The Essential Significance of the Tabernacle
A. Cave, D. D. Leviticus 1:1 And the LORD called to Moses, and spoke to him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, The essential significance of the Tabernacle may be inferred from the names customarily given to it. These names may be divided into three classes: 1. Those which, like "house," "tent," "dwelling," "dwelling of the testimony," convey the general idea of a place of Divine residence (Exodus 23:19; Exodus 25:9; Exodus 26:36; Exodus 38:21). 2. Those which, like "tent of meeting," or "tent-house of meeting," express the idea of a meeting-place for God and man (Exodus 27:21; Exodus 39:32). 3. Those which, like "sanctuary," draw attention to holiness as an attribute of the place itself (Exodus 25:8). Now a house where God was, or was supposed to be, must be a place for worship, and a place for Divine worship must of necessity be holy ground; thus one fundamental idea lay at the root of all these appellations, viz., that the Tabernacle was a meeting-place between Jehovah and His covenant people. There Jehovah was to be thought peculiarly present, and therefore peculiarly approachable. By the Jew the Lord God Almighty was not to be sought in woods or fountains or valleys, but in this house which He had appointed.... It must be remembered, however, that approach to Jehovah was conditioned by the terms of the Sinaitic revelation. Whilst, therefore, the Tabernacle as the dwelling-place of the Most High, was by the Divine condescension a place where God and the Jew might come together, that contact was arranged in accordance with the characteristics of the Mosaic dispensation. The whole structure was a place of meeting where man and God could congregate; but it was in the court only that the common Israelite could approach Jehovah, and that by mediation in the person of the appointed priestly representatives; in the Holy Place, to which the priests alone had access, the worshippers also approached the throne of Deity by mediation, being admitted, so to speak, to the anteroom of the Divine audience-chamber by the adoration of their chief; whilst to the high priest alone, and that after solemn preparation, was it permitted on one day in the year to pass within the veil, and gaze unhindered upon that mercy-seat, aglow with gold, where rested the shadowy cloud of the Shechinah. Further, if the Tabernacle was the appointed sanctuary where man might meet with God on the fulfilment of certain conditions, be it noted that the several altars were, so to speak, the points at which those conditions could be best fulfilled. Every square inch of the sacred enclosure was a place of meeting between Jehovah and His people, according to the terms of the Divine revelation: but it was at the altar of burnt-offering in the court that the non-priestly worshippers approached most nearly to their God; it was at the golden altar in the Holy Place that the priests were admitted to closest access; and it was as he approached most directly the space beneath the outstretched wings of the cherubim that the high priest drew nearest to the throne of intercession. The several altars were the shrines, so to speak, of the several sanctuaries, in which their essence was concentrated, and from which their power radiated. The essential significance of the peculiar sanctuary of Judaism lay, then, in the fact that, being the visible dwelling-place of Jehovah, it testified to the possibility of human approach to God so long as the conditions of the related laws were observed — these conditions being, so far at least as the theocratic status of the worshippers was concerned, that the Israelite might come near to God in the person of His priests in the court, and especially at the altar of burnt-offering; that in the Holy Place, and especially at the altar of incense, the priesthood might do homage to Jehovah as enshrined behind the veil; and that in the Holy of Holies, and especially at the high altar of the mercy-seat, the high priest might, by careful obedience to the prescribed conditions, occasionally regard that cloud by which the Almighty condescended to reveal and at the same time to conceal His presence. (A. Cave, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, WEB: Yahweh called to Moses, and spoke to him out of the Tent of Meeting, saying,