Types of Christ · The Tabernacle's Furniture
The Veil
For about fifteen hundred years one curtain stood between Israel and the room where God said He would meet them. When Jesus died it tore — from the top down — and the letter to the Hebrews says what it had been all along.
The Curtain, and the Other Curtain
— Exodus 26 — most readers think there was one, and the argument in Hebrews depends on there being twoTHE ARTWORKGrünewald painted the Isenheim Crucifixion for a hospital chapel where men were dying of ergotism, and he gave the body on the cross their sores. It is the least decorative crucifixion in European art, and it is the right one for this page: Hebrews does not say the curtain pictured a beautiful idea. It says the curtain was His flesh — and Grünewald refuses to let a reader think about flesh in the abstract.
Exodus describes the curtain in the language of a workshop order: blue, purple and scarlet yarn, fine twined linen, cherubim worked into the cloth, hung on four pillars overlaid with gold. Then comes the sentence that makes it more than fabric — it divides the holy place from the most holy. And five verses later Exodus orders a second hanging, at the door of the tent, using a different Hebrew word.
Make a veil of blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and finely spun linen, with cherubim skillfully worked into it. Hang it with gold hooks on four posts of acacia wood, overlaid with gold and standing on four silver bases. And hang the veil from the clasps and place the ark of the Testimony behind the veil. So the veil will separate the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place.The veil itself — the colours, the cherubim, and the job: it divides the holy place from the most holy.
For the entrance to the tent, you are to make a curtain embroidered with blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and finely spun linen.The OTHER hanging — the screen at the door of the tent. Same tabernacle, different curtain, different word.
Thou shalt make a veil - פרכת parocheth, from פרך parach, to break or rend; the inner veil of the tabernacle or temple, (2Ch 3:14), which broke, interrupted, or divided between the holy place and the most holy; the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was standing. Compare Heb 9:8. The Septuagint constantly render it by καταπετασμα. Does not the Hebrew name פרכת parocheth moreover intimate the typical correspondence of this veil to the body or flesh of Christ?
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Methodist
Exodus 26:31
The apostle tells us, this veil, intimated that the ceremonial law could not make the comers thereunto perfect. The way into the holiest was not made manifest while the first tabernacle was standing; life and immortality lay concealed till they were brought to light by the gospel, which was therefore signified by the rending of this veil at the death of Christ.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Wesleyan
Exodus 26:31
Clarke is doing something worth slowing down for. He takes the Hebrew name of the curtain back to a root that means to break or rend — and then asks, in 1832, whether the name itself was pointing at the body of Christ. That is a question about a word, not a claim about a doctrine, and the page leaves it exactly where he left it.
פָּרֹכֶת
paroketh — the curtain
The inner veil: Exodus 26:31, then three times in 26:33 alone, then 26:35, the build record at 36:35, and again in Solomon's temple at 2 Chronicles 3:14.
מָסָךְ
masak — a screen
The other hanging — the door screen: Exodus 26:36, 26:37, and through the assembly account at 40:5, 40:8, 40:21, 40:28 and 40:33. Two words, two curtains, kept apart by the text itself.
Why the second curtain matters for reading HebrewsHebrews 9:3
Hebrews 9:3 says that behind the second veil was the part of the tabernacle called the holiest of all. The phrase only makes sense if you have already counted a first one — the screen at the door. Miss that, and the geography of Hebrews 9 goes fuzzy exactly where its argument needs to be sharp: there is an outer room a priest works in daily, and an inner room behind a second curtain that almost nobody enters at all.
Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place,The second veil — the phrase that requires two hangings, and gets them from Exodus 26.
Origen, preaching in the third century, describes the same arrangement from the priest’s side of it: two sanctuaries, one open to the priests and one that nobody but the high priest ever saw.
If the ancient custom of sacrifices is clear to you, let us see what these things also contain according to the mystical understanding. You heard that there were two sanctuaries, one, as it were, visible and open to the priests; the other, as it were, invisible and inaccessible. With the exception of the high priest alone, the others were outside.
