HISTORICITY OF THIO MOSAIC TABEKNACLE. 



109 



mercy-seat, and the cberubini at either end, was. It was only 

 2-}^ cubits (o| feet) long; 1 i- cubits (2 feet 3 inches) broad, and 

 the same — 1| cubits — in height. 



This is a very cursory description, but it will suffice to 

 enable us to judge of the theory of the halving of Solomon's 

 temple. Beyond the fact that in interior length and breadth 

 the temple was twice the size of the tabernacle the theory has 

 very little support.* The tabernacle court is commonly 

 assumed to be half the dimensions of the inner court of 

 Solomon's temple. In reality it is the other way. Nothing is 

 known of tbe dimensions of the court of the temple, and it is 

 only by inference from the dimensions of the tabernacle court 

 (100 cubits by 50) that we reach the probability that the temple 

 court may have been 200 cubits long and 100 broad. There 

 is no certainty even about that. If it be so, is the fact that 

 the size is not mentioned in Kings not a reason for believing 

 that the description of the tabernacle is presupposed ? Passing 

 next to the tabernacle, it is again commonly assumed that the 

 holy place and holy of holies in that sanctuary had the same 

 relative proportions as in the Solomonic temple, only halved : 

 i.e., that the holy of holies was 10 cubits square, and the holy 

 place twice that length, viz. : 20 cubits. But it should carefully 

 he observed that this again is nowhere stated in the description, 

 which, on the contrary, explicitly declares that the veil dividing 

 the two places hung directly below the clasps of the curtain 

 ■overhead (Exodus xxvi, 33), i.e., presumably in the middle. 

 That is the only place it could be, on Mr. Fergusson's view of 

 the construction ; and even if that be rejected, it remains a 

 serious difficulty, for the shifting back of the joining of the 

 ■curtains (40 cubits long in all), 20 cubits from the entrance, 

 leaves a full 10 cubits to hang down at the back. I do not 

 wish to press this unduly ; I only wish to point out that the 

 usual assumption that the holy and most holy places were 

 modelled on the proportions of the temple has no support in 

 the text itself, which gives no dimensions at all. In other 

 respects the proportions do not agree. In the temple the 

 holiest place was 20 cubits in length, breadth, and height ; 



Mr. Fergusson, in his article "Temple," in Smith's D.B., while con- 

 tending strongly for the historicity of the tabernacle, gives too much 

 support to the halving theory when he writes of the Temple : " The first 

 thing that strikes us is that all the arrangements were identical, and 

 the dimensions of every part exactly double those of the preceding 

 ;structure." Mr. Fergusson's love of symmetry, as shown in the paper- 

 leads him here too far. 



