Tabernacle: the meaning of the mishkan, the dwelling of God

Behind the Latin word tabernaculum («small tent, hut») lies the Hebrew mishkan (מִשְׁכָּן), «dwelling, abode». The root is shakhan, «to dwell, to abide, to take up residence»: the mishkan is, literally, «the place where God dwells». From this same root derives the theological term Shekhinah, the divine «Presence» that dwells in the midst of the people — not a biblical name but a notion that Jewish tradition draws precisely from this verb.

The other name of the sanctuary is ohel mo'ed (אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד), «tent of meeting» or «tent of encounter»: mo'ed indicates the time and place fixed for the appointment between God and Moses. Two names, two emphases: mishkan speaks of the stable dwelling, ohel mo'ed speaks of the encounter. The Greek bridge passes through the Septuagint, which renders mishkan with skene, «tent»: a decisive word, because it will return in the New Testament applied to the Word who «pitches his tent» among human beings.

The tabernacle occupies an enormous block of Exodus: chapters 25-31 give the instructions, chapters 35-40 narrate the construction. The motivation is declared at the outset: «They shall make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell (shakhanti) in their midst» (Exod 25:8). Everything must be made «according to the pattern» shown to Moses on the mountain (Exod 25:9, 40).

The structure is concentric: a courtyard, then the Holy Place, then — beyond the veil — the Holy of Holies, where the ark of the covenant stands with the mercy seat and the cherubim above it. There, «above the mercy seat», God promises to meet Moses (Exod 25:22). When the work is finished, «the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the Dwelling» (Exod 40:34): the Presence takes possession of its dwelling. It is the image that the Letter to the Hebrews will reread in a heavenly key (Heb 9), making the earthly tabernacle the shadow of a sanctuary not built by human hands.

The tabernacle is the mobile sanctuary of the desert: a dismountable tent that accompanies Israel on the journey, before Solomon builds the fixed Temple in Jerusalem. This mobility is not a logistical detail — it says that the Presence walks with the people, encamps where Israel encamps, and sets out again when the cloud lifts (Exod 40:36-38).

Access was strictly graded. In the courtyard the priests officiated; into the Holy Place they entered for the daily rites; but into the Holy of Holies only the high priest could enter, once a year, on the day of atonement (Lev 16). The gradation of space translates the holiness of the Presence into architecture: the closer one comes to the dwelling, the narrower the access. When, centuries later, the sanctuary becomes the Temple, the idea remains the same: a place where the Name «sets its dwelling» (cf. Deut 12:11). The tabernacle is the mobile prototype of all this.

For Judaism the mishkan is the sign that God wishes to dwell in the midst of his people: the root shakhan and the notion of Shekhinah speak of a presence that draws near, that encamps in the same desert as human beings. The sanctuary does not «contain» God — the heavens do not contain him — but it is the place he chooses to make himself met.

The Orthodox and Christian tradition gathers this in a Christological key through a precise Greek verb. John 1:14 writes: «the Word became flesh and eskenosen among us» — eskenosen, «pitched his tent, encamped», from the same root as skene, the term with which the Septuagint translated mishkan. The evangelist is saying: what the desert tent foreshadowed now happens in the flesh of Christ. The Letter to the Hebrews completes the picture: the earthly tabernacle was a figure of the «heavenly» one (Heb 9:11), which Christ enters once for all. The mobile dwelling becomes the very person of Christ, the Presence who walks with us.

In common usage «tabernacle» has become the small gilded cabinet that guards the Eucharist: a legitimate meaning in Christian development, but one that has covered over the original word. There is a risk of forgetting that, at its root, tabernacle means dwelling — the mishkan, the tent in which God chooses to dwell with his people.

What is lost, forgetting this, is the thread that links Exodus to John. If «tabernacle» is only liturgical furnishing, one no longer feels that John 1:14 is saying something enormous: the Word «pitched his tent» — made himself the new mishkan. And one fails to grasp why the evangelist chooses precisely that verb, eskenosen. Recovering the sense of «dwelling» does not devalue the liturgical use: it roots it. The small tabernacle of the altar makes sense because the great tabernacle of history exists — the Presence that chose to dwell among us, first in the desert tent, then in the flesh of Christ. It is not erudition: it is rediscovering the weight of a word.