How many veils in the tabernacle

Or the Chronicler when he wrote of the plan, tabnit, for the temple which was revealed to David 1 Chron. A plan, tabnit , for the tabernacle was revealed to Moses on Sinai, Exod. And what is meant by mashal? It can be understood as a parable or as a proverb. He is taught about the correspondence between earth and heaven. Job Since Philo was of a priestly family, perhaps his treatment of the creation stories, the creation of the invisible world beyond the veil of the temple and then the visible world as its copy, is not an example of the Platonising of Hellenistic Judaism but rather a glimpse of the ancient priestly world view even at the end of the second temple period.

The holy of holies was also beyond time. To enter was to enter eternity. In the Apocalypse of Abraham the patriarch was taken up to heaven where he saw the stars far below him Ap. Abraham sees the firmament as a screen on which the history of his people is revealed to him. The detail which links this experience of the firmament to the holy of holies is to be found in 3 Enoch, an undateable text which describes how R.

Ishmael the high priest ascended to heaven. Now Rabbi Ishmael lived after the temple had been destroyed and cannot have been a high priest, and the versions of 3 Enoch which we have were compiled long after that.

Nevertheless, the association of ascent, high priesthood and the sanctuary experience persisted, and thus we find here in 3 Enoch the explanation of the vision described in the Apocalypse of Abraham. The firmament on which Abraham saw the history of his people was the veil. In 3 Enoch, R Ishmael ascended to heaven and met Metatron, the great angel who in his earthly life had been Enoch, and who became his guide: Metatron said to me: Come, I will show you the veil of the All Present One, which is spread before the Holy One, blessed be He, and on which are printed all the generations of the world and all their deeds, whether done or yet to be done, until the last generation.

I went with him and he pointed them out to me with his fingers, like after teaching his son 3 En. He recorded what he saw on tablets. Enoch has the fullest account of history seen in the holy of holies. Three angels who had emerged from heaven took Enoch up to a tower raised high above the earth and there he saw all history revealed before him, from the fall of the angels to the last judgement 1 En When history was revealed to Moses, however, it was on Sinai, according to the account in Jubilees.

He was told: Write down for yourself all the matters which I shall make known to you to on this mountain: what was in the beginning and what will be at the end and what will happen in all the divisions of the days According to this account, Moses did not see a vision;; the story was dictated to him by the angel of the presence and he learned of history only up to his own time.

He showed him.. Something similar was said of Jesus by the early Christian writers Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria and Origen: that he was the high priest who had passed through the curtain and revealed the secrets of the past, the present and the future [12]. History seen in the sanctuary, whether this was described as a tower or as Sinai, was history seen outside the limitations of space and time and this explains why histories in the apocalyptic writings are surveys not only of the past but also of the future as everything was depicted on the veil.

Those who passed through the veil also passed into the first day of creation as the building of the tabernacle was said to correspond to the days of creation.

Again, the evidence for this belief is relatively late, but given the cultural context of the first temple, it is not unlikely. Solomon's kingdom was surrounded by cultures which linked the story of creation to the erection of temples [13] , and there are canonical texts which could be explained in this way. Various attempts have been made to relate the commands given to Moses and the account of the seven days in Genesis 1. One was that the gathering of the waters on the third day corresponded to making the bronze sea, and making the great lights on the fourth day corresponded to making the menorah.

The birds of the fifth day corresponded to the cherubim with their wings and the man on the sixth day was the high priest [14]. It is more satisfactory to keep the traditional order for creating the tabernacle: tent, veil, table, lamp, and link this to the first four days of creation. The earth and seeds of the third day would then be represented by the table where bread was offered and the great lights of the fourth day by the menorah [15].

There is no disagreement, however, over the correspondence between the first and second days of creation and the first two stages of making the tabernacle. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and on the first day Moses set up the outer covering, the basic structure of the tabernacle Exod. On the second day, God made the firmament and called it heaven and on the second day Moses set up the veil and screened the ark Exod.

The Chronicler said that the temple was built according to a heavenly revelation received by David 1 Chron. The verses in Exodus do not actually say that Moses saw a heavenly tabernacle which was to be the pattern, tabnit , for the tabernacle he had to build, but some later texts do assume this.

Given the importance of the subject matter, there are surprisingly few references to the heavenly sanctuary that Moses saw on Sinai [16]. The other two aspects of the tradition, that the temple was a microcosm of the creation and that its construction corresponded to the days of creation suggest that what Moses saw on Sinai was not a heavenly tabernacle but rather, a vision of the creation which the tabernacle was to replicate.

