A Tale of two Tabernacles
Form without Power.
Ritual without Presence.
Tradition without the Timeless One.
Structure without the Architect.
There is a very curious time in Israel’s history when you study the worship
structure of the Old Testament saints.
During the reign of King David we see a very interesting occurrence
which is both a compelling storyline and a very prophetic symbol for today.
In David’s day there were two Tabernacles but only one Ark. There was the Tabernacle of Moses (also called the Tabernacle of Meeting) – given by God through Moses and designed by the ancient artistic genius Bezalel. This tabernacle was an ancient wonder to all who would venture inside – made with walls of wood fitted together and overlayed with gold as well as beautiful linen curtains woven with blue, purple and scarlet fabrics – yet appeared very common to those who would only see it from a glance as it was covered with an outer layer of badger skins. Which just as a side note is a very telling symbol of Christianity – where an outsider might only see “behavior control and boredom” (what I would call Badger skins), the one who enters by faith sees the gold and interwoven fabrics of the Glory of God; a transcendent beauty experienced in the Spirit only accessed through faith in Christ.
Tracing the Steps of Moses' Tabernacle
Shiloh, God's Original Dwelling Place
Thus we understand that Shiloh was the spiritual and
governmental center of pre-king Israel.
It was in Shiloh that Hannah travailed in the Spirit for a son and where
God promised her Samuel. It was in
Shiloh that Samuel (a non-Levite from the half-tribe of Ephraim) was sleeping
in the Tabernacle of Moses and heard the voice of God proclaiming judgment on
Eli’s priestly leadership. Which for
another side note illustrates a very interesting subject – I believe that God
gave the Law in Israel to highlight His Transcendent Beauty or what He would
call His Holiness. The Laws given
highlight just that, stating that because God was living with them He would
refuse to be associated with anything impure, immoral, common or lowly – not
because He didn’t have compassion on people who had those traits (see Jesus)
but rather because He wanted to create a clear distinction between Himself and
those things. He was saying that He was clean
– and to drive that point home he made many distinctions about things that were
clean and unclean and required that those who live with Him only partake in
things that were clean (a distinction later removed by Jesus – which again
illustrates that God wanted people to understand who He was much more than He
was concerned with what they ate). One
of those Laws was that only Levites were to enter into His Tabernacle (Numbers
3:10), but it is a Law that He allowed to be broken in the case of Samuel the Ephraimite. I believe that in the Old Testament He
allowed His Law to be broken and even looked upon it favorably if it was done
with a heart that still saw Him correctly in His holiness. Samuel’s entrance into the priesthood and
subsequently into the Tent of Meeting came by an answered prayer from a
desperate woman – his very birth and dedication to God were testimonies of
God’s Highness and thus were looked upon with favor. For more of an explanation of this see Matthew
12:2-8.
So Ark remained for the most part in the Tabernacle of Moses
in Shiloh until God brought judgment on the priesthood of Eli. A big part of the judgment on Eli was that
the Lord allowed the Ark to be taken for a battle in an act of presumption and
then subsequently captured by the Philistines– the Ark then took a bit of a
tour around the countryside going from Shiloh to Ebenezer to the house of Dagon
in Ashdod to Gath to Ekron to Beth-shemesh to Kiriath-jearim (1 Samuel
4-7:2). Yet it never returned to the
Tabernacle of Moses in Shiloh*.
An Empty Sanctuary
So all that background gives the right context to understand
the gravity of 1 Chronicles 16:37-42. We
see in these verses that there were 2 Tabernacles in Israel. There was the Tabernacle of Moses and the
Tabernacle of David. And yet only one
had the Ark of God in it. I’ll go into
the details of why I think this occurred and what the Bible says about the
priests who were in both tents later, but for now we’ll just examine the prophetic
picture that this is. Which Tent are you
in? Are you in the Tabernacle of Moses –
a place where God once dwelt but left due to compromise and idolatry. Are you living in the shell of something that
was birthed by God but has since been corrupted to the point that God no longer
is there? Are you living even in
something that has a majestic structure and natural beauty, but is devoid of
the Presence of God? Or are you living
in the Tabernacle of David – at a place that honors God and is in the center of
His Will. Are you in Shiloh – a city
where people are drunk with worldliness, so rife with sexual immorality that no
one even confronts the priests and where the Word of the Lord was rare; or are
you on Mount Zion – a place where the priests were intoxicated by God’s Majesty
and where faith came forth to manifest God’s will on planet earth.
*For the detail junkies (like myself) it’s necessary to state that the Tabernacle of Moses moved from Shiloh (after the Philistines likely destroyed the city) to Nob (see David eating the bread of the Presence and then Saul destroying the city – 1 Samuel 21-22) and then to Gibeon (1 Chronicles 16:39).
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