Some new tabernacle might seem to have been raised by Moses, which had not been before, but which Moses now first ordered to be built from the boards and skins that were at hand. But that that tabernacle was already before [in being], and not just any [tent], but some certain [definite] one, the text shows — which in Latin says: “Moses also, taking the tabernacle, pitched it far outside the camp.” In Hebrew: “and he took the [very] tabernacle” (not boards or skins) “and pitched it.” But some think this was Moses’s own [tabernacle] — and that in two ways. For it was either the very tabernacle in which Moses tarried with his whole family; or [one] which he kept set apart, and fitted for daily prayers. That former [view] pleases less, because from the text it appears there was another tent in which Moses dwelt with [his] family. For this [tabernacle] was fixed outside the camp; but in the camp itself Moses dwelt. And from these [i.e. the camp] he is handed down “to go out” to that tabernacle (v. 8), and from this [tabernacle] “to return” to those (v. 11). But of tabernacles and oratories set apart, for private prayers and meditations, in some part of a larger tent or house—
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—the use, both among the ancient Hebrews and among the Christians, I have shown [at] Judith ch. 8, qq. 3 and 4. In the Council of Orléans (ch. 3), this sanction is read: “It is permitted to each of the faithful to have an oratory in his own house, and to pray there; but to celebrate Masses there is not permitted”; and [it] is had [in the Decretum], De Consecratione, d. 1[0], “to each one.” And therefore this [tabernacle] seems very like [a tabernacle] for private prayers — especially if we note [that] in the Septuagint this is expressly called “the tabernacle of Moses”: λαβὼν Μωυσῆς τὴν σκηνὴν αὐτοῦ [Moses, taking his tabernacle]. Then, [there is] what I said before about the Hebrew, “he pitched it,” [which] could be rendered “he pitched [it] for himself.” Nay, the same opinion is [that] of certain Hebrews, and of Abulensis himself (q. 9), where he also adds [that], whenever Moses called the people’s princes and elders into counsel, they were wont to meet in this tabernacle — so that, namely, it was a sanctuary of prayer, and of counsel, of religion, and of prudence. For among the Gentiles too — the Romans especially — the senate could be consulted only in temples, as Varro teaches (in Gellius, book 14, ch. 7). To others it seems to have been the public tabernacle of the whole people. But again, in two ways. For to some — as to Rupert, the Ordinary Gloss, [and] Oleaster — it is that same tabernacle which is constantly celebrated in Scripture. For that is called [the tabernacle] “of the covenant” or “of the testimony”; and this name we see imposed on this tabernacle by Moses (v. 7). And the text speaks of the tabernacle as of a famous and known [one]. But than that public [one], what [is] more famous and more known? And that it was so, could be doubted by no one, if at this time — after those 46 days on Mount Sinai — that [public] tabernacle had [already] been. But this very [one] we see first erected afterward — on the first day, namely, of the second year from the exodus — whereas in the fourth month of the first year Moses and Joshua descended from the mountain (on the 17th day of that month, as the Jews will have it, or, as is gathered from what was argued above, on the 24th). But [some] will have there to be here a recapitulation; Abulensis and others, rather an anticipation. But to put such [things] into the text, unless a grave cause press, is not fitting — especially in history, such as this narration is. But why it had the name “of the covenant” or “of the testimony,” I shall tell afterward. Others reckon [that] this public tabernacle had begun among the Israelites long since — at once after the Egyptian liberation, and especially after the crossing of the Red Sea — so that it might be a place of public prayers and of divine worship. For scarcely is there any nation, city, army, or multitude of men — if indeed it be a little more civilized, and tempered by fixed laws — which does not have some public ceremony of religion, and a place [for it], not only in
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cities and firm seats, but also in longer marches and expeditions. Shall the Hebrew nation, then — which even from Abraham’s times guarded the true religion of the true God, [and] which was now journeying under so great and so divine a leader, and indeed slowly enough — have no public sacred [rites] at all? no religious observances and prayers? no public place? no ambulatory chapel? I see already, among his [Abraham’s] descendants — who nevertheless still rather sojourned in Canaan than dwelt [there] — that there were places of this kind dedicated to the administration of divine things. For when Rebecca felt the collision of the twins whom she bore in [her] womb, and, as it were, a certain battling in [her] belly, “she went, that she might consult the Lord” (Genesis [25], v. 22). Whither, I ask, did she go, unless to some sacred place where the Lord was publicly prayed to, worshipped, [and] consulted? — and therefore she also received that divine answer itself, which is subjoined there in the text.
