The Tabernacle was to be covered with curtains of goat’s
hair. Here too, God stipulated the
number, 11, and the way they were to be fitted together, the measurement of
each, and the way they were to be arranged around the tabernacle. On top of
those was another covering of ram’s skins, and this was to be dyed red, and
above this a further covering of badger’s skins.
“And there
shall be made boards of acacia wood for the tabernacle made to stand
upright. The length of the boards were
to be ten cubits, and one and a half cubits wide, and two tenons shall there be
in one board, set in order one against the other, and in this way shall all the
boards in the tabernacle be made.” (The tenon appears to be another name for a
mortise joint), so the end of the boards were to be dovetailed one into the
other.
Twenty
boards were to be placed on the South side, and under them forty sockets of
silver, fitted so that two sockets were to be placed under each tenon a socket
so that there would be a socket under each tenon.
The same
number of boards and tenons and sockets of silver were also to be placed on the
opposite or North side, and adorned as on the South side.
Since the
shape of the tabernacle was a rectangle not a square, there were only to be six
boards on the Western side, and two boards for the corners, coupled together on
each corner. In all there were eight
boards, on this side, with their sockets of silver, so that there were sixteen
sockets two under each board; and bars of acacia wood, five for one side and
five for the two western side. And the middle bar in the midst of the boards
shall reach from end to end.
Not being a
cabinet maker or carpenter, I truly have no real concept of these instructions
that God gave to Moses. All I know is
that somehow Moses was able to take it all in and pass it on to the workmen, as
for certain, he didn’t do all the work by himself, although he doubtless
superintended it. Trying to visualize
the tabernacle I see a somewhat oblong rectangular shape, with an entrance on
the East side, no solid structure, and the western end completely blocked off
by wood with an interior entrance into what would have been the sanctum
sanctorum, the Holy of Holies.
And all of the woodwork thus described was to be overlaid
with gold, as per a residence fit for a King.
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