Tabernacle

Definition and Meaning

The Korean term for the Tabernacle, seongmak (聖幕), means "holy tent." The Hebrew word mishkan means "dwelling," that is, a place where one abides. The New Korean Revised Version renders this word as seongmak ("tabernacle"), while ohel mo'ed, meaning "tent of meeting," is rendered hoemak (會幕; "tabernacle of the congregation" in the KJV). The Tabernacle was made of tent coverings and wooden frames, so it could be taken apart and carried.

Biblical and Historical Background

Exodus 25–31 records God's instructions to Moses on Mount Sinai concerning the design of the Tabernacle, and chapters 35–40 record how the people built it accordingly. According to Exodus 40:17, the Tabernacle was set up on the first day of the first month of the second year after the Exodus.

The Tabernacle was divided into three main areas:

• The court: It contained the altar of burnt offering, on which sacrifices were burned, and the bronze laver, where the priests washed their hands and feet.
• The Holy Place: It contained the lampstand, the table for the showbread (bread set before God), and the altar of incense, on which incense was burned.
• The Most Holy Place: The innermost space, screened off by a veil, where the Ark of the Covenant was placed. Only the high priest could enter it, and only once a year (Leviticus 16).

After the settlement in Canaan, the Tabernacle stood at Shiloh and other sites (Joshua 18:1), and after Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem, its role passed to the Temple. In the New Testament, Hebrews 8–9 describes the Tabernacle as the "example and shadow of heavenly things" (Hebrews 8:5). The word "dwelt" in John 1:14 literally means "pitched a tent" in the original Greek, and the verse is sometimes interpreted in connection with the Tabernacle.

Practice in Korean Churches

In Korean churches, the Tabernacle is a common subject of preaching and teaching. In Sunday school and vacation Bible school, models of the Tabernacle are built or displayed, and churches and mission organizations sometimes hold "Tabernacle seminars." In these settings, an interpretation that links each of the Tabernacle's furnishings to the work of Jesus Christ is widely used. For example, the altar of burnt offering is interpreted as the atonement accomplished on the cross, and the torn veil (Matthew 27:51) as the opening of the way of access to God.

Views on the proper scope of such interpretation differ among denominations and theologians. Some regard symbolic interpretation, which seeks spiritual meaning in each individual furnishing, as beneficial for Christian education. By contrast, many theologians, including those in the Reformed tradition, hold that one should guard against excessive allegorical interpretation—that is, reading every detail of the text as a figure for some other meaning—that goes beyond the connections Scripture itself makes, as in Hebrews. This view emphasizes reading the Tabernacle within the broad sweep of redemptive history.