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…she received [it]. And that that place was Mount Moriah — where Isaac had been, [when] himself bound and to be immolated — R. Eliezer says (ch. 31). Would there not, then, already, in that so great posterity of Abraham and Isaac, be any sanctuary at all, where the Lord could, with public piety, be worshipped, entreated, and consulted? Let us weigh that text which is in hand (Exodus 33, v. 7): “Moses pitched the tabernacle far outside the camp, and called its name the tabernacle of the covenant.” But what the use of this tabernacle was, follows: “And all the people, who had any question, went out to the tabernacle of the covenant outside the camp.” As if he said: the use of the tabernacle was then the same which it was before — namely, that in it the Lord might be consulted by the people, prayed to, and appeased; but, it being moved outside the camp, thither, outside the camp, those had to go who wished to inquire anything of the Lord. And this all began at once to do, without any new proclamation or declaration — and Moses especially, to whom, since it was before customary to frequent this tabernacle for the same causes, [now] goes out even outside, beyond the camp. And this exposition serves the purpose best. For it was a great glory and ornament of the Hebrews — [having] gone out of Egypt, [and] going into the promised land — to have in their camp an oracle of this kind, and a dwelling of the present Deity. But because of the worship of the calf, the Lord, now angry, bids all the people’s adornment be laid aside. And this was twofold. One, each man’s own and private; the other, public, and common to the whole people. Of the former it is said (v. 6): “The children of Israel, therefore, laid aside their ornament from Mount Horeb.” Of the latter (v. 7): “Moses also, taking the tabernacle, pitched it outside the camp” — and indeed “afar” — so that they might now be stripped of [their] highest public dignity and adornment, while the Lord so greatly disjoined himself from those [from] whom they themselves had before so wickedly disjoined [themselves], and had betaken [themselves] to the calf. But that same tabernacle had received some [share] of ornament and splendor, as it seems, from the spoils of the Amalekite battle. For thence too the people itself had taken very much of garments, necklaces, and ornaments of every kind. For therefore (v. 6) it is called “ornament from Mount Horeb,” because there [they] fought and triumphed. And the Hebrew word for “ornament” is variously rendered — by the Seventy, κόσμος [kosmos], “world/ornament,” of the holy [thing], “and a robe from Mount Horeb, and garments of glory” [ἐπιστολὴ / στολαὶ τῆς δόξης] — that is, “ornament, adornment, and splendid garments,” as I expounded in the Esther-harmony, chs. 5 and 14, fol. 580. And it was the custom of old that some [things] be transferred from the spoils of enemies to the worship of God — as in Gideon (Judges 8, v. 27), [and] in David (1 Kings [Samuel] 21, v. 9; 2 Kings [Samuel] ch. 8, v. 11): “Gold vessels, and silver vessels, and brass vessels, which King David also sanctified to the Lord, with the silver and gold which he had sanctified from all the nations which he had subdued — from Syria, and Moab, and the sons of Ammon and of the Philistines, and Amalek — and from the spoils of Hadadezer the son of Rehob, king of Zobah.” Such, then, this tabernacle seems to me to have been — [one] which, already before erected for the public religion of the Israelites, had lately been greatly adorned by the wealth of the Amalekites — which by the Seventy is called “the tabernacle of Moses,” because he had built it on this journey of liberation, [and] used it most — privately and publicly — whether he himself conceived private prayers or public [ones], while in it he meditated divine [things], addressed God, and even sometimes held the council, as Abulensis would have [it]. So that this opinion easily draws several of the foregoing into concord. And perhaps in it, at the beginning,
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…was the urn of manna (Exodus 16). Now this only remains: why Moses called it “tabernacle of the covenant”? Oleaster says it can be rendered “tabernacle of the testimony, of ornament, of exaltation or erection, and of congregation, or the Church” — deriving the Hebrew moed from various roots, namely; and he approves rather the last version, with Pagninus. And although all these interpretations can be accommodated to the [things] that have been said, yet that which is derived from hed [עד], that is, “to testify,” [is] truer to me — because our translator too, and the Seventy (who rendered “covenant of testimony,” διαθήκην μαρτυρίου), most approve it. It was indeed the tabernacle “of the covenant” — [the covenant] now, namely, broken and violated by the Israelites through the calf; it was “of the testimony” concerning the now broken and violated covenant. For therefore the Lord willed it to be drawn away from the polluted camp, contaminated by idolatry, and to be set afar off. Otherwise — since from the same root hed [עד] is born [also] “spoil” — why could the tabernacle not similarly be called “spoil,” seeing that it was (as I said) enriched and adorned from the spoil of enemies? But that it was drawn away from the camp and removed 12 mil — that is, as I say more fully at Acts 1, two thousand cubits — the Talmud reports (tractate Berakoth, ch. 9, fol. 23, col. 2).