p. 6 | History of the Hebrew Sanctuary by John O. Corliss

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 27, 1910

History of the Hebrew Sanctuary

By John O. Corliss

Its Earliest Dawnings

J. O. CORLISS

A SANCTUARY is a “place set apart,” a sacred, or consecrated, place. The word is now frequently used in the sense of a refuge, or hiding-place, but its original intent was simply a consecrated place of worship. We are informed that Abel made sacrificial offerings to the Lord (Gen. 4:4; Heb. 11:4); but it is not known whether he had some regular, specified place set apart for this purpose or not.

The earliest intimation of a dedicated altar for worship is when Noah came forth from the ark, and offered upon an altar one of every kind of clean beasts saved from the flood. The result of this act was the promise of God to care for the needs of all Noah’s descendants. Gen. 8:20-22. The next account (and this but a bare mention of the fact) of the erection of an “altar unto the Lord,” was when Abraham, more than four hundred years later, journeyed to Shechem, along the level land of Moreh. Gen. 12:6, 7. God appeared to Abraham there, but we do not know the nature of the patriarch’s altar offerings at that time. Soon, however, Abraham removed from this location to a nameless mountain just east of Bethel. In that “high place,” separated from the Canaanitish influence of the plains, he not only “builded an altar unto the Lord,” but also “called upon the name of the Lord.” Verse 8. Shortly after the establishment of this “house of God,” Abraham proceeded to Egypt to escape the rigors of famine which had spread over central Palestine. Returning from Egypt about three years later, the patriarch sought his sanctuary on the rocky hill of Bethel, and there worshiped the Lord as hitherto. Gen. 13:3, 4.

This first “high place” was long held in sacred memory by the descendants of Abraham, because of its continued recognition by God. More than one hundred fifty years after its establishment, the trouble between Jacob and Esau culminated in the former leaving his father’s tented home in Beer-sheba, for the long northeastern journey to Haran, the home of his mother’s ancestors. On his way thither he halted for his first night’s repose on the rocky summit of a certain hill in central Palestine. On the hard ground he sought needed rest, when in the visions of night the stony eminences above him formed into one grand stairway whose top extended into the very heavens. On that long line of steps angels of heaven came and went, revealing to the wanderer that he was the subject of God’s solicitous care. From the top of this angelic passageway the voice of Jehovah came thus to Jacob: “Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land.” Gen. 28:10-15.

Awaking in profound astonishment at the thought of meeting God in such a place, Jacob immediately concluded that he was indeed at Bethel’s “high place,” which had been made sacred by his grandfather’s dedication. He was not before aware of his nearness to that location, but his experience in meeting God there convinced him that it could be none other than the identical spot of Abraham’s “house of God,” and hence the very “gate of heaven.” The place at once became “dreadful,” “full of awe,” and Jacob there vowed to give his life service to his infinite protector. In confirmation of this solemn promise, he took the stone upon which his pillow had rested, set it on end, and poured oil upon it, calling it Bethel,—“the house of God,” or “the place of worship.” This stone was long held by the people of Israel as a memorial of God’s watchful care over their ancestor; and “Shepherd, the stone of Israel,” was a cherished name of the “God of Jacob.” Gen. 49:24; Isa. 28:16.

Returning to Abraham’s experience, we learn that from the vantage-ground of this very spot, Lot had chosen to go to the rich Jordan valley, and dwell among the corrupt inhabitants of Sodom. After this, the voice of God was heard commanding the sturdy patriarch to arise, and “walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.” Having at last completely separated from Lot, the only remaining relative of his father’s house, from which he was commanded to withdraw (see Gen. 12:1, 2), all the country was henceforth to be his, and for his seed alone. In obedience to this “voice,” Abraham removed from the “high place” of Bethel, and pitched his tent amid the “oaks” (Gen. 18:4) in the plains of Mamre, “which is in Hebron.” There he built another altar unto the Lord. Gen. 13:17, 18.

For nearly a score of years Hebron remained the permanent dwelling-place of the patriarch, and his place of worship as well. It was here that he entertained the angels who were on their way to destroy Sodom. But becoming desirous of changing his location, Abraham went toward the south, and located in Gerar. Having made a covenant with Abimelech, the king of that country, concerning a well of water, Abraham called the place “Beer-sheba,” that is, “the well of the oath.” Gen. 21:31. Here the patriarch lived “many days,” or nearly forty years, and did not fail to plant there the usual “sacred grove.” Gen. 21:33. At the end of these “days” he again started northward, and at Kirjath-arba, which is also called Hebron, Sarah died. Standing up by the side of his lifeless companion, Abraham pleaded, as a stranger, for a place in which to bury his dead. From Ephron, the Hittite, he bought the field and cave of Machpelah, and there buried the mother of his long-promised son. Gen. 23:3-20. About that memorable spot was destined to cling the reverence of ages. It became the final resting-place of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca; there Jacob buried Leah, and his own embalmed body was later transported thence from Egypt to repose in the sepulcher of his fathers. Of all the patriarchal family, Rachel alone was interred elsewhere.

In the distribution of Palestine to the tribes after the conquest of that country, Hebron and its adjacent territory fell to Judah, upon the petition of Caleb, who had traversed its fruitful valleys as one of the twelve spies, sent to obtain information of the nature of the country and its inhabitants. But looking at the course of events of that period, especially of that of bringing back from there the famous cluster of grapes as a sample of the fruit of the land (Num. 13:22-24; Joshua 14:6-9), one is led to

conclude that those events were especially ordered to lead up to a predetermined issue,—that of Judah’s occupation of a country wherein he might be found “binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine,” and washing “his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes.” Gen. 49:11.

It does not require a severe stretch of imagination, either, to recognize the relation of this prophecy to that of Isaiah, in which he evidently refers to the Lord Jesus with “dyed garments,” and with clothing like one that “treadeth in the winefat.” Isa. 63:1-3. The correlation of these texts seems more truly warranted when one thinks of Christ’s fleshly relations as identified with the tribe of Judah. And further, when one considers that Christ’s fleshly descent was not only of Judah’s race, but that the shedding of his blood was also the antitype of Israel’s gory ritual, and of all that it signified, these prophetic expressions must weigh heavily in deciding that the import of all those early rites was intended to point to him as the center of hope for all the ages of the past.

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