Origen of Alexandria· Homilies on Leviticus 9.9.3, 253Church Father
Exodus 26:33
A Closed Door with a Stated Penalty
— Leviticus 16:2 — the veil is not a decoration, and the law says what happens if you treat it as oneAaron is the high priest, the man closest to God in the whole nation, and the instruction he gets about the curtain is a restriction with a consequence attached: he is not to come inside it whenever he chooses, or he will die. Once a year, on one appointed day, and never without blood.
That is the fact the whole page turns on. Everyone in Israel could see the tabernacle. Nobody could go in. The nearest anyone got was one man, one day a year, carrying blood that was not his own — and even he was warned.
Into this holiest of all none might enter, not even the high priest, save once a year, on the great day of atonement, and then only with the blood of atonement in his hands, which he sprinkled "upon and before the mercy seat seven times" (Le 16:14) --to signify that access for sinners to a holy God is only through atoning blood.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Matthew 27:51
The ritual itself — the two goats, the scapegoat sent away, the sprinkling seven times — belongs to its own page, and this one does not repeat it.
The Day of AtonementThe one day the curtain opened, walked through in full: the goats, the blood, the confession.And the LORD said to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron not to enter freely into the Most Holy Place behind the veil in front of the mercy seat on the ark, or else he will die, because I appear in the cloud above the mercy seat.Not at just any time — lest he die. The penalty is stated before the ceremony is described.
The artwork
Tissot painted the inside of the tent rather than the outside, and the hanging is the largest thing in the picture. Look at the scale of it against the two men: a reader who pictures a bedsheet has the wrong image. This was architecture in cloth, and its job was to stop people — which is why the interesting question about it is not what it looked like but what happened to it.
James Tissot, Moses and Joshua in the Tabernacle (c. 1896-1902) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The New Testament Reads the Curtain Itself
— Matthew 27:51 · Hebrews 9:8 · Hebrews 10:19-20 — the epistle names the antitype in wordsA great deal of typology is a reader’s inference. This is not. The New Testament takes the tabernacle curtain and tells us in a sentence what it stood for, and the sentence is not subtle: the new and living way into the holiest runs through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. Three moves get us there, all of them in the New Testament’s own words.
The direction of the tear
Read downward. The seam starts as one line and opens wider the further you go — which is the one thing Matthew troubles to tell us about how it tore.
1 · Exodus 26:31
Hung
Blue, purple, scarlet and fine twined linen, with cherubim worked into the cloth, on four pillars. It divides the holy place from the most holy — and it stays shut.
2 · Matthew 27:51
Torn — and torn from the top
At the moment Jesus died the curtain split in two, from the top to the bottom. A curtain that height is not torn downward by a man standing in front of it.
3 · Hebrews 10:19-20
The way in
Boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way — through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. The room nobody entered became the room believers are told to walk into.
When Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He yielded up His spirit. At that moment the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked and the rocks were split.He cried out, gave up His spirit — and the curtain tore in two, from the top to the bottom.
By this arrangement the Holy Spirit was showing that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still standing.The Holy Spirit was signalling something by the standing tabernacle: the way in was not yet open.
The vail of the temple - This was doubtless the veil, curiously performed, which separated the holy from the most holy place, dividing the temple into two apartments, Exo 26:31-33. In twain - In two pieces or parts. This was the time of day when the priest was burning incense in the holy place, and it is probable that he witnessed it.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New TestamentsPresbyterian
Matthew 27:51
While it (the first tabernacle, and that which represents the Levitical system) as yet "has a standing" (so the Greek, that is, "has continuance": "lasts"), the way to heaven (the antitypical "holiest place") is not yet made manifest (compare Heb 10:19, 20). The Old Testament economy is represented by the holy place, the New Testament economy by the Holy of Holies.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Hebrews 9:8
Barnes settles which curtain it was, and he settles it from Exodus: the one dividing the holy from the most holy. He also notes the hour. It was the time of the evening incense, which means a priest was at work in the outer room — and Barnes says only that he probably saw it, which is as far as the evidence goes.
The verse the page is built on
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way opened for us through the curtain of His body,Boldness to enter the holiest, by a new and living way — through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.
