1“And you shall make the Tabernacle with ten curtains of woven linen and blue and purple and scarlet, with cherubs—you shall make them designer’s work.
26:1. make the Tabernacle. No one has ever figured out how the Tabernacle is put together. The components are given here, but the text does not say how they are put together. Twenty frames are used for each side wall and six for the rear wall (plus two more for supporting the rear corners). The frames are ten cubits tall and “a cubit and a half cubit” wide. People have therefore assumed that the Tabernacle is thirty cubits long by ten cubits wide, and ten cubits high. Curtains fit over these frames, and the curtains are made of two giant fabrics. Each fabric is made of five pieces sewn together; the pieces are four cubits by twenty-eight cubits wide. So the two fabrics are each twenty by twenty-eight. They are attached together with gold clasps, making a double fabric that is forty by twenty-eight. When this forty-cubit piece is placed over the thirty-cubit-long structure of frames, it covers the top and has ten cubits left over to cover the ten-cubit-high rear wall. In support of this, people have noted that Solomon’s Temple is sixty cubits long by twenty wide, so the Temple and Tabernacle are in two-to-one proportion.
But there are many things wrong with this. (1) The Temple is thirty cubits high, so the proportion there is three-to-one, not two-to-one. (2) The ten-cubit width is wrong, because six frames of a cubit and a half each make only a nine-cubit width. (3) The twenty-eight-cubits-wide curtains do not fit this structure. Its two sidewalls are each ten cubits high, and its ceiling is ten cubits across, which requires a cover that is thirty cubits wide. The twenty-eight-cubits-wide curtain leaves a whole cubit (eighteen inches) uncovered on each side. (4) A second set of curtains is made into two large fabrics like the first set, but this second set (made of goats’ hair) is made of curtains that are four cubits by thirty, instead of four by twenty-eight, and there is an extra, eleventh curtain at one end. The extra curtain has no purpose, and the thirty-cubits-length hangs down past the bottom of the inner fabric. (5) The gold clasps cannot be seen in this arrangement.
Also, this arrangement leaves questions: (6) Why would the frames be a cubit and a half wide instead of just one cubit or two cubits? And why does it say “a cubit and a half cubit” instead of the normal wording, “a cubit and a half”? (7) Why are the curtains in groups of five, which are each four cubits wide? What is significant about four cubits?
All of these problems and questions point to a different way that the Tabernacle is put together. I propose that the reason that the frames are “a cubit and a half cubit” is because they overlap each other by the extra half-cubit. This is more stable and better for ventilation than if they stood side by side (Figures 1 and 2). The twenty-frame length by six-frame width means a structure that is twenty cubits by six cubits on the inside. If the frames are a half-cubit wide, then it is twenty by eight on the outside (Figure 3). Now, if we take the two large fabrics that are twenty by twenty-eight cubits, and we connect them with the clasps, and then we fold it in half along the clasps, it fits this structure. The gold clasps now are visible: they surround the entrance to the Tabernacle. The twenty-cubit width of the fabric matches the twenty-cubit length of the Tabernacle. And the twenty-eight-cubit length of the fabric goes up one side of the Tabernacle (ten cubits high), across the ceiling (eight cubits), and down the other side (ten cubits).
A temple has been excavated in Israel at Arad. Its measurements are twenty cubits by six cubits, the same as the (inside dimensions of the) Tabernacle.
On the significance of these dimensions, see the comment on 26:30.
2The length of one curtain shall be twenty-eight in cubits, and the width of one curtain four in cubits: one size to all the curtains.
3Five curtains will be connected, each to its sister-piece, and five curtains connected, each to its sister-piece.
4And you shall make loops of blue on the side of the one curtain at the end of the connected group, and you shall do so in the side of the end curtain in the second connected group.
5You shall make fifty loops in the end of the curtain that is in the second connected group, with the loops parallel: each to its sister-piece.
6And you shall make fifty clasps of gold and connect the curtains, each to its sister-piece, with the clasps. And the Tabernacle will be one.
26:6. the Tabernacle will be one. In the simplest sense, this means that once they sew all the curtains together and connect all the loops and clasps, the Tabernacle will be one whole piece. But the wording—“the Tabernacle will be one”—also fits with the centrality of the Tabernacle to Israel’s monotheism. One God, one Tabernacle, one altar, only one place of worship. Later it will be confirmed by divine commandment that Israel may have only one place of sacrifice, and that this one place is in front of the Tabernacle (Leviticus 17). There cannot be more than one place to worship God, because that might suggest that there is more than one God. Or, to put it more essentially: it is inconceivable in the first place in this new religion of a single deity that there could possibly be more than a single sanctuary. Those who claim that Israel’s religion was not a real monotheism until a very late stage (Second Temple) have not appreciated the significance of the commandment of centralization of worship at a single location.
