INTRODUCTION

‘Make the tabernacle with ten curtains of finely twisted linen and blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, with cherubim woven into them by a skilled worker. All the curtains are to be the same size—twenty-eight cubits long and four cubits wide. Join five of the curtains together and do the same with the other five. Make loops of blue material along the edge of the end curtain in one set and do the same with the end curtain in the other set. Make fifty loops on one curtain and fifty loops on the end curtain of the other set, with the loops opposite each other. Then make fifty gold clasps and use them to fasten the curtains together so that the tabernacle is a unit.’ Exodus 26:1-6

The covering embroidered with cherubim was the innermost covering over the sanctuary. It was this covering that formed the actual tabernacle, in the specific sense of Exodus 26:1 / Exodus 36:8. The cherubim embroidered covering also formed the ceiling of the tabernacle, looking up from inside the sanctuary.

The cherubim are there, reminding us, perhaps, of two things.

1. The cherubim were placed at the east of Eden ‘to keep the way of the tree of life’, Genesis 3:24.

To ‘keep’ in Hebrew means to observe, keep watch over, preventing Adam and Eve from returning to partake of the tree of life. Here in the Tabernacle, the Cherubim are overseeing what goes on inside the Sanctuary.

2. The cherubim are among those in heaven who bow the knee to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ, Philippians 2:10 / Revelation 5:11-14, so He is truly Head over all things to the church.

The Book of Exodus does not give us the precise pattern of the embroidery, but we are told that the colouring was ‘blue, purple, scarlet and white’ the colour of the fine twined linen’, Exodus 26:1.

These colours are not new to us because we see them at the door to the outer court, Exodus 27:16-17, and again at the door to the sanctuary, Exodus 26:36-37, they also appear in the veil, Exodus 26:31-37, the entrance ‘door’ to the Holy of Holies.

They speak of Christ’s heavenliness, His royalty, His saviourhood, and holiness, as seen in the four Gospels. The reappearance of these colours inside the Sanctuary, embroidered on the ceiling, reminds us that it is the Beloved Son in His fourfold character who is Head over all things to the church, Ephesians 1:22.

John, one of the disciples closest to Jesus, declares, ‘we beheld His glory, glory as of an only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth,’ John 1:17. As we progress closer and closer to the presence of God in the tabernacle, we too need to behold His glory, Colossians 3:1-2, and realise that what we can see is but a small part of the whole.

Since much of the embroidery hung over the external walls of the boards, Exodus 26:15-30, what was visible from the inside was only a small part of the whole. They were ten individual curtains, to begin with, every thirteen metres by two metres approximately, Exodus 26:2 / Exodus 36:9.

Five curtains were then coupled together with one another, and likewise the other five. Then the two by five metre curtains were looped together, Exodus 26:4-5 / Exodus 36:10-12, using fifty golden clasps to make one enormous embroidery thirteen metres wide and almost nineteen metres long, Exodus 26:6 / Exodus 36:13.

Coffman, in his commentary, says the following concerning the gold.

‘The meaning is that only the most desirable and costly things that men knew were capable of being used as symbols of such things as the presence of God, the heaven of heavens, the holy Church that in time would appear, the Word of God, and other realities depicted.’