TABERNACLE ( La t. tabernaculum, dimin utive of toberna, hut, booth; connected with plink, board, table, tablet, tulle, on a table). A portable sanctuary which, ac cording to the traditional view, was carried about by the Israelites in the wilderness. The coin manil to build this structure is found in Exodus xxv. 10-xxvii. 19. and the account of its con struction in almost identical terms in Exodus xxxvi. 8-xxxviii. 31. While it is called a tent, it was in reality a house, having upright walls made of thick boards on three sides, and a our fain on the fourth. The wooden framework had four coverings, one of linen, one of black goats' hair, one of rains' skins dyed red, and one of the skins of wethers. In front the curtain was fas tened to pillars made of acacia wood, with cop per bases and capitals covered with gold. This structure was divided into two parts, separated by an inner enrtain, supported by four pillars with bates of silver and wholly overlaid with gold. The outer and larger apartment was 'the Holy Place,' accessible to priests only ; the inner, `the lloly of Holies,' was entered only once a year by the high priest. Around the sanctuary was a court inclosed by curtains supported by sixty pillars of wood with bases of bronze and capitals overlaid with silver. In the Iloly of Holies stood the Ark of the Covenant; in the Holy Place the table of shewbread, the golden candlestick, and the altar of incense; in the court stood the brazen altar pf burnt-offering and around it were ash-pans, shovels, bowls, forks. and fire-pans of brass. while in the middle was the great brazen layer. The tabernacle is de scribed as being of extraordinary splendor and of the costliest materials. It stood in the centre of the camp, and was carried by a large retinue of men when the camp moved. Modern scholars generally regard the description as wholly imag inary and devoid of historical value. It is con sidered as having been drawn on the basis of Solomon's temple and projected into the Mosaic period. This is indicated not only by the im possibility of such a house being constructed and carried about in the wilderness, but also by the fact that the earlier records know nothing of a tabernacle of this kind. while an Ephraemitish
narrative has preserved the picture of a inueb simpler tent where Yahweh revealed Himself to Moses (Ex. xxxiii. 7 et seq.; .Num. xi. 25: xii. 5: xiv. 10). This 'tent of meeting' CrAel m6e'd) stood outside the camp and was only a small tent with a single custodian, and Yahweh re vealed Himself there in a cloud at the door. It is not impossible that the memory of such portable shrine, eommon to many nations, car ried about while they were still nomads, sur vived among some of the tribes that afterwards formed the people of Israel. Apparently the ark has its own history. and was not originally con nected with this tent. The tent plays no part in the early history of Israel in Canaan, while the ark is of great importance.
In the Roman Catholic Church tabernacle is the name given to the receptacle in which the consecrated elements of the Eucharist are re tained. By the present discipline, the tabernacle is commonly a small structure of marble, metal, or wood. placed above the altar, and of costly material and workmanship. Even when the ex terior structure is of marble or metal, there is commonly an inner receptacle of wood (prop erly cedar), lined with silk. The tabernacle is appropriated exclusively to the reservation of the Eucharist, and it is prohibited to keep within it any other object. A red lamp is kept con stantly burning before the tabernacle.
Consult: Colenso, Thc Pentateuch, and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined (London, 1862-79) ; Kuenen, De Godsdienst ran Israid (Haarlem, 1369) ; Wellhausen, Prolego mena zur Gcsehichtc Isracls (4th ed., Berlin, 1S95) ; Carpenter and Battersby, The Hexatcuch, (London, 1900) ; Kennedy, article "Tabernacle," in the Hastings Bible Dictionary (New York, 1902) ; Benzinger, article "Tabernacle," in En cycloperdia Biblica (London, 1903).