By a living way - The way of faith, whereby we live indeed. Which he hath consecrated - Prepared, dedicated, and established for us. Through the veil, that is, his flesh - As by rending the veil in the temple, the holy of holies became visible and accessible; so by wounding the body of Christ, the God of heaven was manifested, and the way to heaven opened.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
Hebrews 10:20
It is a way that Christ has consecrated for us through the veil, that is, his flesh. The veil in the tabernacle and temple signified the body of Christ; when he died, the veil of the temple was rent in sunder, and this was at the time of the evening sacrifice, and gave the people a surprising view into the holy of holies, which they never had before.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Puritan
Hebrews 10:20
καταπέτασμα
katapetasma — veil
Three are the tearing: Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:38, Luke 23:45. Three are Hebrews: 6:19, 9:3, 10:20. The word occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Half of its life is a curtain coming apart; the other half is an argument about what that meant.
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus our forerunner has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.The fourth of the six: hope as an anchor that goes INSIDE the veil, where Jesus has entered ahead of us.
What the earliest readers heard in the tearingJerome · Chrysostom, 4th-5th century
The tear was read early and read hard. Jerome takes it as disclosure — what the Law had kept covered was now uncovered and handed on. Chrysostom takes it as judgement on a house, and is careful to say Christ was not insulting the temple but declaring its occupants unworthy of Him. Both are reading the same event, and neither of them needs the other to be wrong.
(Verse 51.) And behold, the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The veil of the Temple was torn, and all the sacred mysteries of the Law, which were previously covered, were revealed and passed on to the Gentile people. In the Gospel, which we often mention, we read that the threshold of the Temple, of infinite size, was broken and divided. Josephus also reports that the angelic powers, the former guardians of the Temple, together cried out: Let us leave these seats.
Jerome· Commentary on Matthew, 420Church Father
Matthew 27:51
This cry rent the veil, and opened the tombs, and made the house desolate. And He did this, not as offering insult to the temple (for how should He, who saith, "Make not my Father's house a house of merchandise," but declaring them to be unworthy even of His abiding there; like as also when He delivered it over to the Babylonians. But not for this only were these things done, but what took place was a prophecy of the coming desolation, and of the change into the greater and higher state; and a sign of His might.
John Chrysostom· Homily on the Gospel of Matthew 88, 407Church Father
Matthew 27:51
Exactly when did it tear? Augustine checks the wordingMatthew 27:51 vs Luke 23:45
Matthew and Mark put the tearing after the death; Luke puts it alongside the darkness, before. Augustine works the grammar rather than smoothing it over, and concludes from Matthew’s and behold that the curtain tore at the moment Christ gave up His spirit. It is a small point, and it is the kind of care this site would rather show than hide.
(de Cons. Ev. iii. 19.) The wording sufficiently shows that the veil was rent just when He gave up the ghost. If he had not added, And, lo! but had merely said, And the veil of the temple we as rent, it would have been uncertain whether Matthew and Mark had not inserted it here out of its place as they recollected, and Luke had observed the right order, who having said, And the sun was darkened, adds, And the veil of the temple was rent in twain; (Luke 23:46.) or, on the contrary, Luke had returned to what they had inserted in its place.
Augustine of Hippo· quoted in the Catena Aurea, 430Church Father
Matthew 27:51
A sixth-century Greek reading of the same verseHebrews 10:20
The identification is not a Reformation discovery or a modern devotional flourish. Here it is in a Greek catena on Hebrews, stated flatly.
"through the veil." For all these good things have come to us through the flesh of Christ and His sacrifice. This also recently prepared the way to heaven, having walked it first. And rightly is the flesh of Christ called the veil. For when He …
Oecumenius· The Pseudo-Oecumenian Catena on Hebrews, 550Church Father
Hebrews 10:20
The artwork
Scott is one of very few painters who tried the scene at all, and the picture is small and strange. Almost every crucifixion in Western art puts you outside the city looking at a hill. Scott puts you inside, in the room, looking at a curtain — and at the priests who were the only people on earth in a position to see it happen, and about whom the Gospels then tell us absolutely nothing.
William Bell Scott, The Rending of the Veil (1869), private collection — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Moses' Veil Is a Different Veil
— 2 Corinthians 3 — a different word, a different object, and a covering that lies on a readingBecause both are called veils in English, these two get folded into one image constantly. They are not the same thing. Paul is not writing about the tabernacle curtain at all. He is writing about the cloth Moses put over his own face coming down the mountain, and then about something that happens when the old covenant is read aloud — a covering that sits on the reading, and comes off when a heart turns to the Lord.
