Bible chapter guide

Exodus 26

The tabernacle itself: ten linen curtains embroidered with cherubim, a tent of goats' hair over them, coverings of rams' and fine leather, an upright frame of acacia boards in silver sockets held by bars, and a veil that divides the holy place from the most holy.

Summary written for the Labs; read the chapter itself for the full text.

What happens in this chapter

The instructions move from the furniture to the house that holds it. Ten linen curtains worked with cherubim are joined by fifty gold clasps into a single inner covering, and over them go eleven curtains of goats' hair, then rams' skins dyed red and an outer hide. Underneath stands a frame of forty-eight gold-covered acacia boards, each set in two silver sockets and held together by five bars on each wall. A veil hung under the clasps divides the holy place from the most holy, with the ark behind it and the table and lampstand in front, and an embroidered screen on five pillars closes the east end.

What the lab shows, and where to look

The Tabernacle lab's tent is built from this chapter. Open the Tent and use Layers to peel the four coverings off one at a time; the linen with its cherubim, the innermost layer, is what a priest saw as his ceiling. Explode frame lifts the boards out of their silver sockets so you can see the two tenons on each board. Then go to the Veil. The board counts and curtain sizes are the text's; the thickness of the boards, the shape of the sockets and the flat roof are reconstruction, and each card says so.

Questions people ask

How big was the tabernacle tent?

Exodus gives the boards, not the room. Twenty boards a cubit and a half wide make each long side 30 cubits, and the boards stand 10 cubits high; the width of 10 cubits is worked out from the six boards and two corner boards at the back, so it depends on how those corners are read. With a cubit of about 45 cm the tent was roughly 13.5 m long and 4.5 m wide and high: a long, narrow room.

Strongly supported

How big was the Most Holy Place?

Exodus never says. The veil hangs under the clasps (26:33), and on the usual reading the clasps fall 20 cubits in from the entrance, where the two sets of five curtains meet. That leaves a room 10 cubits long, wide and high at the back: a cube, as the inner room of Solomon's temple was a cube of 20 cubits (1 Kings 6:20).

Strongly supported

What was the outer covering made of?

The Hebrew word, tachash, is uncertain. KJV reads 'badgers' skins', a reading now widely doubted, and the Chinese Union Version 'seal skins'; other proposals include sea cow (dugong), dolphin, a fine kind of leather and a colour term. The lab draws plain grey-brown leather and marks the identification as speculative.

Speculative

Was the roof flat or pitched?

The text does not say. Most reconstructions, the lab's included, lay the coverings flat over the boards and let them hang down the sides. In the nineteenth century James Fergusson argued for a ridge pole and sloping sides, which would shed rain and stop the linen sagging; Exodus gives the curtain sizes but nothing about a roof line.

Plausible

See it in the Labs

Walk through the tabernacle in 3D

Places

Mount Sinai Holy Place The most holy place (debir)Holy of Holies

Also in this chapter

The Tent (Tabernacle proper)Tent Door Screen Linen Curtains with Cherubim Veil The veil The Tabernacle Tent Coverings Rams' Skins Dyed Red Outer Covering (Tachash Skins)Boards (Frames)Silver Sockets Bars and Rings Goats'-Hair Curtains

How sure can we be?

Textually stated
The tabernacle was built according to a pattern shown to Moses on the mountain.
Stated directly in the text.
Textually stated
Each board was 10 cubits tall and 1.5 cubits wide; 20 boards on each long side.
Stated directly in the text.
Textually stated
There were 48 boards of 10 × 1½ cubits: 20 south, 20 north, 6 west and 2 at the rear corners.
Stated directly in the text.
Textually stated
The entrance faced east and the Most Holy Place lay at the west end.
The court's gate and the screen are on the east ('toward the sunrise'), the six boards on the west.
Textually stated
The table was on the north side and the lampstand on the south side.
Stated directly in the text.
Textually stated
There were four layers: linen, goats' hair, red rams' skins and an outer hide covering.
Stated directly in the text.

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King James Version (KJV) Chinese Union Version, 1919 (Wikisource)