ALTARS IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGE. THE TABERNACLE.-MEANING OF ITS NAMES.-MATERIALS USED IN ITS CONSTRUCTION.SHAPE AND DIVISIONS.-COURT OF THE TABERNACLE. - FURNITURE OF THE TABERNACLE.-SYMBOLICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TABERNACLE; ITS DIVISIONS AND ITS FURNITURE.-HISTORY OF THE TABERNACLE. THE TEMPLE.-ITS MATERIALS AND SITE. DIVISIONS AND FURNITURE OF THE TEMPLE.-SYMBOLICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TEMPLE.-HISTORY OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE.-ZERUBBABEL'S TEMPLE.-HEROD'S TEMPLE.ITS HISTORY.-SYNAGOGUES. DURING the patriarchal age no place was specially set apart for the service of the Almighty. The chosen people were then but a single family of wandering shepherds without any settled abode, or any central spot to which they could look as a sanctuary. In those 436 PATRIARCHAL ALTARS. وو days God was present wherever the piety of His servants erected an altar in His honour and called upon His name. Thus Noah after the flood "builded an altar unto the Lord" probably on the spot where he first stepped forth from the ark, and "the Lord smelled a sweet savour," or in other words accepted the sacrifices which were there offered (Gen. viii. 20, 21). Abram "builded an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him" in the plain of Moreh (Gen. xii. 7): when he removed to the plain of Mamre he “built there an altar unto the Lord" (Gen. xiii. 18): again he "built an altar on the mountain which the Lord appointed in the land of Moriah (Gen. xxii. 9): and the same pious act was repeated at Beersheba (Gen. xxvi. 25). Jacob erected an altar on the "parcel of a field" which he had bought of the children of Hamor (Gen. xxxiii. 19, 20): he also built an altar at Bethel "because there God appeared unto him when he fled from the face of his brother (Gen. xxxv. 7). No notice occurs of any building or enclosure set apart for the service of God during this period of the history of Israel. The altars were erected under the open canopy of heaven, the circumstances in which the Patriarchs were placed precluding the possibility of any permanent structure. But when the children of Israel had increased in the land of Egypt and came out thence a powerful and wealthy people, it was highly proper that there should be some visible token of the Lord's presence among them and some central spot where the tribes, which already constituted separate divisions of the people, should unite for the celebration of Divine worship. A permanent structure could not indeed be then erected, inasmuch as the people were still wanderers and were destined to spend forty years in the wilderness. The Lord therefore by the mouth of His servant Moses directed the preparation of a movable structure, similar in character to the tents in which : the people lived, but superior in size, and in the value of the materials out of which it was constructed. The names applied to it described aptly its nature and its object it was generally called the "Tabernacle" or tent, in reference to its structure: but sometimes "the tent [or tabernacle] of the congregation" (Ex. xl. 7, 12, 30), in reference to its use as a place of meeting between God and the people or between the tribes themselves: sometimes more fully "the tabernacle [or rather the dwelling-place'] of the tent of the congregation" (Ex. xxxix. 32, xl. 6, 29), thus specifying its double purpose as 'the dwelling-place of Jehovah, and the meeting-place of His people. Its designation originated with Moses himself, as recorded in Exodus xxxiii. 7, 9 :--“And Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of the congregation. it came to pass, that every one that sought the Lord went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation which was without the camp. And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses." And The materials of which the tabernacle was constructed consisted of various woven textures and coverings of skin, supported by uprights of wood, resting in sockets and kept in their places by bars or rods. The textures were of three kinds, (1) variegated work of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet; (2) the same with figures worked in it by the skill of the "cunning workman;" and (3) a commoner material made of goats' hair. The skins were of two sorts, either rams' skins dyed red, or the skins of an animal called in the Hebrew takhash, explained in our version to be a "badger," but more probably a 66 seal." These various substances are enumerated in the follow ing passages: "And Moses spake unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, This is the |