7“And you shall make curtains of goats’ hair for a tent over the Tabernacle. You shall make them eleven curtains.
8The length of one curtain shall be thirty in cubits, and the width of one curtain four in cubits: one size for eleven curtains.
9And you shall connect five of the curtains by themselves and six of the curtains by themselves. And you shall double-fold the sixth curtain opposite the front of the tent.
26:9. double-fold the sixth curtain. The extra, eleventh curtain of the tent is four cubits wide. When folded, each half of it covers half of the eight-cubits-wide back of the Tabernacle (Figure 4). This also answers the question of why the curtains are four cubits wide. And it further confirms that the Tabernacle is eight cubits wide.
26:9. opposite the front of the tent. Meaning: it falls along the back wall, facing the front. Thus v. 12 refers to “the hanging one that is left over among the tent’s curtains” and instructs that “you shall hang half of the leftover curtain on the back parts of the Tabernacle.”
10And you shall make fifty loops on the side of the one end curtain in the connected group and fifty loops on the side of the curtain of the second connected group.
11And you shall make fifty clasps of bronze and bring the clasps into the loops and connect the tent. And it will be one.
12And the hanging one that is left over among the tent’s curtains: you shall hang half of the leftover curtain on the back parts of the Tabernacle.
13And the cubit on this side and the cubit on that side in the leftover in the length of the tent’s curtains shall be hung on the sides of the Tabernacle, on this side and on that side, to cover it.
26:13. the cubit on this side and the cubit on that side in the leftover in the length. This second set of curtains is thirty cubits long. When it is spread over the inside set of curtains, which is only twenty-eight cubits, there is thus a cubit left over on each side. It “shall be hung on the sides of the Tabernacle, on this side and on that side, to cover it.” That is, it is folded under the inside linen fabric so as to protect it from touching the ground.
14And you shall make a covering for the tent of rams’ skins dyed red and a covering of leather skins above.
15“And you shall make the frames for the Tabernacle of acacia wood, standing.
26:15. frames. Trellises—not solid boards or planks. If they were solid, then the linen curtains would be sandwiched between the boards on the inside and the goats’ hair and leather coverings on the outside and could never be seen.
16The frame’s length shall be ten cubits, and the width of one frame a cubit and a half cubit.
17One frame has two projections, each aligned with its sister-piece: so you shall make for all the Tabernacle’s frames.
18And you shall make the frames for the Tabernacle: twenty frames for the south side—to the south.
19And you shall make forty bases of silver under the twenty frames: two bases under one frame for its two projections and two bases under each other frame for its two projections.
20And for the Tabernacle’s second side, for the north side: twenty frames
21and their forty bases of silver, two bases under one frame and two bases under each other frame.
22And for the rear of the Tabernacle, to the west, you shall make six frames.
23And you shall make two frames for the Tabernacle’s corners in the rear,
24and they shall be doubles from below, and together they shall be integrated on its top to one ring. It shall be so for the two of them; they will be for the two corners.
25And they shall be eight frames and their bases of silver, sixteen bases, two bases under one frame and two bases under each other frame.
26And you shall make bars of acacia wood: five for the frames of one side of the Tabernacle
27and five bars for the frames of the second side of the Tabernacle and five bars for the frames of the side of the Tabernacle at the rear, to the west,
28and the middle bar through the frames extending from end to end.
29And you shall plate the frames with gold, and you shall make their rings gold, housings for the bars, and you shall plate the bars with gold.
30And you shall set up the Tabernacle according to the model of it that you were shown in the mountain.
26:30. set up the Tabernacle. What difference do these cubits make? Why does it matter whether the Tabernacle is eight by twenty cubits or ten by thirty? Because eight by twenty cubits, and ten cubits high, is the size of the space under the wings of the cherubs inside the Holy of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem. Either the Tabernacle really stood in that space, or the space represented it symbolically while the Tabernacle itself was stored away somewhere inside the building. The Tanak reports that the Tabernacle is in fact brought to the Temple on the day of its dedication (1 Kings 8:4; 2 Chr 5:5). The Talmud reports that it was in fact thus stored beneath the Temple (So
a 9a). The ancient historian Josephus says that the effect of the cherubs’ wings in the Temple was to appear like a tent (Ant. 8.103). A psalm says: “I’ll reside in your tent forever, I’ll conceal myself in the hidden place of your wings” (Ps 61:5). The book of 1 Chronicles (9:23) refers to the Temple as “the House of the Tent” (bêt h
’
hel). It also speaks of the “Tabernacle of the House of God” (6:33; see also 1 Chr 23:22; 2 Chr 29:6–7; 24:6). What this means is that the Temple was not just the successor to the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle, revered as the ancient channel to God, was actually located inside the Temple. So all the laws in the Torah that command that something be done at the Tabernacle applied as long as the first Temple stood in Jerusalem. By the time of the Temple’s destruction (587 B.C.E.), the Tabernacle and its contents—the ark, the tablets—disappear from the Bible. The rabbinic tradition is that the presence of God (Shechinah; which, by the way, has the same root as the word for the Tabernacle: miškn) was in the first Temple but not in the second (Yoma 21b; Rashi on Gen 9:27). This contributes to an impression of growing distance from the original feeling of a direct connection with God in the Hebrew Bible.
