The study of the sanctuary is crucial for understanding the plan of salvation. This article seeks to address the issue of the relationship between the earthly and the heavenly sanctuaries. In the historical books of the Old Testament, is there a connection between the heavenly sanctuary and the earthly sanctuary as affirmed in Hebrews 9:23, 24? To answer this question, we will analyze the chronicler’s understanding of the link between Moses and David in the pattern they received for the earthly sanctuary and temple.
A caveat is in order at this point. For the purpose of this study, it is not necessary to know the exact dimensions of the heavenly sanctuary, for any finite building can at best shadily resemble that which is infinite. We ought to remember that God showed Moses the pattern of the sanctuary that he was to build, and “no earthly structure could represent [the heavenly sanctuary’s] . . . vastness and its glory.”1
The link to the heavenly sanctuary in the historical books
The earthly sanctuary symbolized God’s presence in a covenantal relationship with Israel, His chosen people (cf. Exod. 15:17, 25:8). Through the sanctuary, Israel would commune, worship, and interact with God. As with the tabernacle in the wilderness, Solomon’s temple became the locus of God’s Shekinah glory and the center of Israel’s worship; all the furniture and details of the tabernacle in the Holy and Most Holy places were transferred to the temple.
God’s presence demanded obedience from His people, beginning with their leader, be it Moses, Aaron, David, or Solomon. God’s dwelling in the earthly sanctuary by extension meant that He chose to dwell with His people, and this dwelling expected that His people, beginning with the king as their representative, would follow God’s law (1 Kings 6:12, 13). In fact, as long as the temple stood, the prayers of His people in or toward the temple were heard and answered by God from His heavenly abode (1 Kings 8:30, 39, 43, 49; 2 Chron. 6:21, 30, 33, 39; Ps. 102:19). God’s omnipresence demonstrates His ability to examine everything (cf. Prov. 15:3; Job 34:21; Jer. 16:17). While God is said to fill both heaven and earth, He is usually portrayed as looking from heaven (cf. 2 Chron. 16:9; Ps .34:15). God’s concretization of His presence was through His glory while filling the temple (cf., Lev. 9:6, 23; Exod. 40:34; 1 Kings 8:11; 2 Chron. 5:14; Ezek. 43:2). Therefore, His real dwelling would remain in heaven, whereas the earthly sanctuary was a representation and an assurance of God’s presence among His people (1 Kings 9:3).
The heavenly pattern: A survey of 1 Chronicles 28
The choice of the site where Solomon would build the temple— the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite—is a result of divine intervention. At this site the judgment and mercy of God met. The chronicler tells that for the sin of David taking a census of God’s people, judgment poured out and 70,000 people perished (1 Chron. 21:1–14). Seeing a repentant David, pleading for God’s mercy, God “relented of the disaster, and said to the angel who was destroying, ‘It is enough; now restrain your hand’ ” (1 Chron. 21:15).2 Because God ceased His judgment and revealed His mercy and forgiveness on the threshing floor of Ornan, David bought that threshing floor and vowed that there shall be “the house of the Lord God” (1 Chron. 22:1; 21:18–30). After erecting “an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor,” (1 Chron. 21:18), and after acknowledging that he himself was disqualified by God to build His temple because he had “shed much blood and [had] . . . made great wars” (1 Chron. 22:8), David passed on the divine commission to build the temple to Solomon.
To be sure, the chronicler connects the Israelite worship and rituals to the Mosaic laws.3 For example, when the Philistines captured the ark, he indicates how, in the days of King David, religious worship followed Moses’ commandments: “to do all that is written in the law of the Lord which He commanded Israel” (1 Chron. 16:40). Thus with the rituals in the temple of Solomon: during the time of the historical books they suffered no great change, since they followed the Mosaic directives (2 Kings 23:25; 2 Chron. 30:16; Ezra 3:2; 6:18; Neh. 1:7, 8; 8:14; 9:14, etc.).
