The Tabernacle Tent in the Wilderness
Moshe Levine, who resided in Tel Aviv, Israel when writing this volume,TheTabernacle: Its Structure and Utensils, studied this subject for years, and has produced a pictorial book that shows what the tabernacle looked like in the eyes of the Jews. Many Jews all over the world have poured over the commentaries woven around the Old Testament writings. Oral commentaries have been passed down from generation to generation. The Jewish scholars know the true meaning behind the Bible in their native tongue, Hebrew, and Aramaic.
Rishon Le-Zion, Chief Rabbi of Israel, wrote the following in his introduction to the volume: “In all generations, Jewish scholars have engaged in a study of the construction of the Tabernacle and of the laws governing the service in the Temple. The dimensions were calculated and the plans and form were drawn.
“It is in a holy work of this nature that Mr. Moshe Levine has been engaged for many years. He undertook the necessary research into the sources, examined the comments of our Sages and built a model of the Tabernacle, laying before us its decorations and colors with great skill and artistry. Through his work, he was able to elucidate passages in Scriptures and statements by the Sages which the ordinary reader finds difficult to understand. A glance at the model or the perusal of the photographs makes everything clear.”
Issar Yehuda Unterman, Chief Rabbi of Israel wrote his comment about the author and his volume. “These illustrations will surely be of the greatest assistance in understanding the Biblical texts that describe in such detail the many parts of the wonderful structure erected by ‘Bezalel and Oholiah and all the men that were wise-hearted.’
The introduction to the volume was written by Professor Yehuda Elitzur. The volume has been published in London, Jerusalem, New York by the Soncino Press Limited, Melechet Hamishkan Tel Aviv, Israel.
I am sharing what I have learned from Moshe Levine and various other Jews who I have mentioned earlier in my writings of this investigative study of the Sanctuary as detectives. I will also interject my understanding as a modern-day, serious Bible student, who happens to be a Registered Nurse, Dietetics Technician, who spent most of her married life raising kids, tending to a sick husband, while catching those ten minutes waiting, sitting, waking up earlier than the family, hungering and thirsting for more and more knowledge of the Holy Scripture.
The strict requirements of God pertaining to the wilderness tabernacle, and then again for King Solomon’s Temple has never ceased to amaze Moshe Levine. The exact measurements for every detail are profound to those who study this subject very closely.
The mobile sanctuary was constructed of gilded boards and covered by curtains.
The entire length of the Tabernacle was 32 cubits, and the width 12 cubits on the outside. It was constructed with acacia wood overlaid with gold set in silver sockets. The screen at the eastern end covered the entire width of the Tabernacle held up by five pillars interlaced with gold.
A beautiful veil with cherub lion figures on one side and eagles on the other separated the western part or Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle from the eastern part, the Holy Place, 20 cubits from the entrance screen to the Tabernacle. There were two veils creating a tunnel-like walkway from north to south. This is the second veil in the book of Hebrews. The other two entrances had “screens“.
When the worshipper first came to the entrance on the east side, he was met with a screen, 20 cubits high, five cubits higher than the wall of the courtyard, and 10 cubits higher than the Tabernacle. Cherub lion figures were on both sides of it. This screen was set ten cubits from the courtyard wall. Ten cubits is equal to 12.5 feet, using the standard measurement during the time of Moses. Remember that for our day, the number 12 refers to the 144,000. This screen had four pillars holding it up.
The screen was like a 20th century wartime shelter, creating a protective wall from the outside as the bonded wall protects the sanctuary cast down into the ground from the outside in Zedekiah‘s Cave. In fact, a passerby can see the stones of the upper part of the screen/wall from the street. The 15 cubit curtain lengths on each side of the gap are called “shoulders”, as the two walls of the tunnel at the entrance form the shoulder to the tunnel leading to the earthly sanctuary set up in the cave protecting the Tables of Stone from Moses.
The screen symbolizes the bonded, stone wall in Zedekiah’s Cave, hiding the view of the cave arranged with both the furniture from the Most Holy and Holy Place of King Solomon‘s Temple. The Jews through their tradition believe that the Tabernacle Tent and its furnishings were hidden down deep, deep in a cavern in Mt. Moriah under the Temple Mount.
