ilver, and a hanging of
fine-twined linen was stretched by means of silver hooks (9-13). The
entrance was twenty cubits wide, corresponding accurately to the width,
not of the tabernacle, but of "the tent" as it has been described
(reaching out five cubits farther on each side than the tabernacle), and
it was closed by an embroidered curtain (14-17). This fence was drawn
firmly into position and held there by brazen tent-pins; and we here
incidentally learn that so was the tent itself (19).

[FOR VERSES 20, 21, see page 423.]

We are now in a position to ask what sentiment all these arrangements
would inspire in the mind of the simple and somewhat superstitious
worshippers.

Approaching it from outside, the linen enclosure (being seven feet and a
half high) would conceal everything but the great roof of the tent, one
uniform red, except for the sealskin covering along the summit. A gloomy
and menacing prospect, broken possibly by some gleams, if the curtain of
the gable were drawn back, from the gold with which every portion of the
shrine within was plated.

So does the world outside look askance upon the Church, discerning a
mysterious suggestion everywhere of sternness and awe, yet with flashes
of strange splendour and affluence underneath the gloom.

In this place God is known to be: it is a tent, not really "of the
congregation," but "of meeting" between Jehovah and His people: "the
tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you, ... and
there I will meet with the children of Israel" (xxix. 42-3). And so the
Israelite, though troubled by sin and fear, is attracted to the gate,
and enters. Right in front stands the altar: this obtrudes itself before
all else upon his attention: he must learn its lesson first of all.
Especially will he feel that this is so if a sacrifice is now to be
offered, since the official must go farther into the court to wash at
the laver, and then return; so that a loss of graduated arrangement has
been accepted in order to force the altar to the front. And he will soon
learn that not only must every approach to the sacred things within be
heralded by sacrifice upon this altar, but the blood of the victim must
be carried as a passport into the shrine. Surely he remembers how the
blood of the lamb saved his own life when the firstborn of Egypt died:
he knows that it is written "The life (or soul) of the flesh is in the
blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to ma