Tent

The tent (ohel) was the primary dwelling of nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples in the biblical world and the paradigm for the divine dwelling in Israel. The patriarchs — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — lived in tents (Gen. 12:8; 13:3; 18:1–2), moving them as they followed God's direction. The Israelites dwelt in tents throughout the forty wilderness years, with the tabernacle (ohel mo'ed, "tent of meeting") at the center of the camp. "Tent" becomes a rich theological metaphor: to "pitch one's tent" is to settle (Gen. 26:25), to "spread one's tent" over another is to protect (Rev. 7:15). Paul describes the mortal body as an earthly tent that will be dissolved and replaced by "a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. 5:1). John 1:14 — the Word "tabernacled" (eskenosen) among us — echoes the tent of meeting as the paradigm of divine presence.