have been more ancient than that built by Moses by divine direction, yet, so far from there being any design of complying with the idolatrous heathen, the contrary rather appears, in that this tabernacle was ordered to be directly the reverse of theirs, both in its form and situation. In its form for, whereas the heathen tabernacles were carried about whole upon the shoulders of the priests, this was to be taken to pieces whenever it was to be removed. And as to the situation: whereas it was the general practice of the heathens to worship with their faces towards the east, God directed his tabernacle to be so placed, that the people should worship towards the west; for to that point the holy of holies stood, in which were the more special symbols of God's presence, and which the people were to face as they worshipped in the court at the east end of the tabernacle, where was the altar of their sacrifices, as will appear hereafter. This detects a mistake of Godwin's, who makes our cathedral churches answer to the Jewish tabernacle or temple, the sanctuary resembling the body of the church, the sanctum sanctorum the choir, and the court round about the tabernacle the churchyard; it being evident, that the form of these churches, in which the choir or chancel is placed towards the east, is directly contrary to the Jewish tabernacle and temple, and it is borrowed from the heathens, who placed their vasos to the east, and the πpovaios to the west. That the heathen idolaters worshipped towards the east, appears from the following passage of the prophet Ezekiel: "And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house; and behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs towards the temple of the Lord, and their faces towards the east, and they worshipped the sun towards the east," Ezek. viii, 16. And from Virgil, who, giving an account of Æneas's sacrificing before the battle with Turnus, saith, Illi ad surgentem conversi lumina solem, Dant fruges manibus salsas, et tempora ferro Æneid. xii, 1. 172-174. And accordingly many heathen temples have been converted * Vid. Vitruv. lib. iv, cap. v. into Christian churches, without any alteration in the form of the building. The tabernacle we are now to describe, though otherwise called a tent, because it was a moveable fabric, and because it had no proper roof, but was only covered with curtains or canopies of cloth and skin, was nevertheless built with extraordinary magnificence, and at a prodigious expense, that it might be in some measure suitable to the dignity of the king whose palace it was to be, and to the value of those spiritual and eternal blessings, of which it was also designed as a type or emblem. The value of the gold and silver only, used for the work of that holy place, and of which we have an account in the book of Exodus, chap. xxxviii, 24, 25, amounted, according to Bishop Cumberland's reduction of Jewish talents and shekels to English coin, to upwards of one hundred eighty-two thousand five hundred sixty-eight pounds. If we add to this the vast quantity of brass, or that was also used about this fabric, its court and furcopper, niture; the shittim wood, of which the boards of the tabernacle, as well as the pillars which surrounded the court, and other utensils were made (which, though we do not know what name the same wood bears now, was no doubt the best and most costly that could be got), as also the rich embroidered curtains and canopies that covered the tabernacle, divided the parts of it, and surrounded the court; and if we further add the jewels that were set in the high priest's ephod and breastplate, which are to be considered as a part of the furniture of the tabernacle; the value of the whole materials, exclusive of workmanship, must amount to an immense sum. This sum was raised, partly by voluntary contributions and presents, Exod. xxv, 2, &c., and partly by a poll tax of half a shekel a head for every male Israelite above twenty years old, chap. xxx, 11-16; which amounted to a hundred talents and one thousand seven hundred seventy-five shekels, that is, thirtyfive thousand three hundred fifty-nine pounds seven shillings and sixpence sterling, chap. xxxviii, 25. We may here remark, that this tax of the half shekel a man was, in after-times, levied yearly for the reparation of the temple, and for defraying the charge of public sacrifices, and other necessaries of divine service. This, as I have before observed*, was probably the tribute demanded of our Saviour, Matt. xvii, 24; from which, as it was paid to God for the service of his house, and the support of his worship, Christ, as being the Son of God, might, according to the custom of all nations, have pleaded an exemption, ver. 25, 26. However, that he might give no offence, he chose to pay it, though he was obliged to work a miracle to raise so small a sum, Matth. xvii, 27. Upon this general view of the prodigious expense of building the tabernacle, it may naturally be inquired, whence had the Israelites, who had not been come a year from their slavery in Egypt, and from labouring at the brick-kilns, riches enough to defray it? To this it may be answered +, 1st, That though the bulk of the people had been reduced to the condition of slaves, yet it may be reasonably supposed that some, especially of the posterity of Joseph, had preserved, and, it may be, concealed their wealth, till they had an opportunity of escaping with it out of Egypt. 2dly, Perhaps the wilderness, where they now were, might supply them with some part of the materials for this building; in particular the wood. Some tell us of a grove of shittim trees near mount Sinai, from whence they had their wood, with no other expense than that of labour. 