Although the word “Tabernacle” has been popularized as a reference to the mishkan, it is necessary to look more deeply into these terms in order to clarify the similarities and differences between them. The issue is that the word tabernacle is used in several contexts in Scripture, each of which reflects different Hebrew terms. For example, the word tabernacle is used in connection with the “Feast of Tabernacles,” yet the Hebrew word there is Sukkot (sukkah in the singular), not mishkan.
Both words are related to the concept of a “dwelling.” However, while a sukkah refers to a temporary physical shelter erected for protection from the elements and shade from the sun, the mishkan relates more to a permanent dwelling. For this very reason, it was the will of the Eternal to establish His mishkan so that He might dwell among us, and not merely a sukkah.
Unlike the word sukkah, the word mishkan comes from the verbal root שכן (shakhan). This same verb is used for the word “to dwell” or “to abide”:
“And let them make Me a sanctuary (mikdash), that I may dwell (shakhanti) among them.
Exodus 25:8
We see that it was the Father’s desire that His people build a “tabernacle,” here called a mikdash, which literally means a sanctuary, so that He might dwell among them.
And the glory of Yehovah rested (shakhan) upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days; and on the seventh day He called to Moshe out of the midst of the cloud.
Exodus 24:16
In this passage, notice how the verbal root shakhan is translated as “rested” rather than “dwelt,” which would cause the connection to go entirely unnoticed if we relied only on the English translation.
The reason the wilderness “tabernacle” was called mishkan in Hebrew is that within this temporary structure was the Holy Place (kodesh), and within it the Most Holy Place (kodesh hakodashim), where the holiest and most precious artifact in the entire camp of the children of Israel was kept: the Ark of the Covenant. Between the two golden cherubim the presence of the Almighty was manifested. That place was His dwelling — His mishkan.
From this comes the rabbinic concept of the Shekhinah, a term not conjugated in that exact form in Scripture, yet understood to mean the divine Presence of the Creator.
Later, the Eternal strongly emphasized that all the people were to make pilgrimage to “the place where He chooses to put His Name” (Deuteronomy 12:5, among many others). The word translated “put” is a very poor rendering of the Hebrew (once again): it is shakhan — literally, the place where He will cause His Name to dwell.
Whether upon Mount Sinai, in the Garden of Eden, or in Shlomo’s Temple in Yerushalayim, the pattern is the same and the intention unchanged: the Almighty God desires to dwell with humanity; He desires communion with us.
In a personal sense, we ourselves are that mishkan, and through our consecration and devotion, we long for that same divine presence to be manifested within us.
Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
2 Corinthians 6:16
The word tabernacle is used in several contexts in Scripture, each of which reflects different Hebrew terms.