Tents

A portable structure made of cloth or skins used mainly by nomads or semi-nomads. God's tent or tabernacle is a meeting-place with him.

Tents as portable dwellings used especially by semi-nomadic peoples

They were living quarters for God's people

Genesis 4:20 See also Genesis 12:8, Genesis 13:12, Genesis 18:1, Genesis 25:27; Numbers 11:10; 1 Samuel 4:10; 2 Samuel 20:1; 1 Kings 12:16

Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and raise livestock.

Sometimes women of distinction had their own tents

Genesis 24:67 See also Genesis 31:33; Judges 4:17–18

And Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah and took Rebekah as his wife. And Isaac loved her and was comforted after his mother’s death.

A tent housed the ark of God

2 Samuel 6:17 parallel 1 Chronicles 16:1 See also 2 Samuel 7:2; 1 Chronicles 15:1; 2 Chronicles 1:4

So they brought the ark of the LORD and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it. Then David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD.

Tents associated with other peoples

Judges 6:5 See also Genesis 9:27; Judges 7:13; Habakkuk 3:7

For the Midianites came with their livestock and their tents like a great swarm of locusts. They and their camels were innumerable, and they entered the land to ravage it.

Kings and armies camped in tents

Judges 7:13 See also Numbers 31:10; 2 Kings 7:7–8

And as Gideon arrived, a man was telling his friend about a dream. “Behold, I had a dream,” he said, “and I saw a loaf of barley bread come tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent so hard that the tent overturned and collapsed.”

Tents for storage

1 Samuel 17:54 See also Joshua 7:21–23

David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem, and he put Goliath’s weapons in his own tent.

Tents were illustrative of a nomadic life

Jeremiah 35:7; Hebrews 11:9–10 See also Genesis 12:8, Genesis 13:5, Genesis 13:18, Genesis 18:1–6, Genesis 20:13; Exodus 16:16, Exodus 33:8, Exodus 33:10; Numbers 1:50

Nor are you ever to build a house or sow seed or plant a vineyard. Those things are not for you. Instead, you must live in tents all your lives, so that you may live a long time in the land where you wander.’

By faith he dwelt in the promised land as a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Tents sometimes associated with sin

Job 8:22 See also Genesis 9:21 Noah's drunkenness; Numbers 16:26 the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram; Joshua 7:21–23 Achan's sin; 1 Kings 20:16; Job 4:21, Job 11:14, Job 12:6, Job 15:34, Job 18:6, Job 21:28, Job 22:23; Psalm 84:10

Your enemies will be clothed in shame, and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”

The construction of tents

Tentmakers

Acts 18:3

and he stayed and worked with them because they were tentmakers by trade, just as he was.

The materials used

Exodus 26:7 parallel Exodus 36:14 See also Exodus 26:14–29 parallel Exodus 36:19–34

You are to make curtains of goat hair for the tent over the tabernacle — eleven curtains in all.

Tent pegs and ropes

Exodus 27:19 See also Exodus 35:18, Exodus 38:20, Exodus 38:31, Exodus 39:40; Numbers 3:26, Numbers 3:37, Numbers 4:32; Judges 4:21; Isaiah 22:25; Zechariah 10:4

All the utensils of the tabernacle for every use, including all its tent pegs and the tent pegs of the courtyard, shall be made of bronze.

Colours of tents

Song of Solomon 1:5 See also Exodus 26:14

I am dark, yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon.

Pitching tents

Jeremiah 10:20 See also Genesis 26:25, Genesis 33:19; Judges 4:11; 2 Samuel 16:22

My tent is destroyed, and all its ropes are snapped. My sons have departed from me and are no more. I have no one left to pitch my tent or set up my curtains.

The metaphorical use of tents

As an image of creation

Psalm 104:2 See also Psalm 19:4

He wraps Himself in light as with a garment; He stretches out the heavens like a tent,

As a metaphor for death

2 Corinthians 5:1; 2 Peter 1:13–14

God's tent is a meeting-place with him

The tabernacle

Exodus 25:8–9 See also Exodus 26:1–37, Exodus 39:32

And they are to make a sanctuary for Me, so that I may dwell among them. You must make the tabernacle and design all its furnishings according to the pattern I show you.

The Tent of Meeting

Exodus 27:21, Exodus 33:7 See also Exodus 28:43, Exodus 29:10–11, Exodus 29:30, Exodus 29:44, Exodus 33:11; Leviticus 1:1; Numbers 1:1; Deuteronomy 31:14–15

In the Tent of Meeting, outside the veil that is in front of the Testimony, Aaron and his sons are to tend the lamps before the LORD from evening until morning. This is to be a permanent statute for the Israelites for the generations to come.[’’]

Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it at a distance outside the camp. He called it the Tent of Meeting, and anyone inquiring of the LORD would go to the Tent of Meeting outside the camp.

God ``tenting'' with his people

John 1:14 See also Exodus 25:8, Exodus 29:45–46, Exodus 40:34–38; Leviticus 26:11–12; Numbers 5:3; Deuteronomy 12:11; Ezekiel 37:27; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Revelation 21:3

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.