THE SANCTUARY by Uriah Smith

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 20, 1876

FromThe Review and Herald, Review and Herald, Vol. 47, No. 16.

THE SANCTUARY.

By Uriah Smith

Sixteenth Paper.—Points of History.

The object we now have before us, the tabernacle built by Moses, is one of exceeding interest. Its erection marks one of the most important epochs in the religious history of the world. Like the full orbed moon, shining with a light borrowed from a central sun, a new dispensation was now rising upon the world to reflect the glory of the coming ministration of the Messiah. A people long schooled in the furnace of Egyptian servitude, were now brought forth amid such displays of God’s consuming judgment, and overwhelming power, as were fitting to his purpose and to that occasion. Such a migration of an entire nation from one land to another the world had never seen. With that people God purposed to maintain henceforth a visible symbol of his presence; and this purpose called for the erection of a suitable dwelling-place. Of this he gave to Moses a pattern throughout, and calling Bezaleel and Aholiab endowed them with heavenly wisdom for their sacred work.

This marvelous structure, the tabernacle, was the result, with its gold plated walls, its gold covered furniture, its wonderfully embroidered curtains, its holy places, and its solemn service.

In the center of that vast camp of more than three millions of souls that tabernacle was set up, and over it stood in towering majesty the pillar of cloud, a shade and refreshment by day, but glowing like a blaze of fire, the light and glory of the camp by night, to govern and guide and guard that living multitude.

In and around this tabernacle, the Lord met with his people. There he told Moses he would commune with him. Ex. 25 : 22. There the Spirit came upon the seventy elders and they prophesied. Num. 11 : 24, 25. Thither Aaron and Miriam are called out, when they rebel against the servant of the Lord. Num. 12 : 4. There the glory of the Lord appears after the unfaithfulness of the twelve spies, Num. 14 : 10, and the rebellion of Korah and his company, 16 : 19, 42; and the sin of Meribah, 20 : 6. Thither, when there was no sin to punish, but a difficulty to be met, the daughters of Zelophehad came to bring their cause before the Lord. Num. 27 : 2. And there, when the death of Moses drew near, the solemn charge was given to his successor. Deut. 31 : 14.

For all these reasons, this structure is an object of surpassing interest, and entitled to our careful consideration; but chiefly for this, because Paul says plainly that this was the Sanctuary of that first covenant which immediately preceded and ushered in the present. It will be worth our while, therefore, to notice further the important place it held in that dispensation by looking at some of the chief features of its history.

According to the commonly-received chronology, the sanctuary made its entrance into the promised land on the 10th day of the first month, B. C. 1451. Up to this time, neither the children of Israel nor the sanctuary, had had any long continued abiding place. But now as the former enter upon their promised inheritance, the latter begins to be more permanently located.

The first encampment, after the passage of the Jordan, was in Gilgal. Josh. 4 : 19. Here it abode seven years, and was then removed to Shiloh, according to God’s promise that he would choose the place of its location. Josh. 9 : 27; 18 : 1. Shiloh was about 15 miles north from Jerusalem, and nearly in the center of the whole land. Here, according to our Bible chronology, it remained from B. C. 1444, to B. C. 1141, a period of 303 years. But Paul makes the time still longer; for he says that after the dividing of the land by lot, God gave them judges about the space of 450 years until Samuel the prophet. And it was not till after the call of Samuel the prophet that the ark was removed from its place by the infatuated and backslidden Israelites, and in the disastrous campaign which it was meant to redeem, fell into the hands of the Philistines.

This instructive episode in the history of the sanctuary demands a passing notice. In the long period of the continuance of the sanctuary at Shiloh, Israel had greatly apostatized from God. In the yearly feast and solemn dances, Judges 21 : 19, 21, the religion of Israel had sunk far toward the orgies of heathenism. Troops of women, shameless as those of Midian, assembling at the tabernacle as the worshipers of Jehovah, became the concubines of his priests. 1 Sam. 2 : 22, margin. “A state of things which was rapidly assimilating the worship of Jehovah to that of Ashtaroth, or Mylitta, needed to be broken up.” So God forsook his habitation, and raised up the Philistines to chastise his rebellious subjects into the right way again.

Israel unmindful of their only source of strength went boldly out to meet the enemy, but as any one might have foreseen, were routed before them. And now they were left to pursue a course which would show both to themselves and others how low they had fallen. They doubtless had learned how in former times their fathers had been beaten by their enemies when they took not the ark with them to battle, as in the case of the Canaanites, Num. 14 : 44, 45, and how they had succeeded with it around the walls of Jericho, and resolved that the ark should be brought forth, vainly supposing that that alone would preserve them, when the God of that ark had departed from them. Therefore in an evil hour the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts was carried forth by its adulterous priests, into the midst of a sinful and God-forsaken army. But God was not long in teaching them by sad experience that the ark was no safeguard against their enemies when their transgressions had cut them off from his strength. Smitten again before their enemies with great slaughter, they fled every man to his tent, the ark was taken, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.

Eli, the aged high priest, well-meaning but weak, so weak that he would suffer his sons to make themselves vile and restrain them not, so weak that he had permitted the ark to go forth under all these forbidding circumstances to battle, sat upon a seat by the wayside, anxiously waiting the result of the engagement; for “his heart trembled for the ark of God.” A messenger soon returned in hot haste from the army, and in four brief sentences made known to him the sum of their misfortunes: 1. “Israel is fled before the Philistines.” 2. “There hath been a great slaughter among the people.” 3. “Thy two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead.” Did not this bring the climax of his grief? No. All this, sad as it was, he bore with comparative composure; for there was another object which held a higher place in his heart, and for which he was more solicitous even than for these; and that was the precious ark of God; was the ark safe? The dregs of this tale of bitterness were yet to come: 4. “AND THE ARK OF GOD IS TAKEN.” And when this terrible report from the ark broke upon his ears, “he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died.” The ark of God was more deeply enshrined in the affections of this venerable but misguided man, than even the welfare of Israel or the fate of his two sons. In his anxiety for that he had overlooked all other calamities, but when his hopes in regard to this were crushed, and his worst fears realized, he could no longer endure the weight of such accumulated disasters. Nature yielded, and he found his own grave by the side of his sons whom he had failed to rule, and thus helped to precipitate this dire calamity upon all the country.

So dark was the cloud which Israel’s wickedness had raised to obscure the sun of their prosperity. They were now dishonored in the sight of the heathen. The name of the Lord would be blasphemed. The loss of the ark showed that God had departed from them; and the destruction of their nation and the ruin of their religion must have been to them no distant prospects. The language in which they embodied the burden of their woe was this: “The glory is departed from Israel; for the ark of God is taken.” And when in after years, the Lord would make the people understand the utter destruction he threatened against Jerusalem for still unchecked wickedness, he had only to say, “I will do to this house, as I have done to Shiloh, and make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.” Jer. 7 : 14; 26 : 6.

U. S.