SKENE 11: from Tabernacle to Temple

We now move back in the NT to Stephen’s speech in Acts 7, though forward in time – the time when the Israelites’ 40 years in the wilderness have passed, and they have entered their promised inheritance in the land of Canaan; the Judges have been succeeded by Kings, Saul by David, and David by his son Solomon. David, as we have seen, had wanted to build a Temple for God to dwell in, but the prophet Nathan had brought back God’s reply that this would be Solomon’s task. Stephen summarises this in verses 46-7: “David found favour before God, and asked that he might provide a tent for the God of Jacob; but it was Solomon who built a house for him”. The word for ‘tent’ in v.46 (‘dwelling-place’, NIV) is ‘skenoma’, a member of the ‘skene’ family we have not met before, but which occurs twice more in the NT, in a metaphorical sense which we will come to later. But its use in the LXX is suggestive. In 1 Kings 2.28 Joab flees from King Solomon “to the tent (‘skenoma’) of the Lord”, and clasps the horns of the altar in supplication. But in the next verse it is reported to Solomon that “Joab has fled to the tent (‘skene’) of the Lord”. Clearly, the two words here are identical in meaning. In the Psalms, however, the word seems to suggest, as it were, a ‘half-way house’ between Tabernacle and Temple, and between God’s earthly dwelling-place among his people and his heavenly home. Psalm 15 begins: “Lord, who will dwell (‘paroikeo’, ‘sojourn’) in your ‘skenoma’, and who will pitch his tent (kataskeno’, another member of the ‘skene’ family) on your holy mountain ?” The rest of the psalm then describes the holiness needed to enter the presence of the Lord. The ‘holy mountain’ may suggest either Sinai, where the Tabernacle was shown to Moses in ‘outline’, or Mount Sion in Jerusalem, where the Temple would be built; but David seems more concerned to share fellowship with God than with any earthly structure. The ‘skenoma’ and the ‘holy mountain’ are once again linked in Psalm 43.3: “Send out your light and your truth; they have guided me and led me to your holy mountain and into your ‘skenoma’”. This Psalm is not Davidic, but we hear his words again in Psalm 26.8: “Lord, I love the beauty of your house, the place which is the ‘skenoma’ of your glory”. This, too, is echoed in the non-Davidic Psalm 84, which begins “How much-loved is your dwelling-place (‘skenoma’), o Lord”. In all these instances ‘skenoma’ is used in the plural, which further suggests that the psalmists are using the language of the Tabernacle and the Temple to express their love for the Lord and their longing to enjoy his presence. It is possible that these uses of ‘skenoma’ influenced Luke’s use of language in Acts 7. 46-7. Stephen, though a Greek-speaker, presumably addressed the Sanhedrin in Aramaic, and in any case Luke must have been reconstructing his speech from the memories of those who heard it (it must have made a big impression!). We have already noted in the immediately preceding verses his ironic repetition of ‘skene’ and ‘tupos’; in both these passages the subtlety of the actual wording must be due to his own artistry rather than to Stephen’s oratory. In these, subsequent, verses there seems to be a deliberate contrast between the ‘skenoma’ which David wanted to build and the ‘house’ (‘oikos’) which Solomon actually built. For this ‘house’ would be a Tabernacle in its essential purpose and its basic design – portico, holy place, curtain, holy of holies, i.e. the ‘first tent’ and ‘second tent’ pattern of Hebrews 9 – and a Temple in its eminence on Mount Sion, its magnificence and its permanence.