A heavenly temple is not mentioned in this verse even though some translations insert the word temple at this point, e. V [17]. The idea that Moses on Sinai had a vision of the creation finds its clearest expression in the writings of Cosmas, the sixth century Egyptian Christian. He explained that the earth was rectangular and constructed like a huge tent because Moses had been commanded to build the tabernacle as a copy of the whole creation which he had been shown on Sinai.

This is what he wrote: When Moses had come down from the mountain he was ordered by God to make the tabernacle, which was a representation of what he had seen on the mountain, namely, an impress of the whole world. The creation Moses had seen was divided into two parts: Since therefore it had been shown him how God made the heaven and the earth, and how on the second day he made the firmament in the middle between them, and thus made the one place into two places, so Moses, in like manner, in accordance with the pattern which he had seen, made the tabernacle and placed the veil in the middle and by this division made the one tabernacle into two, the inner and the outer Cosmas 2.

The sequence in Jubilees is the same as in Genesis 1, except that Jubilees gives far more detail about Day One, the secrets of the holy of holies. There are seven works on Day One: heaven, earth, the waters, the abyss, darkness and light- all of which can be deduced from Genesis- and then the ministering angels, who are not mentioned in Genesis [19]. A similar account occurs in the Song of the Three Children; before inviting the earth and everything created after the second day to praise the LORD and exalt him for ever, there is a long list of the works of the Day One: the heavens, the angels, the waters above the heavens, the powers, the stars, the rain, dew, winds, fire, heat, summer and winter, ice and cold, frost and snow, lightnings and clouds, the phenomena whose angels praise the LORD on Day One according to Jubilees.

The angels of day One were a sensitive issue. Later Jewish tradition gave the seven works of Day One as heaven and earth, darkness and light, waters and the abyss, and then the winds, whereas Jubilees has the angels.

It has long been accepted [21] that Genesis 1 is a reworking of older material and is related to other accounts of creation known in the Ancient Near East. One of the main elements to have been removed is any account of the birth of the gods, even though Genesis 2. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth. View complete site index. All rights reserved. See All Worldviews. A Unique Architecture. See All Tools. Tool Selector. No Ordinary Story - The Series. No Ordinary Story - Radio Theatre.

What are Christmas and Easter All About? Ambassador Series. Visual Aids. Diagram of the Tabernacle and Basic Layout. The Tabernacle Gate. The Brazen Altar. The Laver. Menorah - Lampstand. Table of Showbread. Golden Altar of Incense. Holy of Holies and the Veil. Ark of the Covenant. Why study the Tabernacle? Why the Old Testament Tabernacle? Matthew then writes, ". Here was the Shekinah glory in the face of Jesus! The veil of His flesh could contain Him no longer. The glory of His deity burst forth.

Philippians The unrent Veil shut man out from a holy God. It declared the separation from God because of sin. The veil is symbolic of the incarnate life of Jesus, and the tearing of the veil was His death on the cross. The death of Christ opened a new and living way into the presence of God. At the same time, the purpose of the physical Temple in Jerusalem ended. Since Jesus had offered up to God the Father the perfect sacrifice for sin, it was no longer needed. Something happened in the Temple in the very moment that Christ died on the cross.

Mark tells us when He died, "Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom" cf. Matthew Luke says, "The veil of the temple was torn in two" Lk. The act was complete the moment Jesus died. The Veil was rent, telling out in symbolic way that the entrance into God was now open, and that it required nothing short of the death of Christ.

The purpose of His incarnation is revealed. He did not come in the flesh to set an example, but to offer His body as a vicarious, substitutionary sacrifice for sin.

The Veil was rent at the very hour of the evening sacrifice. At the very hour the Passover lambs were being slain the Veil was torn from top to bottom, and at that moment Jesus cried, "It is finished" Jn. Only God could do that because the top of the veil was beyond man's reach. A way was opened into the presence of God, who no longer occupied the Holy of Holies in the Temple, but heaven, itself. There was nothing behind the veil in the Holy of Holies in Herod's Temple! The Ark had been destroyed when the Babylonians destroyed Solomon's Temple.

The shadows and types of the Tabernacle and Temple were turned into substance. It is as if God the Father did, as any Jewish father would have done at the deathbed of his only son. It was customary for Jewish mourners to take hold of their outer garment with both hands and tear it. The "hands" of God tore the thick veil of the Temple from top to bottom.

