The New Student's Reference Work/Tabernacle

Tab′ernacle was the tent first raised by in the desert as a sign of God’s presence among the people. It was divided into the sanctuary proper, which formed the front part, and the holy of holies. A sort of court-yard, formed by curtains hung between columns, ran round the tabernacle. The entrance was toward the rising sun, and was shut in by another costly curtain, into which, as in the first covering, figures of cherubim were woven. The court was much larger on the eastern side, for here the people gathered to worship. Here also stood the altar, made of acacia wood, on which a fire was kept burning, and the brazen laver or basin. The sanctuary contained the gilded table holding the show-bread, the golden candlesticks and, in the center, the golden altar of incense, upon which the high priest burned incense morning and evening. In the holy of holies was kept the ark of the covenant, an acacia box gold-plated and gold-lined, in which were kept the two tables of the Ten Commandments. On top of the ark were the two cherubim, and between them the symbolical presence of Jehovah — the shechinah. Only once a year, on the Day of Atonement, did the high priest enter the holy of holies, while the sanctuary was the ordinary place of the priests, and the court that of the Levites. The Levites had charge of the tabernacle, carrying it from place to place on the march of the Israelites. The tabernacle was permanently set up in Shiloh, and was probably removed to Nob and thence to Gibeon, from which seems to have carried it away that all the nation might worship at.