Basic HTML Version
broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright” (Lev. 26:11-13). Hence, sin
among the Israelites defiled God’s “dwelling-place” (Lev. 15:31; cf. Num. 19:13).
Whereas the “tabernacle” was mobile, the temple was built for the particular purpose
of religious worship: “… I have not dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up
the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have walked in a tent and in a
tabernacle” (2 Sam. 7:6). Solomon built it and the finished structure was known as “the
house,” the temple instead of the dwelling place (
=!
In later literature
is
a poetic synonym for “temple”: “I will not give sleep … until I find out a place for the
Lord, a
for the mighty God of Jacob” (Ps. 132:4-5). The meaning of
was also extended to include the whole area surrounding the temple, as much as the city
Jerusalem: “There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the
holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High” (Ps. 46:4), “the Lord loveth the gates of
Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob” (Ps. 87:2).
The defilement of the city and the temple area was sufficient reason for God to leave
the temple (Ezek. 10) and to permit the destruction of His “dwelling place” by the brutish
Babylonians: “They have cast fire into thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down
the dwelling place of thy name to the ground” (Ps. 74:7). In the Lord’s providence He
had planned to restore His people and the temple so as to assure them of His continued
presence: “My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall
be my people. And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my
sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore” (Ezek. 37:27-28). John comments
that Jesus Christ was God’s “tabernacle”: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt
among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full
of grace and truth” (John 1:14), and Jesus later referred to Himself as the temple: “But He
spake of the temple of his body” (John 2:21).
In non-religious use
is “the dwelling place” of an individual (Num. 16:24),
of Israel (Num. 24:5), and of strangers (Hab. 1:6).
The usual translation of
in the Septuagint is
(“dwelling; booth”),
which is also the translation for
, “tent.” It has been suggested that the similarity in
sound of the Hebrew
and the Greek
influenced the translation. Another
translation is
(“tent; dwelling; lodging”). The translations in the
KJV
are:
“tabernacle; dwelling place; dwelling; habitation.”
B. Verb.
(
'
, 7934), “to dwell, inhabit.” This verb, which occurs about 129 times in
biblical Hebrew, is found also in other Semitic languages. In Akkadian
$
, “to lay,
to set up, to be situated,” has many forms, such as the noun
, “dwelling place.”
One occurrence of the verb is in Ps. 37:27: “Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for
evermore.”
TO TAKE, HANDLE
(
*!
, 8610), “to catch, seize, lay hold of, grasp, play.” This verb is found in
both biblical and modern Hebrew. It occurs approximately 60 times in the Hebrew Old
Testament. The word is found for the first time in Gen. 4:21, where it expresses the idea