Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

476 Hebrews VIII. 5.
ing in chap. ix. shews, that he considered as the archetype of the
tabernacle not heavenly localiiies, hni heavenly relations and litarenhj
facts. (The holy life of Christ, in his state of humiliation, is the
heavenly sanctuary through which Christ must pass ;
the rending
of his body is the rending of the vail that separates him from the
holiest of all, etc. Comp. below on chap. ix. 11, and on chap. x.
20). Now, to these heavenly relations and facts of salvation the Mosaic
tabernacle stands in the relation of a copy and shadow. The
verb from which vrrodetyfia is derived, v-odeiKvvj.Uj has two significations
; first, it signifies to shew something privately to any one, to
let something be seen in an underhand way, hence v-rrodayna, a private
sign, secret token, and, in general, a mark or token ;
secondly,
it signifies also to illustrate something by examples, to draw from a
pattern, to copy, hence v-noduyiia, a copy, or also (in the profane
writers as well as in Heb. iv. 11) = Trapadeiyfia image, model, example.
In this passage, however, it has not the less proper signification
of image in the sense of Trapddeiynaj model, pattern, but the
proper signification of copy, so that it was not the Mosaic tabernacle
that was the -apaSeiyiia (the original from which the copy was taken),
but the heavenly things. The same idea lies in okui, but in a still
stronger form. The shadow of a body represents not even a proper
image of it, but only the colourless contour.
Now, that the Mosaic tabernacle was not aii original, hut the copy
of a heavenly original, the author proves from Ex. xxv. 40. In Ex.
XXV. 40 Moses is told to build the tabernacle according to the n^ian,
that is, plan (not model, comp. Is. xliv, 13, where, ver. 13, tlie
draught is first sketched, and then, ver. 14, the wood is sought for
completing it ;
also 2 Kings xvi. 10 ; 1 Chron. xxviii. 11, where
the signification " plan, sketch," is perfectly suitable, better certainly
than the signification "model")—according to the plan wliich
God shewed to him in the mount. These words already lead (as n-»:an
never denotes an independent original building, but always only a. plan
on a small scale by which one is to be guided in the construction—and,
even according to the common false explanation of the term, only a
model in miniature)—these \vords, I Siiy, already lead, not to the conception
that there had been shewn to Moses on Mount Sinai a large
real tabernacle ; still less, can the author's opinion of Ex. xxv. 40
be, that tlie original of the tabernacle stands permanently on Mount
Sinai (as later llabbins fabled), and least of all, that Moses looked
forth into the heaven from the top of Sinai, and saw there in heaven
the original structure. Either the words in Ex. xxv. 40 are to be
taken as a figurative expression (so that the description in icords, Ex.
xxv. 4, seq., was called figuratively a plan which had been shewn to
Moses), or, there was really shewn to Moses in a prophetic visvm the
draught of a building (comp. Ex. xxvi. 30), but still a draught or