3dly, Abarbanel conjectures, that the neighbouring nations came and traded with the Israelites in the wilderness, and that God blessed their commerce to the very extraordinary increase of their opulence. But the scriptures give no account of any strangers resorting to them at this time, besides Jethro and his family; probably the fate of their Egyptian enemies terrified the other neighbouring nations, and made them afraid to come near them. 4thly, The spoil of the Egyptians, who were drowned in the Red Sea, and whose dead bodies were providentially cast upon the shore, where the Israelites were, might very considerably enrich them, Exod. xiv, 30. 5thly, But we are chiefly to account for their riches by their having brought out of Egypt a very large quantity of gold and silver jewels, or vessels, as the word * See p. 57. chelè signi ↑ Vid. Witsii Miscell. tom. i, lib. ii, dissert. i, sect. x. fies, which were lent, or rather given them, by the Egyptians at their departure. For, by the command of God, chap. iii, 21, they "borrowed," or required" of the Egyptians jewels," or vessels," of silver and vessels of gold, and raiment. And the Lord gave them favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent," or gave, "them such things as they required," Exod. xii, 35, 36. The verb bw shaal, which in kal our translators have rendered "borrow," signifies more properly petere, to require or demand; and in hiphil, where they have rendered it "to lend," it denotes mutuum dare, to give*. This sense of the verb, in both the conjugations, is warranted by the following passage: "The Lord," saith Hannah, in reference to the birth of Samuel, "hath given me my petition, which I asked of him, bw shaalti; therefore also I have lent, b hishiltihu, given him to the Lord as long as he liveth. He shall be lent, shaul, given to the Lord," 1 Sam. i, 27, 28. Now some of those vessels, which were given to the Israelites, might probably be the silver bowls and chargers, and golden spoons, which were offered by the princes for the service of the tabernacle, Numb. vii. By this means the divine prediction and promise to Abraham was signally accomplished, "The nation whom thy seed shall serve, and who shall afflict them four hundred years, will I judge, and afterwards they shall come out with great substance," Gen. xv, 13, 14. Having cleared the ground, and provided the proper funds for building the tabernacle, we come now to erect the edifice, or rather to take a view of it as it was erected by Moses, according to the visionary model shown him in the mount, Exod. xxv, 40. The tabernacle was an oblong rectangular figure, thirty cubits long, ten broad, and ten in height; which reduced to English measure, according to Dr. Cumberland, who supposes it the Egyptian cubit, nearly equal to twenty-two inches†, was fifty-five feet long, eighteen broad, and eighteen high. The two sides and one end were composed of broad boards, standing upright; each board being about two feet nine inches broad, fastened at the bottom by two tenons in each board, fitted into two mortices in the foundation; at the top by links * Vid. Stockii Clav. in verbum. Essay on Jewish Measures, chap. ii, p. 56. or hasps, and on the sides by five wooden bars, which run through rings or staples in each of the boards. The thickness of these boards is not determined in scripture. Dr. Lightfoot makes it to be very great*; he supposes about nine inches, because the middle bar is said to shoot "through the boards from one end to the other," Exod. xxxvi, 33; that is, as he conjectures, through a hole in the body of the boards. And no doubt they must be of a very considerable thickness, if they were pierced with a hole big enough to receive a wooden bar, which, considering its length of fifty-five feet, could not be slender. But as boards or timbers of such a length and breadth, and of such a supposed thickness, would be almost unmanageably heavy, may we not rather conceive, that the middle bar, shooting through the boards from end to end, denotes only that it reached the whole length of the tabernacle, whereas the other bars reached but about or little more than half way? For though it is said, "the middle bar in the midst of the boards shall reach from end to end," Exod. xxvi, 28, there was no occasion they should all do so. Each side consisted of twenty of these boards, and the end of eight; which comes to about three feet more than the breadth of the tabernacle. Therefore if these eight boards stood together in a right line, the end must project considerably on each side of the building. But perhaps the two end boards of the eight stood in an angular position to the sides and the end of the building; for which reason they are distinguished from the other six, and called "the two boards of the corners of the tabernacle," ver. 23. These boards and these bars were all overlaid with gold; and their rings for the staves, and their hasps at top, were all of the same metal. The foundation on which they stood was also very costly and magnificent. It consisted of solid blocks of silver, two under each board. They were each about sixteen inches long, and of a suitable breadth and thickness; each weighing a talent, or about an hundred weight. Of these there were about an hundred in number, ninety-six of which were laid for the foundation of the walls of the tabernacle, under the forty-eight boards; and the other four were the bases of the columns that supported the veil or curtain, which divided the * See his Handful of Gleanings upon Exodus, sect. xxxiv. |