As with Moses, David received every detail of Jerusalem’s temple through God’s inspiration. God explicitly directed Moses that he should build the sanctuary “according to the pattern” that was given to him “on the mountain” (Exod. 25:40; 26:30; 31:18).4 Moses’ heavenly vision and later David’s special inspired directives stand in parallel to underscore the fact that the sanctuary in the wilderness and the temple in Jerusalem were both directed by God’s disclosure of the sanctuary and the temple plans. When the chronicler states that “David gave his son Solomon the plans for the vestibule, its houses, its treasuries, its upper chambers, its inner chambers, and the place of the mercy seat,” the chronicler makes sure that Solomon knows the source of all these plans. He says, “And the plans for all that he had by the Spirit” (1 Chron. 28:11, 12). This undoubtedly refers to God as the source of understanding and direction that David had for the construction plans of the temple. Ellen White says it well: “David gave Solomon minute directions for building the temple, with patterns of every part, and of all its instruments of service, as had been revealed to him by divine inspiration.”5
In 1 Chronicles 28:19, David says that the “Lord made me understand in writing, by His hand upon me, all the works of these plans.” Thus, David acquired a capacity for a deep intuitive understanding of the plan for the temple. In addition, the Yhwh âlay, “Yahweh upon me” (v. 19) refers to a direct and divine activity through God’s Spirit (cf. Isa. 61:1; Ezek. 3:14; 2 Sam. 23:1, 2).6 This is a characteristic mode of expression for a prophet entering into a state of prophetic vision (cf. 2 Kings 3:15; Ezek. 1:3; 3:14, 22; 8:1; Isa. 61:1). Hence David, like Moses, received the instructions and insights for building the sanctuary through divine intervention.7
The Old Testament certainly shows that the sanctuary in the wilderness was patterned according to a heavenly model. Moses was not the originator of the tabernacle in the desert; rather, he built the sanctuary according to the pattern and the purpose of God (cf. Exod. 25:8; Lev. 20:3; Ps. 78:69). While it is true that David’s plan for the temple was not identical to the sanctuary in the wilderness in terms of size and materials, still both developed from a single sacred prototype concept of compartments—the Holy and the most Holy. God’s involvement in both, perhaps, presupposes a temple of heavenly origin, at least from human perspectives.
Pattern and reproduction
Yahweh revealed the plan to David as He did to Moses. In fact, God made Moses look upon the heavenly sanctuary. The term mar’eh, “to allow someone to see something (with one’s eyes)” (Exod. 25:9; cf. 1 Chron. 28:10)8 indicates how God showed Moses a pattern. Accordingly, the causative sense may have this literal meaning: “ ‘according to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it’ ” (Exod. 25:9). In addition, in Exodus 25:40, Yahweh commands Moses to visualize (imperative form of Râ’âh) the appearance in a dynamic vision. The verb mar’eh, “showing” implies that God allowed Moses, in a real image appearance, to see the original version (27:8). The noun mar’eh, “seeing,” “appearance,” or “vision,” in Numbers 8:4 lends support to this view.9 As the Mosaic construction was based on the tabnît, “pattern,” “copy,” or “reproduction,”10 the Davidic-Solomonic temple was also based on this important construct. First Chronicles 28:11, 12 puts it this way: “Then, David gave to Solomon, his son the plan of the porch and its houses, and its treasuries, and its upper rooms, and its inner chambers, and the room of atonement. In addition, the entire plan he had by the spirit with him11 concerning the courts of the house of God and for all the surrounding chambers: the treasuries of God’s house, and the treasuries of the votive offerings” (my translation).
The implications of tabnît
Verses 11 and 12, with the term tabnît, recall the Mosaic narrative of the tabernacle in the desert (Exod. 25:8, 9, 40). This is clearly what they understood when they built the sanctuary: the first temple was modeled upon the heavenly dwelling. God indicated to Solomon, “Concerning this temple which you are building, if you walk in My statutes, execute My judgments, keep all My commandments, and walk in them, then I will perform My word with you, which I spoke to your father David. And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake My people Israel” (1 Kings 6:12, 13; cf. Exod. 25:8; 29:45; Lev. 26:11).
The Septuagint renders tabnît to mean the heavenly original of the earthly tabernacle. In Exodus 25, the LXX twice translates tabnît by paradeigma, “that which is formed” (the same as in 1 Chron. 28:11, 18), whereas in verse 40 it translates the term by typos, “an object formed to resemble some entity.” The tabnît is the model of the sanctuary, and the word agrees with the book of Hebrews, where the heavenly sanctuary comprises the pattern for the earthly tabernacle (8:5, 9:24).
