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Signs and Symbols of Sacred Reality in Old Testament Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Kieran Heskin
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In this paper, I propose to deal with various sacred realities that helped the people of Israel deepen their relationship with God over the years: die Aik of the Covenant, the desert Tabernacle, the Temple, the Sabbath and other feasts, the synagogue, religious meals and creation itself.

Of all the sacred objects of Old Testament Religion, the one that must have ranked among the most sacred was the Ark of the Covenant. It was constructed at Sinai, according to the instructions of the Lord, from acacia wood (Ex. 25.10ff.). It was a box two and a half cubits long, one and a half cubits wide and one and a half cubits high. It contained the two tablets of the law (1 Kings 8.9), a jar of manna and Aaron’s rod (Ex. 16.33; Heb. 9.4). It was covered by a gold plate called the kapporet (die mercy seat) at either end of which, facing each other, there were cherubim. The Aik was not only a powerful symbol of the Sinai covenant, it was also a location of divine presence “There I will meet with you...”(Ex. 25.22).

The cultures surrounding Israel provide some insight into the culdc thought that lay behind the construction of the Ark. In the Ancient Near East there was a custom whereby a treaty document was often placed in a container which served as the footstool for a deity. Thus the decalogue was placed in its container, the Ark, and this then became God’s footstool.

The Tabernacle

The aik was housed in the Tabernacle or the Tent of Meeting.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 77 , Issue 900 , January 1996 , pp. 20 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 The case for this has been well presented by R. Patai, Man and Temple in Ancient Myth and Ritual (Ktav 1967) and M. Barker, The Gate of Heaven (SPCK 1991).

2 Thus understood for example by the author of 2 Enoch 8. 3–4 and by Philo (Sic M. Barker. The Gate of Heaven, p. 92).

3 M Barker. The Gate of Heaven, p. 113.

4 See Browne, R, The Gospel of John. Anchor Bible (Doubleday 1966)Google Scholar. ad. loc.

5 The General instruction on the Roman Missal. art. 33: “In the readings, which are interpreted by the homily. God speaks to his people. reveals to them the mysteries of redemption and salvation, and Christ himself, in the form of his Word, is present in the midst of the faithful”.

6 The lighting of the lamps “is almost certainly pre-Maccabean in origin” and the other two rites (the qiddush and the havdalah) are traced by rabbinical tradition to the Men of the Great Assembly (c. fifth century B.C.) sic C. Di Sante. Jewish Prayer: the origins of Christian Liturgy (Paulist Press translation 1991), pp. 154 & 157.

7 C. Di Sante, op.cit., p. 41.