The tabernacle, according to the Bible, was a sort of temporary makeshift version of a temple, which the Israelites used for a few centuries, before and after settling in the promised land.

Have you ever tried to make sense of the Bible’s descriptions of the tabernacle? I gave it a try, and now I don’t think it’s possible to make sense of it. The Bible does not do a good job of describing the tabernacle. At all.

The tabernacle is also known as the tent of meeting. But it says they also made a tent to go over the tabernacle. So that’s a tent for a tent. Why does a tent need to have a tent over it?

It says the tabernacle has a courtyard. I’m pretty sure a courtyard is an open-air area surrounded by a building. But this “courtyard” is actually way bigger than the tabernacle, with the courtyard surrounding the tabernacle instead of the other way around. Which makes it just a yard, not a courtyard.

There are a bunch of upright frames, each 1.5 cubits by 10 cubits. These seem to be the main thing that forms the main structure of the main part of the tabernacle. The total length of the tabernacle is 20 frames long, and then the shorter rear wall / west side / far end is six frames plus two more frames on the corners. It says those two corner frames “must be double“, but I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean. As a result, I don’t know how wide the tabernacle is supposed to be.

It says the tabernacle also has a bunch of curtains, which are apparently all attached together.¹ And so does the tabernacle’s tent.^{2 3} So where exactly do all these joined-together curtains go? It doesn’t really say.

It says each individual tabernacle curtain is 4 cubits wide and 28 cubits “long”. And each individual tent curtain is 4 cubits wide and 30 cubits “long”. But it’s unclear what this “length” measurement is supposed to mean. Curtains would normally have a width and a height, not a width and a length, right?

Interpreting “length” as height for the upright frames seems reasonable enough. But if “length” meant height, the tent for the tabernacle would be 30 cubits high. That seems awfully tall for an ancient mobile tent that was being used as a temporary substitute for a proper temple. And I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean the length along the perimeter of the tabernacle either, because…

• If the “lengths” were horizontal measurements, then what could the “widths” mean?
• If the “lengths” were horizontal, then the total length of the tabernacle curtains would equal the perimeter of the courtyard minus the courtyard entrance, and the tent curtains would equal the perimeter of the courtyard including the courtyard entrance, which could be covered by the folded curtain it mentions… But I don’t think that’s actually what these curtains are for, because it mentions making a courtyard only after it describes all the curtains and frames for the tabernacle and tent. So the courtyard seems to be a separate thing from this. And it has its own curtains, which are described separately.
• The “lengths” for the frames add up to more than the perimeter of the courtyard. So those “lengths” definitely can’t be horizontal, unless the tabernacle is actually bigger than the courtyard after all. Which it’s confirmed not to be: The “courtyard” surrounds the tabernacle.
• It says the tent curtains are “a cubit longer on both sides” (compared to the tabernacle curtains), and that the additional length of the tent curtains hangs down over the sides of the tabernacle. That certainly doesn’t sound like the “lengths” are horizontal.

Doesn’t sound like the “lengths” are vertical, either, if the whole thing isn’t hanging down over the sides. In fact, it sounds like these curtains are mainly laid across the top of the structure. It never actually says anything about putting the curtains on the roof, but that’s what this part about hanging down over the sides seems to imply.

So if you have approximately 40 cubits by 30 cubits of curtains,⁴ that would fit fairly nicely across the roof, sides, and back of the tabernacle, if the tabernacle was ten cubits tall and around ten cubits wide.⁵

Unfortunately, what the Bible actually says about how the curtains hang down makes a lot less sense: The tent curtains have a half curtain length (15 cubits) hanging down at the rear. Even though the folded extra curtain is at the front of the tent. And they also have one cubit of curtain hanging down on each side of the tabernacle “to cover it”. Even though the tabernacle is apparently 10 cubits tall, and certainly isn’t just one cubit tall.

And it doesn’t say anything about the tabernacle curtains hanging down anywhere, only the tent curtains. Even though the tabernacle curtains are almost as big when put together as the tent curtains are, and would not fit entirely on the roof without hanging down anywhere.

This post was going to be about making a floor plan for the tabernacle, but I don’t think it’s actually possible to do that properly based on such a bad description. People who have tried to make diagrams or models or replicas of the tabernacle must have done so by making up details that the Bible left out, and ignoring all the inconsistencies.