The substantive tabnît appears 20 times in the Old Testament.12 The basic meaning of this feminine term is “form,” “pattern” or “model.” It suggests properly the style or form of construction and is applied to other cases as well (Exod. 25:9, 40). The word is sometimes linked with the term samel, “image,” “sculpture,” as in temûnat kol-samel, “the model of any sculpture” (Deut. 4:16–18). It may also depict idols in a work of art, any male or female forms, and different creeping creatures. In Joshua 22:28, the term represents the reproduction of the divine altar. In 2 Kings 16:10, the term is differentiated with demût, “model,” which is more like an indistinct shape of something, whereas tabnît refers to an exact representation of it. Thus the term refers to the similitude of an existing model after which another structure is built or the sample of what has already been built.13
Conclusion
The historical books envision a temple in heaven, after which the earthly temple was based, as a copy of the heavenly “pattern” (Exod. 25:9; 1 Chron. 28:11, 12, 19). Regarding the first temple, the historical books signify that David’s pattern was based on the analogy between heaven and earth. Such a stance makes it possible to interpret the book of Hebrews in the light of the Old Testament understanding of the earthly sanctuary being a pattern of the heavenly sanctuary. The tradition of a heavenly sanctuary being a model for the earthly sanctuary reaches far back into the history of Israel. Exodus 25 and 1 Chronicles 28 indicate that the heavenly temple provided a pattern for the earthly. While God was the Designer and Originator of the sanctuary, Moses, David, and Solomon were only executive builders.
The God of Israel desired to dwell among His chosen people to accomplish His covenant with them. The earthly sanctuary conceptually associates to the heavenly, for the heavenly is the foundation and the true tabernacle from which all answers spring forth. Therefore, the relationship existing between the two temples is significant in the historical books. The earthly sanctuary relates to the heavenly, which is eternal and nontemporal, and where God’s true dwelling is indeed located. Moreover, the earthly sanctuary is perceived as a lower part supporting God’s activities from heaven. The earthly and heavenly sanctuaries are connected in a very close relationship as depicted in the historical books.
The heavenly needed the earthly to depict the plan of salvation—to show how the human problem of sin is solved from the sacrifices offered in the sanctuary or temple to the ultimate sacrifice in God’s redemptive plan: the Cross. To say this is not to miss the distinction between the earthly and heavenly sanctuaries. The heavenly sanctuary is the conceptual entity from which the earthly sanctuary draws its function and upon which it depends for its significance.
1 See Ellen G. White, Patriarch and Prophets (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1958), 357. Apart from the temple at Jerusalem, which is known only through 1 Kings 6, only one sanctuary has been found from Iron Age II: the temple of Arad. See V. Fritz, “Architecture,” Dictionary of Old Testament: Historical Books, ed. Bill T. Arnold and H. G. M. Williamson (Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 2005), 86.
2 Except as otherwise noted, all Scripture passages are from the New King James Version.
3 See Victor A. Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House: Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Mesopotamian and Northwest Semitic Writings, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series, vol. 115 (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), 25.
4 So does Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary, The Old Testament Library (Louisville, KY: Westminster, 2004), 535.
5 White, Patriarchs and Prophets, 751.
6 Frank B. Holbrook says the phrase “ ‘From the hand of the Lord concerning it’ (v 19) is a translator’s conjecture. The Hebrew reads: ‘from the hand of the Lord upon me.’ ” “The Israelite Sanctuary,” in The Sanctuary and Atonement; Biblical, Historical, and Theological Studies, ed. Arnold V. Wallekampf and W. Richard Lesher (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1981), 30.
7 Ibid.
8 Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner suggest that in hiphil the term may indicate that God may “let someone see something, or show someone.” Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), s.v. “mar’eh.”
9 Ibid.
10 Koehler and Baumgartner, HALOT, s.v. “tabnît.” R. G. Hamerton-Kelly considered Exodus 25:9, 40 to reflect to a heavenly model on which the earthly was patterned. “The Temple and the Origins of Jewish Apocalyptic,” Vetus Testamentum 20 (1970): 4.
11 Among the meanings of rûach is “breath” as support of life, though the semantic distinction with rûach meaning “the natural spirit of human being,” as “sense,” “mind,” “intellectual frame of mind” is difficult to draw. Koehler and Baumgartner, HALOT, s.v. “mar’eh.”
12 Exodus 25:9bis, 40; Deuteronomy 4:16, 17bis,18bis; Joshua 22:28; 2 Kings 16:10; 1 Chronicles 28:11, 12, 18, 19; Psalms 106:20; 144:12; Isaiah 44:13; Ezekiel 8:3, 10; 10:8.
13 The LXX uses three different words for tabnît: paradeigma: “model” (Exod. 25:9; 1 Chron. 28:11, 12, 18, 19); dedeigmenon, “make known” (Exod. 25:40); omoiôma, “representation” (Deut. 4:16, 17, 18; Josh. 22:28; 2 Kings 16:10; Ps. 106:20; 143:12 [H 144:12]; Ezek. 8:3; 10:8).