A cubit is defined as less than two feet and more than one foot. There is a short cubit, a long cubit, a Babylonian cubit, an Egyptian cubit and the standard cubit that measures from the tip of the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, which is 18 to 19.5 inches. You would have to go around the screen to enter the courtyard of the tabernacle. The screen is 20 cubits long equaling the 20 cubit gap left in the wall immediately in front of the screen.
The curtain is 15 cubits from the eastern corner to the gap with three pillars holding up the curtain. There is another curtain on the other side of the gap or entrance that is also 15 cubits long with three pillars. Including the 20 cubit gap, there is 50 cubits of curtain total making up the eastern wall. The number three refers to the blood, the water and the Spirit. The curtains stand five cubits higher than the Tabernacle, hiding it from view so others could not see the priests doing their work inside.
The entrance to the Tabernacle itself set on the line dividing the whole courtyard, into equal parts of 50 cubits square. The total length of the courtyard was 100 cubits long. The sanctuary was in the western half of the courtyard. The sanctuary building set 20 cubits from the wall on the south, west and north sides. It was set 10 cubits from the laver of water with its spouts.
The Tabernacle was 10 cubits wide and 30 cubits long. Out of the 30, included is the 10 cubits allowing for an entry way into the Tabernacle. Again the number 10 cubits equals 12.5 feet and Solomon’s Temple had a porch. Today, God asks the ministers to weep between the porch and the altar for the souls of God‘s people. We stand today on the porch, the valley of decision, concerning the present truth about the sanctuary and its services. This present Truth was introduced at the Minister’s Retreat of 1996 in Gladstone, Oregon by God Himself through prophesy.
So, the upper section is the western side, and the lower section is the eastern side just as the Ark of the Covenant is divided into a western half and an eastern half facing in the same direction. Jerusalem also has a western side, an eastern side, a northern side, and a southern side. It matches with the Temple and its furniture and where God required them to be placed in the Temple, and Tabernacle Tent.
The number 20 cubits equals 30 feet, or I believe, 300 feet with multiplication from Jeremiah’s Grotto facing east. It is a clue telling us of the location of the missing Ark. I believe that the Tables of stone given to Moses on Mt. Sinai could very well be brought out through the eastern entrance, the Sun of righteousness coming from the east, to be publicly displayed to the world. Fifty cubits represents the Holy Spirit as being with the 144,000 in particular throughout the Temple and its services.
The walls of the courtyard were made out of twined linen in the appearance of a net-like fabric similar to the sails of a ship, knotted not woven. It is God’s fishing net that captures human beings instead of fish. The fierce winds of the desert could not blow down the walls, because it was able to go through the walls with no resistance.
I do not fully understand the mechanics of how the small rod was fastened to the top hem of the curtain at every fifth cubit. The measurement of the rod was one cubit long and three fingers thick. Each rod had a ring in the middle. The hangings were tied to the rods, and the rods hung by their rings from the hooks of the pillars.
There were sixty pillars total surrounding the Tabernacle, holding up the curtains. Sixty pillars times the five pillars of the outer protective and first screen equals 300, the approximate distance between the crucifixion site and Jeremiah’s Grotto. There are ropes fastened to four pins for each pillar stuck firmly into the ground. Four represents the four angels guarding the Temple furnishings in the cave at this very moment of reading.
The number five in the sanctuary (Third Temple) symbolizes a special cell that has five openings or entrances. The cell symbolizes the cave that the Temple furnishings are hidden in and the tunnel systems and entries (north, south and east) to get there. The Ark of the Covenant is placed to the rear of the cave on the western side. The door or entrance is on the eastern side facing the Place of the Skull and the entrance to Jeremiah’s Cave or Grotto, which faces east as well.
