Trevor Laurence
Throughout the Old Testament, the biblical authors describe God’s creation with a variety of architectural metaphors. God’s upper chamber is in the heavens (Amos 9:6), like a top-story room whose floor is the sky. The visible heavens are stretched out like a tent (Isa 40:22; Job 9:8). The earth rests on foundations (Pss 18:15; 82:5; 102:25; Prov 8:29). The world is supported by pillars (1 Sam 2:8; Ps 75:3; Job 9:6).
Psalm 104 brings together several such images to depict the Lord’s fashioning of the world as the construction project of a careful craftsman:
Bless the LORD, O my soul!
O LORD my God, you are very great!
You are clothed with splendor and majesty,
covering yourself with light as with a garment,
stretching out the heavens like a tent.
He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters;
he makes the clouds his chariot;
he rides on the wings of the wind;
he makes his messengers winds,
his ministers a flaming fire.
He set the earth on its foundations,
so that it should never be moved. (Ps 104:1–5)
It is tempting for modern readers to glibly attribute such architectural descriptions to pre-scientific conceptions of the cosmos, a relic of the misguided ancient imagination. Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Hubble had not yet arrived to set things straight, after all. But that misses the point entirely. Psalm 104 and other passages describe the act of creation as the building of a home, and God’s home is a temple.
The tabernacle in which God dwelt with Israel was enclosed with a tent covering stretched out across its top, and God stretches the heavens as a covering, pitching a tabernacle-tent across the world where he wills to dwell with humanity.1 God supports the world with pillars like those that held up the tabernacle and temple. He sets the earth upon secure foundations as Solomon erected the house of the Lord upon massive and costly foundation stones. The temple included upper chambers overlaid with gold, and indeed the Lord lays beams for his upper chamber upon the waters above the firmament.2
When the Bible describes creation like a house, that is because creation is a house, a house for the Lord, a temple for God to abide with his people. Our balking at the biblical authors’ architectural world imagery is due to our misguided imaginations, not theirs. We have fundamentally misunderstood the character and purpose of the universe and the sometimes subtle ways the Bible communicates them.
The foundation for the development of these architectural depictions of the cosmos as God’s temple is laid in the first chapters of Scripture. Genesis 1–3 never explicitly states, “The world is a temple,” but with an array of evocative associations between creation and God’s subsequent dwellings in the tabernacle and temple, these chapters proclaim that truth in a manner more vivid and immersive than any straightforward declaration ever could.3
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters (Gen 1:2).4 Atop Mount Sinai, the glory-cloud of God’s Spirit descended and dwelt (Exod 24:16), covering the summit and revealing to Moses a pattern of the tabernacle, a copy of the heavenly sanctuary (Exod 25:9, 40; cf. Heb 8:5). The Spirit of the Lord filled Bezalel “with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship,” (Exod 35:31; cf. 31:3) so that he could beautify God’s dwelling place. And God’s glory-cloud would eventually cover and fill up the completed tabernacle (Exod 40:34). The presence of the Spirit hovering over the waters at the beginning of creation signals that the work to follow is the erection of a house for the Lord, and the Spirit will skillfully beautify the creation in wisdom as a dwelling for God’s glory, bringing the pattern of heaven to earth.
And there was evening and there was morning, the first day (Gen 1:5).5 God’s instructions for the construction of the tabernacle are organized in seven speeches. Seven times in Exod 25–31, the refrain is repeated, “The Lord said to Moses.” This seven-fold structure occurs in Gen 1 as well, as the building of God’s creational temple occurs over the space of seven days. Interestingly, certain parallels exist between the seven speeches and the seven days.6 On the first day, God creates light—which Ps 104:2 likens to a garment of splendor and majesty in which God robes himself—and the rhythm of evening and morning first occurs, and in the first speech, the Lord gives instructions for tending the light of the lamp “from evening to morning” (Exod 27:21) and for Aaron’s holy garments, in which he is to be robed “for glory and for beauty” (Exod 28:2). The third day brings the gathering of the seas, and the third speech details the bronze water basin.7 The sixth speech commissions Bezalel and Oholiab to lead the construction and ornamentation of the tabernacle, and on the sixth day, God commissions humanity to participate in subduing the earth, bringing out the world’s potential and making it a dwelling fit for a King. The seventh and final speech commands Israel to observe the Sabbath, explicitly pointing back to the seventh day of creation when God “rested and was refreshed” (Exod 31:17).
“Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters” (Gen 1:6). On the second day, God fashions the firmament to separate (בדל) the waters above from the waters below. The blue expanse of the heavens divides God’s heavenly abode from the world beneath as the floor of God’s throne room (cf. Ps 104:3), and indeed when Moses leads the seventy elders of Israel up Sinai, they see under God’s feet “as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness” (Exod 24:10). Outside of Gen 1—which is intently focused upon the act of separating8—the next time this specific term for “separate” occurs is in Exod 26:33, where a veil of blue and purple and scarlet that mimics the colors of the sky “shall separate (בדל) for you the Holy Place from the Most Holy,” dividing the place priests regularly inhabit from the sanctuary that holds the ark of the covenant which is the footstool of God’s throne (cf. Ps 132:7–8; 1 Chron 28:2). We ought not be surprised, then, when the heavens “being torn open” (σκίζω, Mark 1:10) at Jesus’ baptism serves to preview the tearing (σκίζω, Mark 15:38) of the temple curtain at Jesus’ crucifixion.
“Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens…And let them be for signs and for seasons” (Gen 1:14).9 On the fourth day, God places lights (מָאוֺר) in the firmament in order to mark the seasons (מוֺעֲדִים). Elsewhere in the Pentateuch, the terms used in Gen 1:14 have a decidedly cultic connotation. In the Holy Place outside the veil, Aaron and his sons would tend “the light” (מָאוֺר, Exod 27:20; cf. 25:6; 35:14)—the luminary lamp that shone perpetually, and Lev 23 outlines the מוֺעֲדִים of the Lord, the appointed times and festal gatherings that Israel was to observe throughout the year. The lights in the firmament shine like the light in the tabernacle, and they proclaim the appointed times when God’s people are to gather in his presence. Intriguingly, the firmament that holds heaven’s lamps is also the place of clouds, as the Holy Place with the lampstand also contains the cloud rising from the altar of incense (Exod 30:1–10; cf. Lev 16:13). The curtains on either end of the Holy Place were both made with blue, purple, and scarlet yarn (Exod 26:31, 36), and whenever one looks up at the sun, moon, stars, and clouds in the colorful sky, one sees the creational counterpart of the Holy Place where lamplight shines and incense cloud rises within sky-hued curtains. To enter into the Holy Place was akin to stepping into the heavens.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion…” (Gen 1:26). The house of the Lord is not the only structure in the larger temple complex in Jerusalem. Connected to the Lord’s house, Solomon builds his palace (1 Kgs 7:1–12), and the house of the king resembles the house of the Lord in its three-part structure, building materials, and various specific features.10 The Davidic king of Israel, the son of God (Ps 2:7; 2 Sam 7:14) who represents God’s kingship to his people and the world, lives alongside the divine king. In much the same way, on the sixth day, God makes human beings and places them in his cosmic temple. He forms humanity in his image and likeness as the sons of God to exercise dominion over the created world and so mediate his kingship as his royal representatives. At creation and in Jerusalem, human royalty lives in the presence of and as neighbors to the King of Kings in his holy temple.
“And the Lord God planted a garden…” (Gen 2:8).11 God plants a garden in Eden, a lush and verdant space bursting with natural life and beauty, and he places Adam there to dwell with him. In 1 Kgs 6–7, God commands Solomon to ornament the temple where he will reside among and meet with his people with carvings of gourds, palm trees, open flowers, lily-work, and pomegranates. The temple is deliberately constructed to recall the flora of Eden. God’s house is a garden.12
“And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east…” (Gen 2:8).13 God’s dwellings on earth characteristically exhibit a tripartite structure—that is, three distinct sections with increasing degrees of holiness as one draws nearer to the presence of God. The temple comprised the vestibule, the nave, and the inner sanctuary (1 Kgs 6:3–5). The tabernacle was made up of the court, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place (Exod 26:33; 27:9–19). On a larger scale, Israel’s wilderness camp could be divided into the area outside the camp, the camp itself, and the tent of meeting at the camp’s center (Num 2:1–2). Similarly, Genesis’ portrait of the cosmos contains several three-part divisions. There is God’s most holy heavenly abode, the sky-heavens that mimic the Holy Place, and the created world beneath. God’s heavenly dwelling is separated by the firmament veil from the habitable earth and the gathered waters. The visible creation includes the heavens, the land, and the sea. And when God plants a garden in the east of the land of Eden, there is a discernible tripartite structure. In the tabernacle and temple, as one moved from east to west, one would journey into increasingly holy space. The garden is in the east of Eden such that there is Edenic land to its west, so the east-west movement would take one from the surrounding lands (court) into the garden (Holy Place) and finally to the land of Eden west of the garden (Most Holy Place).14
“…and there he put the man whom he had formed” (Gen 2:8).15 God plants a garden in Eden, and he plants Adam in the garden.16 God makes trees spring up “out of the ground” (מִן־הָאַדָמָה, Gen 2:9) just as he forms the man of soil, dirt, dust, “from the ground” (מִן־הָאַדָמָה, Gen 2:7), and like thriving plants, humanity is commissioned to be fruitful as they fill the earth with their seed (Gen 1:28).17 As noted above, God’s temple is a garden, but importantly, his people are regularly depicted as plants in the garden-temple of the Lord’s presence. David is “like a green olive tree in the house of God” (Ps 52:8), and Ps 92:12–15 celebrates,
The righteous flourish like the palm tree
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They are planted in the house of the LORD;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
They still bear fruit in old age;
they are ever full of sap and green,
to declare that the LORD is upright;
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.
