen Elect One/Jesus (Lk.23:35), actually lived in or tabernacled in a physical body in the 1st century AD.
Jn.1:14 YLT “The Word became flesh and did tabernacle [skenóo g4637, Greek verb] among us, and we beheld His glory.” Christ didn’t again dwell in the innermost room of a sacred tabernacle/tent or a temple building (Herod’s). As Jesus, the pre-incarnate Word of God took on human flesh. He was now able to have a closer personal relationship with those people He encountered on earth.
This topic is continued and concluded in “God Tabernacles With Humans (2)”.
Bible Topic Exposition 