The cave is 22 feet long and 12 feet wide approximately, similar to the total measurement of the sanctuary. The cave narrows at one end. The flying roll in Zechariah 5 is 20 by 10 cubits and can be read on both sides. The measurements in the Temple are clues. Remember that we are detectives, searching for clues to arrive at a legal, scientific and faith-bound conclusion and verdict. The two sections of the Tabernacle, western and eastern, become as One in the cave, the sanctuary cast down into the ground as foretold in the book of Daniel.
And the first and foremost clue is the cubit number one. One in the Holy Scripture represents God, the Godhead composed of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. They are distinct and separate individuals with personalities all their own, with distinct roles and job descriptions, but they are the Godhead family, and have one purpose, goal and mission. In this sense they are One God.
The word “only” refers to Isaac as the only heir to the spiritual component of the lineage of the Messiah. Ishmael was loved just as much as Isaac by their father Abraham. The literal rock that the cross was placed into can be moved around from place to place. The other cross holes that the two thieves were placed into were drilled right into the bedrock. But the cross hole of the Messiah’s cross was not.
The earthquake made a crack in the bedrock beneath the large rock holding the cross. A wedge made by the quarrymen in the bedrock channeled the gushing blood and water from the speared side of the Messiah into the crack and down twenty feet onto the southwestern side of the mercy seat. The archeological dig in August of 2006 resulted in finding this wedge, a quarry mark, and throwing out the rejected stone, the quarry stone thought to be worthless, yet being the very reason for going to Jerusalem. Again, the Spirit of Prophecy is with the true church represented by the number ten.
The archaeologist Ron Wyatt‘s son, Ronny Wyatt as a young man barely out of his teens, discovered the cross hole in the large rock. His father, knowing of the difficulty involved in this whole situation, said “we” found the cross hole to spare his son the heat or sure opposition. It was to be their last digging in Jerusalem, so the two strong men turned over the rock to hide it.
They did a very good job, because the man that took Ron Wyatt Senior’s position as the archaeologist digging in Jerusalem for the Ark under the Antiquities Department did not recognize the rock and had it hauled away. They indeed were very hot, so close and yet so far. It was a secret kept between Ron and his son Ronny to this day. But Ronny decided it was time to tell, and that is when the head man for the dig realized what had happened during their stint in Jerusalem in August of 2006, this year.
The head man just returned from Jerusalem a few days ago. Ronny shared with me that when he accompanied the group that dug in the garden tomb area the time before the 2006 trip, they gathered together to pray over the matter. He said that he could not remember exactly where they hid the rock the cross hole rock. He remembered while the group was digging in Jerusalem this last time, that he and his father turned over the rock, instead of moving it to another spot as he thought they did.
The Wyatts, as Seventh Day Adventists, believe in the power of prayer and the leading of the Spirit of Prophecy through the Holy Scripture and inspired writings. This was why Ron Wyatt was as successful as he was in discovering so many things. He read these writings very closely, and saw things that others did not see. The Holy Spirit was obviously helping him, and blessing him and his family.
This subject brings us to another subject that one cubit is less than two feet and more than one foot according to a variety of sources. The cross hole set into a chiseled out or drilled, large rock, (the chief cornerstone rejected by the Temple builders) was 23 ½ inches deep, less than two feet and more than one foot. The base of the wooden cross of the Messiah was placed into this cross hole. One cubit throughout the sanctuary refers to this scenario.
The Ark of the Covenant was said by the Jews to have been placed on the foundation stone, three fingers thick, which is now under the Dome of the Rock Mosque. The most recent thinking is that the Temple site was on the lower level in front of or under the Mosque on the southern side of the Temple Mount.
What a smart God we have to think of everything. We are not to be resistive to the Holy Spirit in our lives, but to be as the vegetable kingdom and soak in the sunshine, rain, fresh air, nutrients etc. and let the Holy Spirit do His work through us. The Holy Spirit uses us, we do not use the Holy Spirit.
The Altar of Sacrifice called by other names such as the Altar of Burnt Offerings or the Altar of Earth was placed just before the laver of water. The hallow casing of the altar was filled with dirt. The altar had no steps, but a ramp with a comfortable slope. The two sides were two triangular planks. Its narrow end was near the hangings of the southern wall of the courtyard. The priests walked up the ramp going from the south to north. The tunnel with its earth floor closed up by a bonded stone wall leads from Zedekiah‘s Cave in the south to the north, the garden tomb.
