"Moreover, you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns; you shall make them with cherubim skillfully worked into them. The length of each curtain shall be twenty-eight cubits, and the breadth of each curtain four cubits; all the curtains shall be the same size. Five curtains shall be coupled to one another, and the other five curtains shall be coupled to one another. And you shall make loops of blue on the edge of the outermost curtain in the first set. Likewise you shall make loops on the edge of the outermost curtain in the second set. Fifty loops you shall make on the one curtain, and fifty loops you shall make on the edge of the curtain that is in the second set; the loops shall be opposite one another. And you shall make fifty clasps of gold, and couple the curtains one to the other with the clasps, so that the tabernacle may be a single whole. "You shall also make curtains of goats' hair for a tent over the tabernacle; eleven curtains shall you make. The length of each curtain shall be thirty cubits, and the breadth of each curtain four cubits. The eleven curtains shall be the same size. You shall couple five curtains by themselves, and six curtains by themselves, and the sixth curtain you shall double over at the front of the tent. You shall make fifty loops on the edge of the curtain that is outermost in one set, and fifty loops on the edge of the curtain that is outermost in the second set. "You shall make fifty clasps of bronze, and put the clasps into the loops, and couple the tent together that it may be a single whole. And the part that remains of the curtains of the tent, the half curtain that remains, shall hang over the back of the tabernacle. And the extra that remains in the length of the curtains, the cubit on the one side, and the cubit on the other side, shall hang over the sides of the tabernacle, on this side and that side, to cover it. And you shall make for the tent a covering of tanned rams' skins and a covering of goatskins on top.
Exodus 26:1-14
The curtains or, so to speak, the soft furnishings of the Tabernacle are now described. First of all, the inner curtains of fine twined linen (1-6), then on top of these, curtains of goats' hair (7-13), with outer coverings of rams' skins dyed red, and of badgers' skins. The simple explanation of these elaborate coverings must surely be that they gave adequate protection to the furniture of the Tabernacle beneath them, but we may just as surely see a deeper significance in the arrangement. Without going into possible meanings of the various colours mentioned here - the blue is held to speak of Christ's deity and holiness, the scarlet of His humanity and His sacrifice, the purple of the royalty of His divine humanity - we may note that the beauty of both the furniture of the Tabernacle and its inner furnishings was hidden, and that from the outside it must have looked very ordinary, not to say drab and dull. It was only when one penetrated to the inmost places that its value and its beauty were perceived. Two lessons may be gathered from this. The first is that to many outside the family of God the Christian faith seems dull and uninteresting, perhaps even forbidding. The Scriptures tell of the joy and the blessedness of the Christian life to those who taste and see that the Lord is good. How should eyes that are blinded by the god of this world perceive the beauty of holiness until they are opened by grace? The other lesson relates to believers. The life that leads to fellowship with God is one which to many Christians seems unattractive and forbidding, with its inexorable summons to take up the Cross and die daily. And from the outside, the challenge of discipleship does tend to daunt the irresolute spirit. But to those who know the constraint of the Spirit driving them in, the Cross becomes a gateway into an incomparable sweetness and beauty of experience beyond all understanding and almost beyond belief. This is one of the things meant by the phrase, 'the treasures of darkness'.