Holy of Holies
The Holy of Holies (Hebrew: קֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים, romanized: Qoḏeš haq-Qǝḏāšim or Kodesh HaKodashim; also הַדְּבִיר had-Dəḇir, 'the Sanctuary') is a term in the Hebrew Bible that refers to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, where the Shekhinah (God's presence) appeared. According to Hebrew tradition, the area was defined by four pillars that held up the veil of the covering, under which the Ark of the Covenant was held above the floor. According to the Hebrew Bible, the Ark contained the Ten Commandments, which were given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. The first Temple in Jerusalem, called Solomon's Temple, was said to have been built by King Solomon to keep the Ark.
Ancient Jewish traditions viewed the Holy of Holies as the spiritual junction of Heaven and Earth, the "axis mundi".
As a part of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the Holy of Holies was situated somewhere on Temple Mount; its precise location in the Mount being a matter of dispute, with some classical Jewish sources identifying its location with the Foundation Stone, which sits under the Dome of the Rock mosque.[1][2] Other Jewish scholars argue that contemporary reports would place the Temple to the north or to the east of the Dome of the Rock.[3]
The Christian Crusaders associated the Holy of Holies with the Well of Souls, a small cave that lies underneath the Foundation Stone in the Dome of the Rock.[4]
Hebrew terminology and translation
The construction "Holy of Holies" is a translation of the Hebrew, which is intended to express a
In the
A related term is
Ancient Israel
Tabernacle
According to the Hebrew Bible, in order that God may dwell among the Israelites, God gave Moses instructions for erecting a sanctuary. The directions provide for:
- A Tablets of the Covenant, with a pure gold cover as the "mercy seat" for the Divine Presence;
- A gilt table for the "Table of Showbread", on which loaves of bread were arranged;
- A golden menorah, lampstand of 7 oil lamps for a lightnever to be extinguished;
- The dwelling, including the curtains for the roof, the walls made of boards resting on candlestick, and the outer curtain;
- A sacrificial altar made of bronzed boards for its korban/sacrifice;
- The outer court formed by pillars resting on bronze pedestals and connected by hooks and crossbars of silver, with embroidered curtains;
- Recipe and preparation of the oil for the Lampstand.
According to the Bible, the Holy of Holies was covered by a
Upon completion of the dedication of the Tabernacle, the Voice of God spoke to Moses "from between the Cherubim" (Numbers 7:89).
Solomon's Temple
The Holy of Holies was the inner sanctuary within the Tabernacle and Temple in Jerusalem when Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple were standing. The parochet, a brocade curtain with cherubim motifs woven directly into the fabric from the loom, divided the Holy of Holies from the lesser Holy place.[10]
The Holy of Holies was located at the westernmost end of the Temple building and was a cube: 20 cubits by 20 cubits by 20 cubits. The inside was in darkness and contained the Ark of the Covenant, gilded inside and out, in which was placed the Tablets of Stone. According to both Jewish and Christian traditions, Aaron's rod and a pot of manna were also in the ark.[11] The Ark was covered with a lid made of pure gold, known as the "mercy seat" (Exodus 37:6), which was covered by the beaten gold cherubim wings, creating the space for the Shekhinah (Exodus 25:22).
Second Temple
When the Temple was rebuilt after the Babylonian captivity, the Ark was no longer present in the Holy of Holies; instead, a portion of the floor was raised slightly to indicate the place where it had stood. In Jewish tradition, two curtains separated the Holy of Holies from the lesser Holy place during the period of the Second Temple. These curtains were woven with motifs directly from the loom, rather than embroidered, and each curtain had the thickness of a handbreadth (ca. 9 cm.; 3½").[12] Josephus records that Pompey profaned the Temple by insisting on entering the Holy of Holies in 63 BCE.[13] When Titus captured the city during the First Jewish–Roman War, Roman soldiers took down the curtain and used it to wrap therein golden vessels retrieved from the Temple.
Yom Kippur
The Holy of Holies was entered once a year by the High Priest on Yom Kippur, to sprinkle the blood of sacrificial animals (a bull offered as atonement for the Priest and his household, and a goat offered as atonement for the people) and offer incense upon the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat that sat on top of the ark in the First Temple (the Second Temple had no ark and the blood was sprinkled where the Ark would have been and the incense was put on the Brazen Altar of incense). The animal was sacrificed and the blood was carried into the most holy place. The gold was also found in the Most Holy Place.
In ancient Judaism
The Magdala stone is thought to be a representation of the Holy of Holies carved before the destruction of the Temple in the year 70.[14]
In Rabbinical Judaism
Traditional Judaism regards the location where the inner sanctuary was originally located, on the Temple Mount (Mount Moriah), as retaining some or all of its original sanctity for use in a future Third Temple. The exact location of the Holy of Holies is a subject of dispute.