The ramp was 30 cubits long or 45 feet. The multiple of 45 is 450 equaling the distance from the bonded wall/screen in Zedekiah’s Cave to the cave hidden under the crucifixion site in the garden tomb. The earth placed on the ramp and in the hallow casing of the Altar of Sacrifice represents the earth on the tunnel floor leading to the place of the Sin Offering on the Ark of the Covenant. The slaughtering of the animals always had to take place on the north side of this altar by the specific command of God.
The bronze laver placed 10 cubits just before the screen to the entrance of the tabernacle looked like a big samover with water coming out of spouts. This laver was made from the mirrors of the women. A Muslim, while I was visiting the Temple Mount, offered me a drink from a large type samover with multiple water spouts, maybe twelve of them. I gratefully accepted the offer and took a refreshing drink.
The screen leading into the tabernacle had cherub lions woven into it. There was a cherub-lion figure etched into the pillar in Zedekiah’s Cave near the dirt path that went up hill to a natural rock cropping hiding a hastily built bonded stone wall.
There were four curtains covering the tabernacle. It looked like a tent meant to represent a cave. The seal skins, with their natural multi-colors and stripes of brown, white, black and gray, lay on top as a long strip covering the entire roof, kind of like rock and dirt covering a cave. Next came the ram’s (male) wool dyed red. It came down over the two sides and back covering the 48 boards (multiple of 144,000) and fully covered the woven goat‘s (female) hair curtain. The blood of the ram (male) and the blood of the female goat represented the blood of the Messiah, the red covering the symbolic sin offering as in the female black goat.
The 50 loops or buttonholes along the edge of the curtain of the tent of the woven goat’s hair were made of goat’s hair. The 50 buttons on the goat hair curtains were made of less costly material such as brass. The two edges buttoned so close together you could not see daylight between them. The brass was inferior to gold, and no one could see them, because they were hidden by the curtains on the inside, and the ram’s skin and seal skins on the outside. The female goat represented the sin-offering, and was covered by the red blood--ram’s skin fully all the way around the Tabernacle.
The beautiful curtains seen on the inside, woven with rich materials and cherub-lion figures was fastened together by 50 loops or buttonholes along the outer edges with 50 sky blue buttonholes. Then 50 pure gold buttons or clasps were sewed on and fastened into the sky blue buttonholes making the curtain pieces as one curtain.
The tent was dark inside except for candlelight, and the golden buttons looked like stars shining in the night sky. The signs in the heavens in the sun, moon and stars are represented by the buttonholes in the sanctuary. The signs in the sky tell the gospel story and provide clues to unraveling the mystery in the Most Holy Place concerning the Holy Grail.
The tent coverings protected the inside of the Tabernacle from the weather, caused the Tabernacle to look like a tent, hid the furniture and the services of the priests from onlookers, and increased the beauty of the place.
The beautiful inside curtain covered the Tabernacle reaching down to within one cubit of the sockets. “One cubit of the boards, as well as the sockets themselves, were visible all the way around. The One cubit represents the rock that holds the wooden cross of the Messiah, which the whole Jewish economy, Temple and services represent. The One cubit is the symbol for the foundation stone of the kingdom of the Messiah.
The foundation stone that the Ark of the Covenant was set upon in the Most Holy Place in Solomon’s Temple represented the rock for the cross as well. The Chamber of Hewn Stone, the Chief Corner Stone, the stone manger, the hand hewn sepulcher all represented the rock of the cross, and ultimately Rock, the Messiah.
Each curtain was 28 cubits long, 12 cubits covered the width of the Tabernacle from north to south, and eight cubits hung down on either side (corresponding to the height of the boards minus two cubits).
“The 40 cubits (ten times four cubits--the breadth of each single curtain) were needed to cover the Tabernacle from east to west. Thirty cubits from the eastern entrance to the west wall, one cubit to cover the pillars of the screen, one cubit to cover the thickness of the west wall, and eight cubits hanging down over the west wall.”