Psalm 144:12 envisions sons like full-grown plants and daughters like pillars in God’s arboreal temple-palace, and Isa 44:3 anticipates that when God pours out his Spirit on Israel’s offspring—when he makes his people the temple of his presence—they “shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams.” God’s temple is a garden where his covenant people flower in his presence, and God’s garden in Eden is a temple where he plants humanity to be fruitful in communion with him.
To be continued…
Trevor Laurence is the Executive Director of the Cateclesia Institute
Image: James Tissot, Réconstitution de Jérusalem et du temple d’Hérode
- Psalm 104:2 uses the term יְרִיעָה, the same term used in 2 Sam 7:2; 1 Chron 17:1 to describe God’s tabernacle tent dwelling.[
] - 2 Chron 3:9 and Ps 104:3 both utilize the term עֲלִיָּה. Cf. also 1 Chron 28:11.[]
- The connections between Gen 1–3 and later descriptions of the tabernacle and temple have been surveyed in varying levels of detail by the likes of L. Michael Morales, Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of the Book of Leviticus, NSBT 37 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015); G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God, NSBT 17 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004); Gordon J. Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story,” in I Studied Inscriptions from before the Flood, ed. R. S. Hess and D. T. Tsumara (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994); Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview, (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2006); Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012); Stephen G. Dempster, Dominion and Dynasty: A Theology of the Hebrew Bible, NSBT 15 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003); Peter J. Leithart, A House for My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2000); James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1999); T. D. Alexander, From Paradise to Promised Land: An Introduction to the Pentateuch, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002). At the beginning of my discussion of each parallel feature, I indicate representative scholars who make similar observations for the reader’s reference.[]
- Cf. Kline, Jordan, Morales, Gentry and Wellum.[]
- Cf. Morales, Wenham.[]
- Cf. the proposed parallels of Peter J. Kearney, “Creation and Liturgy: The P Redaction of Ex 25–40,” ZAW 89 (1977): 375–8.[]
- Cf. 1 Kgs 7:23–39 for “the sea of cast metal” and bronze basins in the temple.[]
- This broader focus on the act of separating is itself evocative of cultic concerns associated with the holiness of God’s presence among his people—the distinguishing (בדל) of clean and unclean, holy and common in Israel’s purity laws and the separating (בדל) of Israel from the peoples of the world to be God’s special possession and of the Levites from the congregation to serve in the Lord’s sanctuary.[]
- Cf. Morales, Jordan.[]
- See the helpful discussion of Peter J. Leithart, 1 & 2 Kings, BTCB (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006), 60–61.[]
- Cf. Beale, Kline, Morales.[]
- Cf. the image of the temple as a forest of trees in Ps 74:4–6.[]
- Cf. Beale, Leithart, Morales.[]
- That Eden west of the garden corresponds to the Most Holy Place where God dwells is confirmed by additional considerations to be taken up in Part Two.[]
- Cf. Jordan.[]
- The verb שִׂים (often translated “placed” or “put” in Gen 2:8) can carry agricultural connotations and refers to the planting of wheat in Isa 28:25, trees in Isa 41:19, and seed in Ezek 17:5.[]
- There may also be a parallel between the creation of vegetation, plants, and trees on the earth as the second creative act of day three and the creation of man as the second creative act of day six.[]