Instructions for the Building of the Tabernacle

(Exodus 26:1 - 26:37)

You should make for the framework of the Tabernacle 10 curtains of finely loomed linen, woven with yarn dyed blue, purple, and scarlet and skillfully decorated with the images of Cherubim.  The length of the curtains should be 42 feet by 6 feet wide, with each curtain of the same dimensions.  Five of the curtains should sewn together with the other five also sewn together.  Attach hooks of blue yarn on the outside curtain of each set.  There should be 50 hooks on outside curtain of the first set matching 50 hooks on the inner curtain of the second set.  There should be 50 golden clasps by which to fasten the hooks of the curtains so that they may form a single tented enclosure.

Also, you need to make 11 curtains of goat hair to cover the top of the Tabernacle.  Each curtain should be 45 feet long and 6 feet wide, each curtain being of the same dimensions.  Five of the curtains should be joined together and the other 6 joined, with 3 feet of the latter set folded over double at the entrance to the Tabernacle.  On the edge of first set of curtains there should be 50 hooks and 50 hooks on the second set.  Make 50 bronze clasps to connect the hooks from each set, making a single covering.  The extra material, a half curtain in length, should hang over the rear of the Tabernacle.  The extra 18 inches on the first curtain and the extra 18 inches on the last curtain should hang over the sides of the Tabernacle to cover it.  As an additional protective covering for the roof of Tabernacle you should lay down tanned sheep skins and, over them, fine goat leather.

Make a framework for the Tabernacle out of red acacia wood.  Each framing panel should be 180 inches high by 27 inches wide.  There should be two dowels at the bottom of each panel.  Every board should be prepared in this manner.  On the side of the Tabernacle facing south there should be 20 panels and for them 40 plinths of silver, 2 plinths for each panel into which the 2 dowels may be inserted.  On the north side there should be 20 more panels with 40 plinths of silver, 2 for each panel.  There should be 6 panels for the rear of the Tabernacle facing west.  Two panels should be used for the corners in the rear of the Tabernacle.  They should be doubled, separated at the bottom, but joined at the top at with a single ring.  Both corners should be prepared this way.  There should be 8 panels with plinths of silver, 16 in number -- 2 plinths under the first panel, 2 plinths under the next panel, and so on. 

You should make crossbars of red acacia wood, 5 to support the panels on the north side of the Tabernacle frame, 5 for the south side, and 5 for the west side, at the rear of the Tabernacle.  The middle crossbar, positioned half way up the height of the panels, should stretch from one end of the frame to the other.  The panels should be overlaid with gold and fitted with rings of gold by which to attach the supporting crossbars, which should also be overlaid with gold. 

You should thus set up the Tabernacle according to this pattern, shown to you on the mountain.

You should make a veil of finely loomed linen, woven with yarn dyed blue, purple, and scarlet and skillfully decorated with the images of Cherubim.  It should be hung by rings of gold around four posts of red acacia wood, which should be overlaid with gold and set into plinths of silver.  Place behind the veil the Chest of Records.  This veil, hung under the clasps of the Tabernacle curtains, will serve to separate the Sanctum from the Inner Sanctum.  (You should put the lid on the Chest of Records when you place it in the Inner Sanctum.)  The table should stand on the north side of the Tabernacle outside the veil, opposite the menorah on the south side. 

There should be a screen at the entrance to the Tabernacle.  It should be of finely loomed linen, woven with yarn dyed blue, purple, and scarlet and skillfully decorated with the images of Cherubim. It should be hung from gold rings and supported by 5 posts of red acacia wood that are overlaid with gold and set into 5 plinths cast of bronze.

Notes
1.  This detailed explanation of the design of the Tabernacle (though almost indecipherable in the early translations) is at least refreshingly literal and specific.  The basic design was scarcely unique in its time.  In all ancient religions, there are always devotional objects and vessels and an inner sanctum to which only the priests have access.  The major difference is that instead of having a statue or idol of a god in the inner sanctum, its place is taken by the Chest of Records.  But the idea that the god, either physically or in spirit, visits the inner sanctum to commune with his (or her) priests and devotees is preserved.

2.  Some translations refer to the post plinths as being of brass.  We define brass as an alloy of copper and zinc.  Brass was not manufactured until Roman times.  Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, for whom a whole age takes it name, is more likely meant here.  However, it is not that cut and dried.  Bronzes, in ancient times were made with a variety of copper alloys, including what we would refer to as brass.  Brass, though, was not intentionally made or regarded as a distinct metal until times A.D. 

3.  The building of the Tabernacle required sets of skills the Israelites certainly would not have had during the days of Abraham and Jacob.  Expertise in carpentry, cloth making, sculpture, and metalworking may have been acquired by the brick-making slaves in Egypt.  Apparently a number of Hebrews must have been something other than slaves, that is, if the Tabernacle described was actually built by Moses’ exiles.  There is, however, a considerable body of opinion that asserts the Tabernacle detailed in Exodus is not at all the primitive Tabernacle of Moses’s time, but refers to one of a much later period, perhaps even to the Solomonic temple.   This is likely since it just doesn’t seem possible that 2nd millennium B.C. Hebrews would possess the know-how, the skills, the technology, the materials to craft the building and the devotional objects described.  Nor is their condition as desert nomads and exiles conducive to such an enterprise.  And it always must be remembered that the Books of Moses were compiled from more than one source many hundreds of years after his time and, therefore, contain much that is anachronistic and added to the narrative at a later date.

4.  Cherubims, whose statues adorn the lid of the Chest of Records, are also to be depicted on all the Tabernacle's drapery.  This is one of the few instances in which anthropomorphic artistic representations are sanctioned by the Hebrews and by Jehovah -- assuming that the Cherubim were being depicted as humans with wings.  It is unclear how the images were to be put on the cloth.  Embroidery had not been yet developed.