The curtains, at the eastern end of the sanctuary, covered the top of the pillars of the screen one whole cubit, and hung down over the upper part of the screen to the length of one cubit. Thus, half of the breadth of the sixth curtain of the one set hung over the screen. It resembled a bride covering her face with a veil.
The curtains of the tent on the north and south sides reached the silver sockets, being two cubits longer than the beautiful curtains seen by the priests on the inside (“a man shall protect the beautiful” ).
The tent curtains on the western end hung down over the wall, covering the sockets, which were one cubit, and had an overhanging part of one cubit on the ground. The woven goat’s hair made up the third curtain that went down over the sides and down the back. The inner curtain was woven with linen threads.
The veil separating the east room from the west room was made of scarlet wool dyed red with some white mixed in, fine twined linen from white flax. The purple threads were from wool dyed red, in which there were mixed white, green and black as in a rainbow of colors. Eagle figures were on one side, and cherub lions were on the other side.
“The walls of the Tabernacle were made of 48 boards 20 for the southern wall, 20 for the northern wall, and eight for the western wall. The phrase “standing up” is interpreted by Rashi to mean that the natural growth of the wood should be respected in aligning the boards, so that the root-end of the tree shall be near the ground and the crest at the top. The thickness of the boards, were one cubit thick at the bottom, so was their thickness at the top one cubit.”
The 48 boards represent the multiple of 144,000, with the two corner boards in the Most Holy Place. The righteous people who love and remember the Law of Moses in Malachi 4:4-6 are referred to in the Holy Scripture as trees growing by the river of live.
“The bars fitted into a long pipe, composed of small sections: narrow, golden cylinders or pipes 1 ½ cubits long the width of one board. Together, these adjoining small pipes constituted one long pipe, the length of a whole wall. Each wall had two such long pipes into which the upper and lower bars were placed so that they were ‘overlaid with gold’.
“The separate sections of the golden pipe were held by golden a bar ring fixed to every board. The bar-rings ended in a stick that entered into a hole in the board. A golden pin, going through the width of the board, held the bar-rings in place piercing the stick-like end of the ring inside the board.
The sockets were the foundation of the Tabernacle. The sockets of one board were not connected to the boards on either side of it. “Had they been so interlocked, using half a board from each side, soil erosion under the sockets could have resulted in the lowering of a section, which would have pulled down the entire structure with it. As it is, two sockets always supported only one board. They stood free and did not bind the structure together. Thus, in the event of a soil depression, several sockets could drop off, while the whole structure remained firm.”
“The fifth bar of each wall of the Tabernacle was a long central bar overlaid with gold in the same way as the outer bars. The bar went through the middle of the boards, five cubits away from the top and from the ground; linking all the boards of each wall from end to end. The central bars of the south and north walls were 30 cubits long, corresponding to the total width of the 20 boards. The western bar was 12 cubits long, corresponding to the width of its eight boards.
“Rectangular rings linked the boards, which were joined together in several ways. These rings fitted into the slits like caps open at the top, each ring holding together two boards.
“The slits were two incisions made into the thickness of the wood, to a depth of one cubit, one fingerbreadth wide. At the western end of the north and south walls, two larger corner-rings linked the western wall to the other two walls. The rings thus served to connect the boards of all the three walls of the Tabernacle.
“The vital function of the bars was to strengthen the structure of the Tabernacle by connecting the boards firmly together. Each wall of the Tabernacle had four outer bars as well as a central bar. Two and a half cubits from the top, two upper bars, each the length of half a wall, joined to connect the wall on the outside from end to end. Two parallel lower bars, 2 ½ cubits from the ground, connected the lower end of the boards.
“The outer bars, serving the north and south walls, were 15 cubits long--the width of ten boards, or half a wall. The bars for the west wall were six cubits long and served four boards each, corresponding to the eight boards 12 cubits of this wall.’
