In a wider sense the whole movable structure within the court is called the tabernacle.  But in a stricter sense the rich inner curtain is distinguished in the Mosaic description as the tabernacle, while the curtain of goats’ hair is called the tent.  Exod. 26:1, 7; 36:8, 14, 19.  The true meaning of the word rendered in our version badgers is uncertain.  Some think that the seal is referred to.

7.  We have seen that the tabernacle was God’s visible dwelling-place.  But the palace of a king has its audience-rooms, where he receives his subjects and attends to their petitions.  In like manner the Mosaic tabernacle, and afterwards the temple, had its “holy of holies” and its “holy place,” the former being in a special sense the abode of Israel’s God.  The tabernacle, with its furniture, priesthood, and services, is declared in the New Testament to have been “a shadow of good things to come.”  Heb. 10:1, and elsewhere.  Unless we understand this its typical character, we fail to gain any true apprehension of its meaning.

8.  In contemplating the truths which the Mosaic tabernacle shadowed forth, we begin with the materials used in its construction.  Here we notice two things; their preciousness, and the gradation observed in this respect.

(1.) Their preciousness.  All the materials were of the most durable and costly character—­gold, silver, fine-twined linen of blue and purple and scarlet, acacia-wood (the shittim-wood of our version), brass being allowed only in the external appointments.  This obviously represented the glory and excellence of God’s service, and the corresponding obligation on the part of the worshippers to give to God the best of all that they had.

(2.) The gradation in the preciousness of the materials had reference to the inner sanctuary, where, as will presently be shown, God dwelt between the cherubim that overshadowed the mercy-seat.  The rule of gradation was this:  the nearer to God’s dwelling-place the greater the glory; and hence, as shadowing forth this glory, the more precious the materials.  The mercy-seat, where God dwelt between the cherubim, was accordingly of pure gold.  All the woodwork pertaining to the tabernacle and its furniture was overlaid with gold.  The inner or proper covering of the tabernacle, as also the vail that hung before the ark, separating the holy from the most holy place, was of “fine-twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, with cherubim of cunning work.”  The outer vail, at the entrance of the outer sanctuary, was of the same materials, but without the cherubim; while the curtains of the court were made simply of fine-twined linen, suspended from pillars of shittim-wood not overlaid with gold.  The sockets, again, that supported the timbers of the tabernacle and the inner row of pillars before the ark were of silver; but those beneath the outer pillars of the sanctuary, and all the pillars of the court, were of brass.