Tabernacle

"dwelling place; tabernacle; shrine." This word appears 139 times and refers in its first occurrence to the "tabernacle": "According to all that I show thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it" (Exod 25:9). Mishkan is found primarily in Exodus and Numbers, and it always designates the sanctuary. With this meaning it is a synonym for the phrase "tent of meeting." In total, 100 out of the 139 uses of mishkan throughout the Old Testament signify the tabernacle as "dwelling place." God dwelt amidst His people in the wilderness, and His presence was symbolically manifest in the tent of meeting. The word mishkan places the emphasis on the representative presence of God: "And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright" (Lev 26:11-13). Hence, sin among the Israelites defiled God's "dwelling-place" (Lev 15:31; cf. Num 19:13).

Whereas the "tabernacle" was mobile, the temple was built for the particular purpose of religious worship: "… I have not dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle" (2Sam 7:6). Solomon built it and the finished structure was known as "the house," the temple, instead of the dwelling place (mishkan). In later literature mishkan is a poetic synonym for "temple": "I will not give sleep … until I find out a place for the Lord, a habitation for the mighty God of Jacob" (Psa 132:4-5). The meaning of mishkan was also extended to include the whole area surrounding the temple, as much as the city Jerusalem: "There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High" (Psa 46:4), "the Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob" (Psa 87:2).

The defilement of the city and the temple area was sufficient reason for God to leave the temple (Ezek 10) and to permit the destruction of His "dwelling place" by the brutish Babylonians: "They have cast fire into thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground" (Psa 74:7). In the Lord's providence He had planned to restore His people and the temple so as to assure them of His continued presence: "My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore" (Ezek 37:27-28). John comments that Jesus Christ was God's "tabernacle": "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth" (John 1:14), and Jesus later referred to Himself as the temple: "But He spake of the temple of his body" (John 2:21). In non-religious use mishkan is "the dwelling place" of an individual (Num 16:24), of Israel (Num 24:5), and of strangers (Hab 1:6).

The usual translation of mishkan in the Septuagint is skene ("dwelling; booth"), which is also the translation for ’ohel, "tent." It has been suggested that the similarity in sound of the Hebrew shakan and the Greek skene influenced the translation. Another translation is skenoma ("tent; dwelling; lodging"). The translations in the kjv are: "tabernacle; dwelling place; dwelling; habitation."

"to dwell, inhabit." This verb, which occurs about 129 times in biblical Hebrew, is found also in other Semitic languages. In Akkadian sakanu, "to lay, to set up, to be situated," has many forms, such as the noun maskana, "dwelling place." One occurrence of the verb is in Psa 37:27: "Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore."

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"a tent, booth, tabernacle," is used of (a) tents as dwellings, Mat 17:4, Mar 9:5, Luk 9:33, Heb 11:9, AV, "tabernacles" (RV, "tents"); (b) the Mosaic tabernacle, Act 7:44, Heb 8:5, Heb 9:1 (in some mss.); Heb 9:8, Heb 9:21, termed "the tent of meeting," RV (i.e., where the people were called to meet God), a preferable description to "the tabernacle of the congregation," as in the AV in the OT; the outer part, Heb 9:2, Heb 9:6; the inner sanctuary, Heb 9:3; (c) the heavenly prototype, Heb 8:2, Heb 9:11, Rev 13:6, Rev 15:5, Rev 21:3 (of its future descent); (d) the eternal abodes of the saints, Luk 16:9, RV, "tabernacles" (AV, "habitations"); (e) the Temple in Jerusalem, as continuing the service of the tabernacle, Heb 13:10; (f) the house of David, i.e., metaphorically of his people, Act 15:16; (g) the portable shrine of the god Moloch, Act 7:43.

the equivalent of No. 1, is used metaphorically of the body as the "tabernacle" of the soul, 2Co 5:1, 2Co 5:4.

occurs in Act 7:46, 2Pe 1:1-14; see HABITATION, No. 6.

properly "the setting up of tents or dwellings" (No. 1, and pegnumi, "to fix"), represents the word "tabernacles" in "the feast of tabernacles," Joh 7:2. This feast, one of the three Pilgrimage Feasts in Israel, is called "the feast of ingathering" in Exo 23:16, Exo 34:22; it took place at the end of the year, and all males were to attend at the "tabernacle" with their offerings. In Lev 23:34, Deu 16:13, Deu 16:16, Deu 31:10, 2Ch 8:13, Ezr 3:4 (cp. Neh 1:8-18), it is called "the feast of tabernacles" (or "booths," sukkoth), and was appointed for seven days at Jerusalem from the 15th to the 22nd Tishri (approximately October), to remind the people that their fathers dwelt in these in the wilderness journeys. Cp. Num 1:29-38, especially Num 1:29-38, for the regulations of the eighth or "last day, the great day of the feast" (Joh 7:37).

Note: For skenoo, "to spread a tabernacle over," Rev 7:15, RV, see DWELL, No. 9.