This construction of the Tabernacle also goes against the dominant view of biblical scholars for the past century: that the Tabernacle was not real, that it was simply a fiction, invented to stand for the second Temple in Jerusalem. That view was based on the two-to-one correspondence of the measurements of the Tabernacle and the Temple. In the first place, we have seen that the correspondence is not correct. (See point number one in the comment on 26:1 above.) Second, those measurements were based on the first Temple, not the second, in any case. And, third, this chapter is part of a text that is written in Classical Hebrew, which comes from a period long before the second Temple.
31“And you shall make a pavilion of blue and purple and scarlet and woven linen; he shall make them designer’s work with cherubs.
26:31. pavilion. Hebrew prket. In the second Temple this came to be a curtain, veiling the Holy of Holies. Subsequently in synagogues it likewise has been a curtain, veiling the ark. But in the Tabernacle it is a pavilion, a tent within the tent, not a veil. It hangs on four posts, it provides a cover over the ark (w
sakkt ‘al h’rn; Exod 40:3), it is over the Testimony (Exod 27:21), and it is referred to as “the covering pavilion,” prket hammsk (Exod 40:21; Num 4:5). (It is the same root word that is used earlier to describe how the cherubs’ wings “cover over” the atonement dais; 25:20.) Such a sukkh is referred to in Ps 27:5 and in Lam 2:6 as well. Made of fabric identical to that of the Tabernacle, it provides the Tabernacle’s necessary rear fabric wall. In the Talmudic age, when the prket had come to be a curtain, the sages assumed that it had always been a curtain, and so they were puzzled that in the Torah it is pictured as a sukkh and that it is described as being “over” the ark (Sukkah 7b; cf. Soa 37a; Menahot 62a, 98a).
32And you shall place it on four acacia columns plated with gold, their hooks of gold, on four bases of silver.
33And you shall place the pavilion under the clasps. And you shall bring the Ark of the Testimony there, inside the pavilion, and the pavilion will distinguish for you between the Holy and the Holy of Holies.
26:33. under the clasps. The Greek text says “upon the frames,” meaning up against them, or near them. In Hebrew, the frames are qršîm, and the clasps are qr
îm. The similarity of the two words led to the scribal confusion here. The Greek fits with the understanding that the prket is a pavilion, not a veil. The Masoretic Text makes little sense if it is a pavilion. (If it were a veil, and if the Tabernacle were thirty cubits long, then the Masoretic Text would mean that the veil hangs down under the clasps, which come at the point of separation between the Holy place and the Holy of Holies.)
26:33. bring the Ark of the Testimony there, inside the pavilion. The ark is surrounded by a series of layers: first the pavilion (the prket), then the Tabernacle (the linen tent), then the tent (the goats’ hair tent), then the covering (the tent of rams’ skins dyed red), then the covering of leather skins, then a courtyard surrounded by linen hangings. The Israelites are thus given to understand that there is a sequence of holiness, ever increasing, as one comes closer to the sacred object in the center. Anyone who pursues holiness must be aware that he or she must pass through a progression of levels, with increasing awe and increasing danger as one comes closer to the sacred.
26:33. the Holy. The space from the entrance up to the prket is referred to as the Holy.
26:33. the Holy of Holies. The space inside the prket is the Holy of Holies, meaning the holiest of all holy places.
34And you shall place the atonement dais on the Ark of the Testimony in the Holy of Holies.
35And you shall place the table outside the pavilion, and the menorah opposite the table on the south side of the Tabernacle, and you shall place the table on the north side.
36“And you shall make a cover for the entrance of the tent: blue and purple and scarlet and woven linen—embroiderer’s work.
37And you shall make five acacia columns for the cover and plate them with gold, their hooks of gold, and cast five bases of bronze for them.