But their minds were closed. For to this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant. It has not been lifted, because only in Christ can it be removed. And even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.The veil remains at the reading — and is taken away in Christ. Verse 16 is the hinge: when one turns to the Lord.
κάλυμμα
kalumma — a veil
2 Corinthians 3:13, 3:14, 3:15, 3:16, and nowhere else in the New Testament. A different Greek word from the tabernacle curtain's katapetasma. The vocabulary keeps the two images apart even where English does not.
This passage has been misused, and it is worth being plain about that. It has been read as though God were finished with the Jewish people and finished with their Scriptures. It says the opposite of the second, and Augustine — reading it sixteen hundred years ago — put the correction in one sentence. What is removed is the covering. What is uncovered is the Old Testament itself.
It is not the Old Testament that is done away with in Christ but the concealing veil, so that it may be understood through Christ. That is, as it were, laid bare, which without Christ is hidden and obscure. The same apostle adds immediately: "When you shall turn to Christ, the veil shall be taken away." He does not say: "The law or the Old Testament will be taken away." It is not the case, therefore, that by the grace of the Lord that which was covered has been abolished as useless; rather the covering has been removed which concealed useful truth.
Augustine of Hippo· The Usefulness of Belief 3.9, 430Church Father
2 Corinthians 3:13
Shall turn to the Lord - To Christ, by living faith. The veil is taken away - That very moment; and they see, with the utmost clearness, how all the types and prophecies of the law are fully accomplished in him.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
2 Corinthians 3:16
Notice how both men handle the direction of the sentence. Nothing is taken from anyone. The law is not cancelled and the prophets are not retired; a cover comes off and the reader sees what was under it the whole time. Replacement theology cannot be got out of this chapter without reversing the verb — and this site condemns it outright.
What Later Readers Added, and What Scripture Never Says
— the difference between a reading and a claim, kept visibleEverything above came out of the text. What follows did not, and the page says so rather than letting a beautiful idea travel under a borrowed passport.
Tradition, not the text
Three things the church has read into the curtain
- The four colours as four gospels — or as the four elements, in the older allegorists. Exodus gives the colours and gives no meaning for them. This is a preacher’s scheme laid over a materials list.
- The veil’s thickness — the famous handbreadth, and the horses that could not pull it apart. That figure comes from later rabbinic tradition about the Herodian temple, not from the Bible, which never gives a thickness at all.
- The cherubim as the Eden guard — the strongest of the three, and the page will teach it, as a reading. Genesis puts cherubim at the way back into the garden. Exodus puts cherubim on the curtain barring the way into God’s presence. The two verses rhyme, and the New Testament never joins them.
So He drove out the man and stationed cherubim on the east side of the Garden of Eden, along with a whirling sword of flame to guard the way to the tree of life.Cherubim, and a flaming sword, guarding the way to the tree of life — the verse the Eden reading is built on.
Where Scripture is silent
Five things nobody knows, and the Bible does not pretend to
- How thick the curtain was, or how heavy.
- Who saw it tear. A priest was almost certainly in the room, and the Gospels never say a word about him.
- What the priests did next, that hour or that week.
- Whether a new curtain was hung. The temple stood another forty years and the sacrifices went on; Scripture does not tell us what was hanging there.
- What the torn curtain looked like afterwards, or where it went.
The splendour of the Herodian veil comes to us from Josephus, a first-century historian, not from the Bible. That is a fine source for what the thing looked like. It is not Scripture, and this page does not quietly upgrade it.
A Room Nobody Was Allowed Into
— what the tear actually changed for a readerHebrews does not stop at explaining the curtain. It gives an instruction. Because the way is open, draw near — and the word it uses for the manner of it is boldness. That is a startling thing to say to people who had grown up knowing that the one man permitted through that curtain went in once a year and was warned he could die.
The curtain is on the other side of the room, too. What was behind it was not empty space: it was the ark, and on the ark the gold lid where the blood went. The veil is the door. The mercy seat is what the door was hiding.