The Sanctuary and the Twenty-three Hundred Days of Daniel 8:14

11 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. STTHD 131.1

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. STTHD 132.1

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. STTHD 132.2

In and around this tabernacle, the Lord met with his people. There he told Moses he would commune with him. Exodus 25:22. There the Spirit came upon the seventy elders and they prophesied. Numbers 11:24, 25. Thither Aaron and Miriam are called out, when they rebel against the servant of the Lord. Numbers 12:4. There the glory of the Lord appears after the unfaithfulness of the twelve spies, Numbers 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. Numbers 27:2. And there, when the death of Moses drew near, the solemn charge was given to his successor. Deuteronomy 31:14. STTHD 132.3

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. STTHD 133.1

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. STTHD 133.2

The first encampment, after the passage of the Jordan, was in Gilgal. Joshua 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. Joshua 9:27; 18:1. Shiloh was about fifteen 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 four hundred and fifty 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. STTHD 133.3

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 tabernacles as the worshipers of Jehovah, became the concubines of his priests. 1 Samuel 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. STTHD 134.1

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 with the Canaanites, Numbers 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 the 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. STTHD 134.2

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 also a great slaughter among the people.” 3. “Thy two sons also, 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 that 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, a failure by which he himself had helped to precipitate this dire calamity upon all the country. STTHD 135.1

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. Jeremiah 7:14; 26:6. STTHD 137.1

How long the tabernacle remained in Shiloh after the capture of the ark, we are not informed. But it does not appear that God’s glory or the ark of his covenant ever returned to that building. The tabernacle next appears in the sacred record about seventy-nine years later, in the days of Saul, when we find it at Nob, 1 Samuel 21; Matthew 12:3, 4, a place about twelve miles west by north from Jerusalem. We again find it, twenty years later still, in the days of David and Solomon, at Gibeon. 1 Chronicles 16:39; 2 Chronicles 1:3. This was about eight miles north from Jerusalem. Here it remained thirty-eight years, till the building of the temple. STTHD 138.1

But where, during all this time, was the ark of the covenant of the Lord? We left it at the battle of Ebenezer, where it was captured by the Philistines, and the lament went up that the glory had departed from Israel, for the ark of God was taken. Being essential to the tabernacle, we must follow it until we find them together again. STTHD 138.2

The ark was retained in the land of the Philistines seven months. At Ashdod their god, Dagon, fell on two successive days before it, the second time his head and hands being severed, and nothing being left but the stump or fishy part of the old idol. The priests of Dagon hurried it off to Gath; and from thence it was taken to Ekron; and both these cities were sorely smitten on account of its presence. “So,” says the record, “they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to his own place, that it slay us not, and our people.” 1 Samuel 5. STTHD 138.3

The providence of God was equally conspicuous in its return to the Israelitish people. To test the matter whether their calamities had been inflicted upon them by the hand of the God of Israel on account of the presence of the ark among them or not, the Philistines proposed that the ark with the golden trespass-offerings should be put on a new cart, and that two cows, their calves being shut up at home, should be attached to the cart, and left to take their own course. If they went up toward the coasts of Israel, to Beth-shemesh, they would know that God had inflicted their evils upon them. But if the cows, according to their nature, should only seek their own home, they would know that it was only chance that had happened unto them. STTHD 139.1

It was done as they proposed; “and the kine took the straight way to the way of Beth-shemesh and went along the highway, lowing as they went.” Then the Philistines knew that something more than chance was seen in the events that had befallen them; and, filled with astonishment, they followed on behind it, even unto the border of Beth-shemesh. STTHD 139.2

“And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley; and they lifted up their eyes and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it.” 1 Samuel 6:13. But for presuming to look into the ark, without any occasion, and contrary to God’s order that not only was no one to look into it, but only the Levites were to touch it, the men of Beth-shemesh were smitten. How many? Our common version reads “fifty thousand and threescore and ten men.” But it is not probable that a small place like Beth-shemesh would have so many inhabitants, and by no means probable that so many would be engaged in wheat harvest even if we take into the account all the region round about. Josephus omits the fifty thousand altogether, retaining only the seventy. He says (Antiq. Jud., lib. vi. cap. i. sec. 4), “But the displeasure and wrath of God pursued them so that seventy men of the village of Beth-shemesh, approaching the ark, which they were not worthy to touch STTHD 140.1

(not being priests), were struck with lightning.” Dr. Clarke argues that the whole difficulty may be explained by supposing that in transcribing, a single letter was accidentally omitted, “the particle of comparison, ke, like, as, or equal to, before the word chamishshim: thus kechamishshim. The passage would then read: ‘And he smote of the people seventy men, equal to fifty thousand men;’ that is, they were elders or governors of the people.” And this, Dr. C. argues, would account for the reading of Josephus, “who in his recital would naturally leave out such an explanation of the worth of the seventy men, as his Roman readers could not easily comprehend such comparisons.” STTHD 141.1

From Beth-shemesh the ark was removed to Kirjath jearim, to the house of Abinadab, where it abode twenty years. It was during this period that all Israel lamented after the Lord. 1 Samuel 7:2. Then David gathered together all the chosen men of Israel and went to bring up the ark from Kirjath-jearim to Jerusalem, the city of David, to the tent which he had there pitched for it. 2 Samuel 6:1, 2; 1 Chronicles 13. But on account of Uzzah’s putting forth his hand to steady it, and being slain for his rashness, he not being a priest, and hence having no right to touch it, David was afraid, and would not remove the ark of the Lord unto him into the city of David, but carried it aside into the house of Obed-edom, the Gittite. There the ark continued three months; and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household. “And it was told King David, saying, The Lord hath blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the city of David with gladness.” 2 Samuel 6:9-12; 1Chron., chapters 15 and 16. Here it remained in the tent which David had pitched for it, till the erection of the temple, where we are soon to find the ark and the sanctuary together again, and the worship of God resumed in greater impressiveness and glory. STTHD 141.2