Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Hebrews 9:1-10, The two rooms and their furniture
The first covenant had a sanctuary on earth: an outer room with the lampstand, the table and the bread, and behind the second curtain the most holy place with the golden altar of incense, the ark and the cherubim. Priests entered the first room daily and the high priest the second once a year with blood, a sign that access to the holy place had not yet been opened.
Hebrews 9:1-10, in every translation this tool compares.
The writer walks through the layout of the wilderness tabernacle, from the outer room with its lampstand and table to the inner room with the ark and the cherubim. Priests served daily in the outer room, but the inner one admitted the high priest alone, once a year and carrying blood. For the writer this arrangement was itself a message: while the first tent stood, the way into God's presence stayed closed, and its gifts could not cleanse the worshiper's conscience.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/the-tabernacle\/","n":"The tabernacle and its heavenly pattern","s":"The tent sanctuary Israel carried through the wilderness, with an outer room for the priests and an inner room, the holy of holies, for the ark. Moses built it to a pattern shown on the mountain, and many Jews thought of the earthly sanctuary as a copy of a heavenly one.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/high-priest\/","n":"The high priest","s":"The head of Israel's priests, from Aaron's line, who offered for his own sins and then the people's and alone went into the holy of holies, once a year. By the first century Herod and Rome named and removed him at will.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/day-of-atonement\/","n":"The Day of Atonement and the mercy seat","s":"Once a year the high priest went into the holy of holies with sacrificial blood, for his own sins and then the nation's. It was the one fast the law commanded, and the mercy seat on the ark was the place the blood was brought.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/temple-and-courts\/","n":"The temple and its courts","s":"Herod's huge rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, believed to be God's dwelling, laid out in courts that kept Gentiles, women and Jewish men at set distances.","r":""}
The writer follows the Old Testament tabernacle, not Herod's temple; by his day the manna and the staff were long gone (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes on 9:4). Josephus says the inner room of Herod's temple held "nothing at all" (War 5.5.5). The incense altar stood outside the curtain in Exodus, so Keener, the cultural backgrounds notes and the ESV Study Bible read 9:4 as saying it belonged to the inner room; the ESV Study Bible also allows that the jar and staff were later kept in the ark. The cultural backgrounds article on the tabernacle calls it "a portable temple"; most temples had lamps, since holy places were shut off from daylight, and an incense altar "to address the stench of burning sacrifices in closed spaces." Where other temples set the god's image, and even a bed for it, Israel's had neither (the article; Keener). Other Near Eastern priests went in daily to feed the image; Israel's high priest went in once a year (the cultural backgrounds notes on Leviticus 16:2). Josephus and Philo read the furniture as a map of the universe (Antiquities 3.7.7; Keener), while Wright reads the two rooms as two ages.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to Hebrews 9:1-10
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Hebrews 9:2, 9:4, 9:5 and 9:7, and on Leviticus 16:2
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Hebrews 9:4 and 9:7
- Josephus, The Wars of the Jews 5.5.5, trans. William Whiston
- N. T. Wright, Hebrews for Everyone, comment on Hebrews 9.1-10
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 3.7.7, trans. William Whiston
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article Function of the Tabernacle
