tabernacle

Tabernacle (tăb`ərnăk'əl), in the Bible, the portable holy place of the Hebrews during their desert wanderings. It was a tent, like the portable tent-shrines used by ancient Semites, set up in each camp; eventually it housed the Ark of the Covenant. In the Book of Numbers, the Tabernacle is referred to as the "Tent of Meeting" when it functioned as the place for divine revelation to Moses. The Tabernacle rested in Shiloh before it was finally placed in Jerusalem. David kept the Ark of the Covenant inside it. During Solomon's reign, the Tabernacle was replaced by the Temple as a sign that God had given his people rest from their wandering. The term is also applied to the small receptacle, used in the Roman Catholic Church, in which the Host in the ciborium is reserved on the altar.

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Tabernacle

In Jewish history, the portable sanctuary constructed by Moses as a place of worship for the Hebrew tribes during the period of wandering that preceded their arrival in the Promised Land. Elaborately described in Exodus, it was divided into an outer room, the “holy place,” and an inner room, the Holy of Holies, which housed the Ark of the Covenant. With the erection of the Temple of Jerusalem, the Tabernacle no longer served a purpose. In modern Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, the tabernacle is the receptacle on the church altar in which the consecrated elements of the Eucharist are stored.

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tabernacle

1. Old Testament

a. the portable sanctuary in the form of a tent in which the ancient Israelites carried the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25--27)

b. the Jewish Temple regarded as the shrine of the divine presence

2. Judaism an English word for sukkah

3. a meeting place for worship used by Mormons or Nonconformists

4. a small ornamented cupboard or box used for the reserved sacrament of the Eucharist

5. the human body regarded as the temporary dwelling of the soul

6. Chiefly RC Church a canopied niche or recess forming the shrine of a statue

7. Nautical a strong framework for holding the foot of a mast stepped on deck, allowing it to be swung down horizontally to pass under low bridges, etc.