The building was divided into two apartments by a beautiful veil, and a similar veil closed the entrance of the first apartment. These were of magnificent colors—blue, purple, and scarlet—with cherubim woven in with threads of gold and silver to represent the angelic host.
The sacred tent was surrounded by an open space called the court. The entrance was at the eastern end, closed by curtains of beautiful workmanship, but not as spectacular as those of the sanctuary. People outside the court could see the building plainly. The bronze altar of burnt offering stood in the court. All the sacrifices made by fire to the Lord were consumed on this altar, and its horns were sprinkled with the atoning blood. Between the altar and the door of the tabernacle was the laver, the large bronze basin made from the mirrors that had been the freewill offering of the women of Israel. The priests were to wash their hands and feet at the laver whenever they went into the sacred tabernacle or approached the altar to offer a burnt offering to the Lord.
In the tabernacle’s first apartment, the holy place, were the table of showbread, the lampstand, and the altar of incense. The table of showbread stood on the north, and it was overlaid with pure gold. Each Sabbath the priests were to place twelve cakes, arranged in two piles, on this table. On the south was the seven-branched lampstand, its branches decorated with exquisitely-made flowers, all crafted from one solid piece of gold. The lamps were never all extinguished at one time, but gave their light day and night.
Just in front of the veil separating the holy place from the most holy and the immediate presence of God stood the golden altar of incense. Every morning and evening the priest was to burn incense on this altar; on the great Day of Atonement its horns were touched with the blood of the sin offering and sprinkled with blood. God Himself kindled the fire on this altar. Day and night the holy incense spread its fragrance throughout the sacred apartments and far around the tabernacle.
Beyond the inner veil was the holy of holies, the center of the symbolic service of atonement and intercession, the connecting link between heaven and earth. In this apartment was the ark, overlaid with gold inside and out, which contained the tablets of stone, the Ten Commandments. It was called the ark of God’s testament, the ark of the covenant, since the Ten Commandments were the basis of the covenant made between God and Israel.
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The cover of the chest was called the mercy seat. This was made of one solid piece of gold, with golden cherubim mounted on each end. The position of the cherubim, with their faces turned toward each other and looking reverently downward toward the ark, represented the reverence that the heavenly host have for the law of God and their interest in the plan of redemption.
Above the mercy seat was the Shekinah, the visible evidence of the divine Presence. Divine messages were sometimes communicated to the high priest by a voice from the cloud.
The law of God inside the ark was the great rule of righteousness and judgment. That law pronounced death on the law-breaker, but above the law was the mercy seat. On the basis of the atonement, pardon was granted to the repentant sinner. “Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed” (Psalm 85:10).
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