The Pattern Shewn in the Mount and the Tabernacle of God with Men
Old Testament: Exodus 25:8-9, 40
And they shall make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell in the midst of them: According to all the likeness of the tabernacle which I will shew thee, and of all the vessels for the service thereof: and thus you shall make it: ... Look and make it according to the pattern, that was shewn thee in the mount.
Old Testament, also: Ezechiel 37:26-27
And I will make a covenant of peace with them, it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will establish them, and will multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for ever. And my tabernacle shall be with them: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
New Testament: Apocalypse 21:2-4
And I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying: Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and he will dwell with them. And they shall be his people; and God himself with them shall be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away.
The connection
The first thing God asks of Israel after Sinai is not a law but a tent. "They shall make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell in the midst of them." And He does not leave the design to them. Moses is shown something on the mountain and told to build a copy of it, "according to the pattern, that was shewn thee in the mount." The tabernacle in the desert is a replica of something Moses saw, and for centuries Israel worships in the copy. Every autumn they were told to remember it with their bodies: "you shall dwell in bowers seven days ... That your posterity may know, that I made the children of Israel to dwell in tabernacles" (Leviticus 23:42-43). A people living in tents around a God living in a tent, because none of it was permanent yet. The prophets kept the promise open past the wood and the skins: "my tabernacle shall be with them: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people", and "for ever". At the end of the Apocalypse John hears the original. "Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and he will dwell with them. And they shall be his people." It is Ezechiel's sentence nearly word for word, and it answers the tent: no longer a copy carried through the wilderness, but the thing the copy was made from, coming down out of heaven. St Irenaeus draws the line all the way back to the mountain. John says the new Jerusalem shall descend, "and that this is the tabernacle of God, in which God will dwell with men. Of this Jerusalem the former one is an image ... And of this tabernacle Moses received the pattern in the mount." What Moses was shown on Sinai was the end. Moses saw the last page first and was told to build a model of it in goats' hair. Between the copy and the original stands one verse: "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14), and the Greek there is the word for pitching a tent. The dwelling Israel rehearsed each year in booths begins in a body and ends in a city where "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."
Moral sense
A tent is what you live in on the way somewhere. The feast made Israel sleep outdoors once a year so they would not forget they were pilgrims, and it is a good discipline for a Christian too: whatever you are living in now is a booth. God does not despise the booth. He pitched His own among ours, and He is present in the temporary long before He is present in the permanent.
Anagogical sense
The last word about the tabernacle is not that God will be nearby, but near enough to wipe tears from a face. The pattern shewn on the mountain was always this: God with men, not behind curtains in the midst of the camp, but face to face with them, for ever.
The Fathers
St Irenaeus, Against Heresies V.35: "John, the Lord's disciple, says that the new Jerusalem above shall [then] descend, as a bride adorned for her husband; and that this is the tabernacle of God, in which God will dwell with men. Of this Jerusalem the former one is an image ... And of this tabernacle Moses received the pattern in the mount."
Warrant
Patristic because Apocalypse 21:3 does not cite Exodus 25, and it is St Irenaeus who joins them, reading the new Jerusalem as the tabernacle of God and saying of it that "of this tabernacle Moses received the pattern in the mount" (Against Heresies V.35), which is the language of Exodus 25:40. Hebrews 8:5 makes the same use of that verse, calling the earthly tabernacle "the example and shadow of heavenly things" and quoting the command to build "according to the pattern which was shewn thee on the mount"; it is not put in the fields only to keep the entry to one New Testament passage. The link from Ezechiel 37:27 to Apocalypse 21:3 is close to citation, the sentence being nearly the same in both, tabernacle, their God, his people, but John does not introduce it as Ezechiel's and the entry treats it as an echo. Leviticus 23 is quoted in the connection for the Feast of Tabernacles. The Apocalypse does not name the feast and nothing in the entry is built on it; it is there because it is what Israel did every year to remember living in tents. The remark on John 1:14 is only that eskenosen is the verb for pitching a tent, which is the ordinary reading and is carried in the site's own tabernacle entry.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1044.
The verses
Exodus 25:8 · Exodus 25:9 · Exodus 25:40 · Ezechiel 37:26 · Ezechiel 37:27 · Apocalypse 21:2 · Apocalypse 21:3 · Apocalypse 21:4