The Ark of the Covenant has three boxes, one inside the other. The outer and inner boxes were made of gold, the middle wood. The length of the staves were a little longer than the full length of the room running west to east. They were large at the ends and rounded, so that they would not slip out of the rings on the corners of the box when being carried by the priests from place to place in the wilderness. Two cherub figures made of pure gold held the mercy seat. They had childlike faces, one being a male, and one being a female.
King Solomon placed two more angels in the Most Holy Place. He wanted people to see that there were four angels guarding the ark. Also, in Revelation, the angels represent human beings born again, who give the new song, the new story to the world in the last days. The living messengers give the messages of God to His people through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of Prophecy is with the true church represented by the number ten, the ten candlesticks in King Solomon’s Holy Temple with the wicks burning with olive oil pressed out of the word by searching the Holy Scripture as did the Bereans.
The inside curtains were fastened together with sky blue linen button holes, 50 loops to an edge of a curtain. Golden clasps like buttons slipped into the button holes and held the curtains together so you could not see daylight through the two curtains. The sanctuary was dark inside except for the candle light that made the gold flicker. The golden clasps on the walls and ceiling looked like twinkling stars in the night sky.
The Table of Showbread was placed on the north side of the Holy Place 2 ½ cubits from the north wall. It was called show bread because they could be seen from both sides of the Tabernacle. Two pans were placed on the table itself, between two sets of bread (in a space two spans wide) one on each side of the table. Dishes were moulds in the exact shape of the loaves of bread, with a bottom and 2 sides rising like 2 walls.
The seven-branched candlestick was placed 2 ½ cubits from the south wall of the tabernacle. The lamps were made separately from the beaten gold of the candlestick. The wicks inside the six lamps of the branches turned toward the shaft. The wick inside the shaft turned towards the Table of Showbread.
The Golden Altar or the Altar of Incense stood ten cubits (12.5 feet) from the screened entrance and near the space between the candlestick and the Table of Showbread, and then a little toward the east or the screen.
The High Priest wore the ephod close to His heart. It was one cubit long and a half a cubit wide. Folded over in two it formed a square, half a cubit by half a cubit. It was folded upwards.
“Two rings were attached to the lower corners of the breastplate, inside: a blue band was drawn through the rings, inside the breastplate, and also through the rings of the ephod, behind. Thus tied, the breastplate was firmly kept in place. There were also two golden rings in the upper part of the breastplate, a ring at each corner, through which two golden chains were drawn. These were fastened to the settings on the shoulder pieces of the ephod and on the ends that come forward over the shoulder. The 12 stones were arranged in four rows of three stones.”
The number two, 12 and three are significant for the true Israelites in the last days. The number two in the Tabernacle building and services refers to the living messengers that stand closest to the Messiah, lifting the burden with Him in saving souls for His kingdom to come (Zechariah 4), helping to strengthen and edify the church.
The true church has the Spirit of Prophecy in their midst, and they obey all of the Ten Commandments. Purity in the Sermon on the Mount refers to purity of motives and intentions as well as sexual purity. Bearing false witness against your neighbor includes gossip, slander and lies. The Sermon on the Mount by the true Messiah teaches the true Israelite to love God with all his heart, mind and soul and to love their neighbor as themselves, and that includes “tough love”. The Tabernacle building and services is all about true love, winning royal children for the new kingdom, the New Jerusalem.
The constellation of Virgo Virgin gave birth to the moon already as a sign in the blue, night sky. The solar eclipse, the sighting of the New Moon heralding the beginning of the Judgment of the Living has happened already. The Messiah is soon to return for the second time as king and lord of the whole universe. We are part of the royal family of God, and soon we will be sitting in the throne with our elder brother, the Messiah.
We will be exalted above all the other subjects in the universe, and the whole universe will study with utter astonishment that God could have pulled off such a stupendous stunt in the face of stark sin. The latter rain is linked with the study of the Temple and the wilderness Tabernacle. Studying presses the oil, the Divine Power of the Spirit out of the Holy Words into our hearts. The work is finished, the plan of redemption carried out not by might, not by power, but by the Spirit says the Lord.
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