I used Exodus to figure out from cubit 18in to feet, then you see the size of the Tabernacles. Me blessed my friends, Messianic Rabbi Tom Barnes. I realize not many confronted this task, and only yearly, but it seems to me, to be a very difficult task at best, especially since no one else was permitted entry or even to offer assistance for fear of death. Secondly, is there any validity regarding any attachment to the High Priest, such as a cord to extract him if something went wrong. This container of some sort presents yet another difficulty for entry.

I presume again, entry was through the side, or corner and not through underneath. Once again, would protocol dictate the left of right side for entry, and would some type of burning lamp be taken along, yet another obstacle, with heavy weight pushing against you, with both hands filled?

Lastly, if replacements were a standard yearly process, that would expose the inside of the Holy of Holies to people. How could this be done, and who would do it, and were there any scriptural allowances for this to happen? I had not given a bit of thought to the potential difficulty of getting through the veil. I assume that if the high priest did have difficulty entering, other priests could stand to the side and pull the curtain to one side in order to help the high priest enter.

They would not be inside the holy of holies in so doing. By: chuckbumgardner on March 22, at pm. Sorry, I was referring to the veil being replaced as needed, due to soiling or just time deterioration, or even just being washed.

This would expose the entire inside of the Holy of Holies, with no covering of the entrance. Just curious! Regards, Ken. Why would it be replaced? I have heard that the priest sewed the veil up again. Is there any information on this as being true. I have heard the same thing myself and this very question arose this morning as I was studying the Word. I gleaned a lot form each post. May the Holy Spirit bring a spirit of revelation Eph.

By: Joseph F. Pickens on March 26, at am. My search for information on the thickness of the veil led me here. Many thanks to all who have contributed to this informative and enlightening discussion.

By: bgoodnough on March 29, at pm. Thanks a lot for the great explanation of the thickness of the veil in the temple. It gives me a new view on the miracle which took place in the temple. Thanks to all who took time to share their knowledge. By: Daniel Ritchie on April 22, at am. Very interesting comments here.

Thanks to all the contributors. You would think their astonishment and awe would be recorded somewhere in all of their commentaries. After all, the High Priest still had to perform the rituals on the Day of Atonement all by himself for 40 years yet. Josephus records the Jews seeing and hearing many strange things before the destruction of Jerusalem. It seems the priests just kept the torn veil all hush-hush during that whole long period.

As far as yearly curtains being handmade, are there not regulations found in any rabbinic writings as to proper cleaning of the old, and storing of all those extra curtains? How dirty would that curtain get if only used once a year? The silence regarding this issue is quite strange to me. We can read about the meticulous procedures the scribes used for copying manuscripts but nothing about the proper handling of the sacred curtain?

And finally, the significance of the torn veil is always treated as if every gentile was just yearning for the day to come when God would give them access to a relationship with Him. Not one person knew what it meant on the day it happened! For sure the High Priest was clueless just as millions today are — even after years of preaching about it. Everytime I study any topic from the Bible I end up with dozens of questions but never a definitive answer.

Take the baptism of Jesus for instance. You could say He was 1. Men accept what seems right in their mind and reject the rest. That torn veil, though. If I may add another that I had often seen in this, maybe for you ponder on: — 1. My question is one that i have asked many times but no solid answers were presented. Aniph, although only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, perhaps other priests pulled the veil back from the other side without themselves entering.

By: chuckbumgardner on May 27, at am. The veil was draped in a fold so that the High Priest could enter on one side the right and in front of him was still more veil. He had to walk to his left to the end of the veil, turn right through a slit before the Holy of Holies was visible.

This prevented anyone else from accidentally peering into the Place he out not. They crawled underneath it! I am in a bible study class and this subject has come up in it. This has been very interesting to read, and I would just like to know the answer to this question. If the tearing of the veil was to signify a few things, no need for more sacrifices, God coming to dwell with us, etc…. Please know I am new in my walk with Christ, and whatever I read or study I have a tendency to over analyze.

With this being so significant to those who believe, surely this has some significance to them. It also points to the fact that the way to God is now open and thatJesus is the only way the truth and the life.

I trust that you have come that way. It is nice to hear that you are a new beliver. God will speak to you through his word , and you are quite capable of listening to Him so be patient and He will reveal himself to you.

