Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tabernacle
TABERNACLE, the portable sanctuary of Israel in the wilderness wanderings. Critical analysis of the Pentateuch (q.v.) teaches us to draw a sharp line between the old notices of the tabernacle contained in the pre-Deuteronomic history book (JE) and the account given by the post-exilic priestly narrator. The latter throws back into the time of Moses the whole scheme of worship and ritual of which the second temple was the centre, and, as this scheme necessarily implies the existence of an elaborate sanctuary on the pattern of the temple, he describes a tabernacle of extraordinary splendour pitched in the middle of the camp, with an outer and inner chamber and a courtyard, and all the apparatus of sacrificial and atoning ritual, just as in the temple, only constructed of boards, posts, and curtains so that it could be taken down and moved from place to place. The whole description is ideal, as appears not only from the details but from the fact that the old history knows nothing of such a structure. The Chronicler indeed, who had before him the Pentateuch, in its present shape, assumes that after the Israelites entered Canaan the tabernacle continued to be the one legitimate place of sacrifice until it was superseded by Solomon's temple, and represents it as standing at Gibeon in the days of David and his son (1 Chron. xxi. 29 sq.; 2 Chron. i. 3). But the book of Kings knows Gibeon only as "the greatest high place" (1 Kings iii. 4).[1]
Again, the tabernacle of the Priestly Code is pre-eminently the sanctuary of the ark, bearing the name mishkan hā'ēdūth, "the tabernacle of the testimony," i.e., the habitation in which lay "the ark of the testimony" or chest containing the stones on which the decalogue was inscribed. But between Joshua's days and the building of the temple the ark migrated from one tent or habitation to another (2 Sam. vii. 6; 1 Chron. xvii. 5), and at Shiloh it was housed not in a tent but in a temple (1 Sam. iii. 3, 15). And, while in the Priestly Code the tabernacle is the only legitimate sanctuary and its priests are the only legitimate priests, the whole history shows that no such restriction was even thought of till after the time of the prophet Isaiah.
With all this it agrees that the oldest parts of the Pentateuch speak indeed of a tabernacle, but one of a quite different kind. The tabernacle of the Elohist (for of the two narratives—Elohistic and Jahvistic—which are combined in the so-called Jehovistic history only the former seems to mention it) is a tent which Moses pitched outside the camp (Exod. xxxiii. 7 sq.), and where Jehovah was wont to reveal Himself to him in the pillar of cloud, which descended for the purpose and stood at the door (Num. xi, 25; xii. 5; xiv. 10); it is therefore called ōhel mō'ēd, "the tent of tryst." No description of it is given, nor is its origin spoken of, but something of the old narrative has obviously been lost before Exod. xxxiii. 7, and here what is lacking was probably explained. It appears, however, that it was very different from the tabernacle described by the priestly narrator. It was not in the centre of the camp but stood some distance outside it,[2] and it was not the seat of an elaborate organization of priests and guarded by a host of Levites, but had a single minister and custodian, viz., Joshua, who was not a Levite at all but Moses' attendant (Exod. xxxiii. 11).
The existence of such a simple tent sanctuary presents none of the difficulties that beset the priestly narrative. Portable shrines were familiar to Semitic antiquity, and tents as sanctuaries were known to the Israelites in much later times at the high places and in connexion with irregular worships (Ezek, xvi. 16, "thou didst take of thy garments and madest for thyself sewn high places," i.e., shrines of curtains sewn together; 2 Kings xxiii. 7, where for "hangings for the grove" read "tents for the Ashera"; comp. Hos. ix. 6 and Syriac prakk, Assyrian parakku, a small chapel or shrine, from the same root as Hebrew pārōketh the vail of the Holy of Holies). Such idolatrous tabernacles were probably relics of the usages of the nomadic Semites, and it is only natural that Israel in its wanderings should have had the like. And it is noteworthy that the portable chapels of the heathen Semites were mainly used for divination (comp. Journ. of Philol., xiii. 283 sq.), just as the Mosaic tabernacle is described by the Elohist not as a place of sacrifice (such as the tabernacle of the Priestly Code is) but as a place of oracle.
The heathen shrines of this sort contained portable idols or baetylia (see Selden, De Diis Syriis, i. 6); but what the Mosaic tabernacle contained is not expressly told. The ordinary and seemingly the easiest assumption is that the ark stood in it, and Deut. x. 1 sq., which must be drawn from the lost part of the older narrative already alluded to, certainly places the construction of the ark, to contain the tables of stone, just before the time when the tabernacle is first mentioned by the Elohist. But neither in Deuteronomy nor before it are the ark and the tabernacle ever mentioned together, and of the two old narrators it is not clear that the Jahvist ever mentions the tabernacle or the Elohist the ark. The relation between the two calls for further investigation, especially as the ark retains its importance after the occupation of Canaan, while the "tent of tryst" is not mentioned after the time of Moses, who, according to the Elohist (Exod. xii.), enjoyed at it a privilege of direct access to the Deity not accorded to later prophets.
- ↑ Two passages in the old history, which comprises the books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings, speak of the tabernacle (ōhel mō'ēd); but external and internal evidence show them to be interpolated (1 Sam. ii. 22; 1 Kings viii. 4).
- ↑ In old Israel the sanctuary, after the people had settled down in cities, usually stood outside the town, and this was the case even with the temple at Jerusalem when it was first built.