Veil Of The Temple (part 3)

So now that these veils have been mentioned and discussed, the question could be posed as to why all of this matters?  Why is the veil so important?  Those who reported on the tearing of the veil obviously believed that they had an obligation to share it.  It is probably that those who would have been witnesses of the torn veil (whether they saw it take place, or whether they heard the reports and were able to do the work to tie it to the time of the Jesus’ death) were supposed to have drawn a specific conclusion from the event.  Also, because the Gospels continue the long-running narrative of the Scriptures, those who would come to read about the tearing of the veil are supposed to come to some type of enlightened or enlightening position based upon what was represented by that veil and the veils from the story of the covenant people.  Was the tearing simply supposed to illustrate the dramatic and ground-breaking event that had just taken place?  Clearly, it was far more than that.  To understand why it was so much more, we have to examine what could be seen on those curtains.

So what was on the curtains?  It has already been mentioned that they were made with blue and purple and scarlet and fine white linen, but they also bore an image.  What image did they bear?  Returning to Exodus, and to the directions for the veil of the Most Holy Place of the tabernacle, we read that “it is to be made with cherubim” (26:31b).  Images of cherubim were embroidered into these curtains.  Not only that, but cherubim were also worked in to the embroidery of all of the curtains of the tabernacle, as it can be read a few verses earlier that “The tabernacle itself you are to make with ten curtains of fine twisted linen and blue and purple and scarlet; you are to make them with cherubim that are the work of an artistic designer” (26:1). 

Cherubim, one comes to find, are an extraordinarily prominent feature of both the tabernacle and the temples.  It is another one of those topics that seem to receive an inordinate amount of ink in the Bible, though it may be overlooked.  The reader of Scripture is first able to learn about cherubim, in their relation to the tabernacle (temple), in connection with the Ark of the Covenant.  In the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus is found, “You are to make an atonement lid of pure gold… You are to make two cherubim of gold… Make one cherub on one end and one cherub on the other end; from the atonement lid you are to make the cherubim on the two ends.  The cherubim are to be spreading their wings upward, overshadowing the atonement lid with their wings, and the cherubim are to face each other… I will meet with you there, and from above the atonement lid, from between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will command you for the Israelites” (25:17a,18a,19-20a,22).  The very place where Israel’s God said that He would meet with Moses was to be, effectively, guarded by two cherubim.  This was not only true of the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, but it was also true of the curtains that marked off that place of meeting. 

Later in the book of Exodus, as the items for the tabernacle begin to be made---as the curtains are produced and as the Ark is built, cherubim are specifically mentioned numerous times (chapters 36 & 37), thus bolstering the fact that they should probably be paid some attention.  In the book of Numbers, “when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak to the Lord, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the atonement lid that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim” (7:89).  Again, a point is made to speak of the cherubim in connection with the place where the Creator God is to be met, and where He reveals Himself to His emissaries.  In the first book of Samuel, when the Ark is mentioned, specific reference is made to the cherubim (4:4).  In the second book of Samuel, when King David brings the Ark to Jerusalem, the cherubim are referenced yet again” (6:2).  When the same event is presented in the first book of Chronicles, once again, the cherubim are found (13:6).