Keep going to church , and enjoy Good Christain fellowship. But the Rabbis do not shy from difficult things to explain. This would have been no small thing as these were understood as the famed Nikanor gates that nearly everyone entered the Temple by into the court of the Women. And we know the Temple was destroyed exactly 40 years after the death of our Lord, the Mesiah in 70 a.

So either these two events coincided, which is probable,or the doors have been misinterpreted as the veil, which seems unlikely in light of the comment of Josephus noted by someone here already.

Also regarding the belief that God is Spirit, it is both the belief of Judaism and Christianity that He is exactly that. It is not foreign to Judaism that the Spirit of God inhabits flesh, but perhaps more the reaction to an ill understanding of just how that concept worked itself out in the form of our Lord.

Until He comes. Good question. But I do believe it really happened, regardless of the lack of extrabiblical evidence, simply because Scripture says it did. And the gospels show us that Jesus said a number of things that indicated his equality with the Father see John , e. But how did the Jews explain the torn veil in particular? By: chuckbumgardner on September 30, at pm.

I was involved in the Ashkenazi Messianic Jewish community for 20 years, and I echo and extend what Chuck says. Not just that only two writers of the Bible were gentile Job and Dr Luke , but that many Jewish people today accept that Yeshua Jesus is the Messiah, and that includes accepting that haShem, God the Father, tore the temple veil in two.

Although the majority of the Jewish people rejected who Messiah was, this is by no means all Jews. That does not make them any less part of the Body of Messiah. By: David on October 1, at am. Thanks, David. We see some of this reflected in Scripture in the Pharisees vs.

By: chuckbumgardner on October 1, at am. I have searched in so many places and cannot find the answer to this question. Removing it to wash it would leave an open view to the most sacred place. Please enlighten me and provide me reading sources. What passages are you thinking of when you say that the blood was sprinkled on a daily basis on the veil?

By: chuckbumgardner on October 26, at pm. Leviticus mentions that the priest had to sprinkle the blood on the veil 7 times if the congregation or the priest sinned. But I am still curious, what happened to this blood- stained veil? I apologize for my misunderstanding. Thank you! By: chuckbumgardner on November 6, at am.

I read in a book that Blood was sprinkled upon the mercy seat once a year by the High Priest and that not one drop of that blood ever touched the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant because the Shakana Glory of the Lord consumed or lapped up every single drop of that Blood??? Concerning extrabiblical records of the veil. Though not a great fan of Josephus I thought I would check and see what he had to say about this. We, also, have the singular fact presented that the curtain of the Temple, after being rent at the time of the Passion, was left hanging for a considerable period of time.

The Works of Josephus, trans. Very encouraging to see this discussion. There is value in this on another level. The sages, as noted here, comment on the thickness of the veil for perhaps another reason. The veil serves to shield us from the Presence of Hashem. It is for our benefit that it existed. We are also told that the chasm separating Sheol from Gan Eden, Paradise, is precisely this distance as well. Yet it is a distance too great to transgress, as Abraham tells the rich man in Sheol.

A mere handbreadth separates life from death, flesh from spirit, heaven from hell. And I will remove My palm and you shall see My back, but My face cannot be seen. Interesting that the moment the Son of God departs this world, the handbreadth is removed. Interesting perspective you bring there to the situation, Chris.

Man now had access to the presence of GOD, as mentioned a number of times above , which on earth was the Holiest of Holies behind the veil. GOD no longer needed to be present on earth for priests to bring sin offerings to. Hebrews 16 — Alister, I like this strand of thought and will certainly think about it a bit. But some immediate concerns emerge. Yes, we do have access to God, but we always did.

He entered to offer atonement. We access our Father now on this earth by prayer, they did also. I think the point of no man entering the Holy of Holies rests on the issue of that atonement, the Most Acceptable Sacrifice that the annual offering pointed man toward. Offerings were not new to the Temple periods. Righteous Abel offered outside of the sacrificial system long before. I like this idea, but having some difficulty with the whole of the thought.

He is, as you stated, the Lamb. He is the High Priest. The veil did not prevent access, for a man entered each year. Perhaps the Cherubim who guard the gates of Gan Eden might. Still, the idea has created something of an itch in the back of my mind. Thank-you for your comments Chris, there is plenty to chew on there.

I feel I have made my comments to long in the past, and have given a fairly brief outline to my train of thought above. It would take me to long to try to answer what you have asked and will look into it more in the future, however I would like to hear your thoughts as to what I try to put across.

