Jesus in the Tabernacle III
Next, Moses is instructed to build the lampstand, which sits in the holy place with the table for bread.
The lampstand is shaped like a styilsed almond tree. Picture a menorah, but with the cup each like an almond flower, seven of them. It is made of pure, hammered gold after a specific pattern.
It serves to shine light on the table of bread, sitting opposite it, just outside the holy of holies. It’s to be kept alight at all times (Exodus 27.21) that the tabernacle is set up. Later in the temple, the one turns into ten, much like the table, and they are lit perpetually (2 Chronicles 4). This is the lamp whose miraculous provision of oil is celebrated by Jews at Hanukkah.
The images
There are two important biblical images to notice. The first is the most obvious: light. The Bible starts with God making light, revealing himself in the darkness. Jesus is the light of the world (John 8), the one who reveals himself and by his light shows us all other things in their truth. Light is understanding, or revelation, and light is opposed to darkness.
The light shines in the darkness of the tabernacle to show that God is the light who shines in the darkness (John 1), most seen in the incarnation of Jesus.
Secondly, we should see that this lampstand is a tree. It’s very specifically shaped to look like one. Trees are a major image in the Bible. Genesis 1 has the birth of trees on day 3 and then on day 6 the birth of walking trees (notice how people are described in the same language). People and nations are frequently compared to trees. Most obviously we find the first test between two trees, the central crux when Christ is hung on a tree between two trees, and the final act in the new Jerusalem including a two-trunked tree.
This is probably the most potent way in which the tabernacle is shaped like another garden of Eden, it’s amongst the trees that we enter the presence of God. This motif is continued throughout the Bible.
Pretty much every time God meets with someone in the Old testament it’s under a tree. It’s no surprise then that the tabernacle contains this sign of God’s meeting with man. As well as light in the darkness, pointing our eyes to the bread—Christ our life—we also are reminded of what we need rescuing from and pointed to how rescue will come. The Cross takes us, by its light, to Jesus as our provision.
So, why an Almond tree? They aren’t mentioned much in the Bible, other than this description we have Aaron’s staff budding with almonds, and some references in Ecclesiates and Jeremiah that are suppose to point back to the Tabernacle, and some references in the Joseph cycle in Genesis which are a little more inscrutable (but inevitably connected, even if I haven’t figured it out).
The Bible’s own stories don’t make this clear, but the language gives us a clue. Hebrew is a language of closely connected words, and the Old Testament frequently makes puns on them. Almond sounds like the verb ‘to watch’ which can also mean ‘to be awake’ (Shaqed/Shaqad) and the word for ‘Almond shaped’ which is what’s used in the tabernacle description is identical to the verb ‘to watch.’ This is a watching tree.
That’s an evocative thought. The light in the temple is cast by a watching tree. Perhaps we’re meant to think of the calls for Israel to be watchman, waiting for the coming of the Lord to rescue and set right. That rescuing and setting right comes at a tree, which is what they’re watching for. The lit lampstand that lights the bread preaches a story: watch for the tree that will fruit with bread, a tree of life. Watch for the cross of Jesus.
If we wanted to be really cheeky we could call it the woke tree, but it doesn’t mean that at all. The tree that burns perpetually in the Temple—think of Moses’ burning ‘bush’—is there to say ‘stay awake he’s coming.’
The Church’s Light
The Church is supposed to be this sort of light in the darkness. Do we shed abroad the light that says ‘he’s coming back to rescue and set right’? We should.
Our weekly worship should carry a sense of watching, of waiting, of wakefulness. It should lead us to the cross, which in turn leads us to Jesus who feeds us. It should reveal Jesus and in his light teach us to view reality. We’re a people of light, a people of trees.
There’s a sense in which preaching is like the lampstand, the watching tree. We point to the truth and illuminate it. Especially the truth found in the others trees: bread and wine, life and wisdom, Jesus offered for us.
Photo by Gary Sankary on Unsplash
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