Lesson Nine
Make Me a Tabernacle Like This
And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it.
Exodus 24:8-9
Introduction
- In Heb 2:17 we saw a brief mention of the fact that Yeshua is our High Priest. Again at the end of chapter four the writer mentions this again…(Heb 4:14-5:1). It will be a theme that lasts to varying degrees for the next six chapters.
- In these chapters, the writer will use Tabernacle, sacrificial, and priestly language and idioms.
- The writer will be using these familiar things to help his/her readers understand their relationship to Yeshua and what He has done for us – as comparisons, not contrasts.
- Because we are not as familiar with this language, we will completely miss the writer’s point if we are not educated in these things.
- This week we started that education by focusing on the Tabernacle.
The Pattern
- Ex 25:1-9: The purpose for the Tabernacle/Temple: “That I may dwell among them”.
- The Tabernacle was to be built according to the pattern shown to Moses.
- tab’niyt: pattern, copy of a real thing that already exists.
- The pattern, was shown on the mountain… (Ex 25:40)
The Furnishings
- Ex 25:10-40: Major furnishings:
- Ark of the Testimony (with facing cheruvim)
- Table of Bread of the Face [lechem paniym]
- Menorah (seven branches)
- Ex 25:21-22: HaShem would meet and speak from between the cheruvim.
- Ex 26:1; 26:31-37: a persistent ‘motif’ appears to be the cheruvim.
- The purpose for the veil was to divide between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, which were two parts of the single/whole Tabernacle.
- Ex 27:1-8: Brazen altar and laver outside in the court, between the entrance and the door into the Tabernacle.
The Tabernacle Erected
- Ex 40:16-38: Did Moses have the Tabernacle constructed correctly? As HaShem commanded him.
- Did Moses erect the Tabernacle correctly, and place the furnishings in the correct place? As HaShem commanded him.
- Did Moses anoint the Tabernacle and its furnishings correctly? As HaShem commanded him.
- Ex 40:34: The result was that the Tabernacle “worked” – HaShem’s glory filled it. Its purpose was fulfilled – He could dwell among them. Or was it?
- Ex 40:35: The Sh’kinah filled the Tabernacle – but G-d could not dwell among them – He was still distant from them… Moses was driven from the Tabernacle by the overwhelming of G-d’s Presence. No one could approach G-d.
- There were priests (Aaron and sons). There was a Tabernacle. Something was lacking… sacrifices.
Summary
- The Tabernacle was not designed by men. It was made according to the pattern of something that exists in Heaven – it was not a ‘new thing’ – merely a new thing on earth.
- The Tabernacle/Temple had a single purpose: so that G-d could dwell among His people.
- All of the furnishings were copies of real “things” – they were the visible, of what we cannot see – but what Moses “saw” on the mountain.