Maybe together we might be able to work out something more comprehensible. We are purified by HIS cleansing Blood. The Hebrews had to carry out a ritual sin offering for forgiveness. As you known in front of it was an enormous Curtain, the Veil.

I might add that most of the other religions in those days had a special temple for their god although their gods were made of wood, stone or some earthly construction. After the veil was torn what was behind could be viewed by anyone, usually only the other priests , who might come into the Holy Place, i. I doubt that any one did go through that gap but the possibility was there. I am sorry that I am inclined to get a bit long-winded, but I hope this helps a little.

I will try to follow up on the other things you have mentioned in the future. I have often wondered how the High Priest was able to enter the Most Holy place by drawing aside the heavy curtail while carrying blood. This would seem that the Holy Place would have then been explosed. Someone has suggested that the veil somehow overlapped, something like a maise enabling the High Priest to enter without touching it.

If that was so it could account for the suggested differences in the thickness of the veil. Someone on your site suggested that he may have entered at the side which could be a possibility. I would like to hear your take on this and thanks for all the good material. By: Earle Sheffield on November 10, at pm.

It was a linen cirtain held up in four places by golden hooks. I imagine the high priest just went to the end of the curtain and pulled it aside with one hand wide enough for him to fit and walked through. After he passed gravity would close it. I think that perhaps years of a dominant gentile doctrine has skewed our thoughts enough that we have difficulty with these things. None of us escape it, for it has been the lot we received from our forefathers. Connections between what is old and what is new are superficially taught to us and we are generally satisfied with the milk and never crave the meat.

Further, we are ignorant of the languages Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew from which these things are founded upon. We can know these things and are the richer in our faith for them. That is why I said earlier how I appreciate these chats. It is meat.

The text is living. It cannot be divorced from the larger concepts and precepts of the whole of the text. So when we say that we now enter the Holy of holies, we must give the precedent for it. Nothing is new, but rather a perfecting picture of the old.

The old does not disappear either, but is absorbed into the new. So if we are told that we can be confident that we now enter the Holy of Holies by His blood, then we can deduce that the other bloods of the past priests are now of no effect. But this does not negate that they were acceptable previously, because they looked forward in faith to the sacrifice of our Master.

And we know they were acceptable. We could as well deduce just how we will enter by looking at how the priests entered; by virtue of the High priest, but not physically themselves. So how is the text reconciled? The atonement offering was a complete covering for Israel.

If it was accepted by God, then Israel was accepted also, if only until the next Yom Kippur. We know our atonement is once for all time because His offering was acceptable to God in perpetuity. By that we enter into the Holy of Holies in the Heavenlies, but as I said, access does not change for us or those who preceded us. Regarding differences, again we must see the picture as being perfected.

It is a misconception to say that the Jewish people had to carry out ritual sin offerings for forgiveness. The Yom Kippur sacrifice was the correction for the errors of the previous year.

God gave the halacha, the way of walking, but they must perform it in faith. Did not that same God give us a way of walking?

Must we perform it to the letter of love to be acceptable to Him? We strive in the same faith with those who came before us offering sacrifices. We both look for our deliverance from the same Messiah, the same blood. If the Tabernacle was made visible, we must deduce that God was no longer there or the death toll from those who looked on would not escape the authors of history.

No such event is recorded. What is recorded is in the Pauline letters and Acts, where we see that the disciples did not neglect the Temple Worship and further at Shovout, Pentacost, 50 days later the Spirit was poured out from the upper room, generally understood as the upper room of the Temple court. The breach Hebrew; Peretz is a messianic term but I still struggle with this. I just do not know. Perhaps our God would do us a kindness and open our eyes. Thank-you Chris, As I mentioned before I find your perspective very interesting.

I merely seek it as an honour to you. Please forgive me if this inappropriate! Yes, knowledge of the Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew give a great depth of meaning, as does also knowledge of the Jewish culture in those days. They are things I would like to more about them. I fully agree with you concerning your paragraph concerning the living text. G Yes the act of sacrifice and the blood of sin offerings of an innocent third party was given by and acceptable to GOD.

And so the story goes on through other sacrifices throughout the Bible. Looking forward to seeing your further comments. I am a nurse and have no difficulty moving through curtains with my hands full, using my elbows to move the curtains aside. Elaine, The passing through the veil was not as base as you might suppose.