Traditional Judaism regards the Holy of Holies as the place where the presence of
The Talmud supplies additional details, and describes the ritual performed by the High Priest. During the annual ritual, the High Priest would pronounce the Tetragrammaton, the only point according to traditional Judaism that it was pronounced out loud. According to Jewish tradition, the people prostrated themselves fully on the ground when it was said. According to the Talmud, the High Priest's face upon exit from the Holy of Holies was radiant.[citation needed]
While under normal circumstances, access to the Holy of Holies was restricted to the High Priest and only on Yom Kippur, the Talmud suggests that repair crews were allowed inside as needed but were lowered from the upper portion of the room via enclosures so that they only saw the area they were to work on.[15][16]
Synagogue architecture
Modern location
The exact location of the Holy of Holies is a contentious issue, as elements of questioning the exact placement of the Temple are often associated with Temple denial. There are three main theories as to where exactly the Temple stood on the Mount: where the Dome of the Rock is now located; to the north of the Dome of the Rock (Professor Asher Kaufman); or to the east of the Dome of the Rock (Professor Joseph Patrich of the Hebrew University).[3]
The location of the Holy of Holies is connected to the location of the Jewish Temple. The location of the Temple, however, had become uncertain already less than 150 years after the Second Temple's destruction, as detailed in the Talmud. Chapter 54 of the Tractate Berakhot states that the Holy of Holies was directly aligned with the Golden Gate, which would have placed the Holy of Holies slightly to the north of the Dome of the Rock, as Kaufman postulated.[17] Chapter 54 of the Tractate Yoma and chapter 26 of the Tractate Sanhedrin, on the other hand, assert that the Holy of Holies stood directly on the Foundation Stone.[1][2]
The
To avoid religious conflict, Jewish visitors caught praying or bringing ritual objects are usually expelled from the area by police.[19]
In apocryphal literature
According to the ancient
Christianity
New Testament
The Greek New Testament retains the pre-Christian Septuagint phrase "Holy of the Holies" hágion (
Christian traditions
Certain branches of
Catholic Church
The Latin Vulgate Bible translates Qṓḏeš HaqQŏḏāšîm as Sanctum sanctorum (Ex 26:34). Reproducing in Latin the Hebrew construction, the expression is used as a superlative of the neuter adjective sanctum, to mean "a thing most holy". It is used by Roman Catholics to refer to the Eucharist in the tabernacle which represents the presence of Christ.
The
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Greek phrase refers to the Tabernacle or Temple. The name in Greek for the sanctuary of a church is Ἱερόν Βῆμα (Hieron Vema, see Bema#Christianity), in Russian it is called Святой Алтарь (Svyatoy Altar – literally: "Holy Altar"), and in Romanian it is called Sfântul Altar.
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
A
Malabar Nasrani tradition
The
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Salt Lake Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) contains a Holy of Holies[citation needed] wherein the church's president—acting as the Presiding High Priest—enters to fulfill the relationship between the High Priest of Israel and God in accordance with the LDS Church's interpretation of the Book of Exodus (Exodus 25:22) and Latter-day Saint religious texts.
Seventh-Day Adventist Church
Seventh-Day Adventism (SDA) believes that the Holy of Holies on Earth was a copy of the true tabernacle in heaven,[25] and this view can also be seen in other Christian denominations.[26] Because in Hebrews, God commands Moses to make sure that all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the Mount Sinai (Heb 8:2, 5). After the "Great Disappointment", preacher O. R. L. Crosier, Hiram Edson, and F. B. Hahn published new insights into Christ's sanctuary ministry that Jesus began to minister in the heavenly sanctuary after His ascension (Heb 9:24).[25] Seventh-Day Adventism (SDA) believes that just as the high priest completed the special ministry on Yom Kippur and blessed the Israelites. Christ will come and bless his people after cleaning the Holy of Holies in heaven (Heb 9:23).[27]
See also
- Honden, the most sacred building at a Shinto shrine
- Lustral basin
- Most Holy Place, in various religions
- Warren's Gate, an ancient entrance into the Temple platform in Jerusalem
References
- ^ a b "Yoma 54b:2". www.sefaria.org.
- ^ a b "Sanhedrin 26b:5". www.sefaria.org.
- ^ a b See article in the World Jewish Digest, April 2007.
- ^ ISBN 9781880317860.
- ^ "H1687 – dᵊḇîr – Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv)". Blue Letter Bible.
- ^ The Solomonic Debir according to the Hebrew Text of I Kings 6 J. Ouellette – Journal of Biblical Literature, 1970 – JSTOR "The immediate implication of this reading is that the holy of holies was built "from within the debir," that is ... The LXX simply transliterates dabir, while the Vulgate has "oraculum", thus suggesting a derivation from dbr "to speak."
- ^ The Damaged "blueprints" of the Temple of Solomon. L. Waterman – Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 1943 – JSTOR "The term "holy of holies" has long been accepted as a later descriptive term applied to the debir. The Hebrew word debir, rendered "oracle" in the versions, is a mistranslation based on a false etymology. The term itself signifies only the back or part behind, for example."
- ^ Exodus 26:31–33.
- ^ Leviticus 16
- Babylonian Talmud (Yoma 72b); Rashi's Commentary and Aramaic Targum of Exodus 26:31. The "parochet" was "the work of an artisan," meaning, one who was skilled in motifs worked into the loom. Brocade refers to the decorative elements inserted into the weft on the loom, unlike embroidery that is added to the finished cloth.
- ^ Midrash Rabba, Midrash HaGadol, et al.; Hebrews 9:4 in the New Testament
- Babylonian Talmud(Yoma 72b)
- ^ "The War of the Jews" – via Wikisource.
- ^ Kershner, Isabel (8 December 2015). "A Carved Stone Block Upends Assumptions About Ancient Judaism". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 December 2015.
- ^ Talmud Mas. Pesachim 26a
- ^ Talmud Mas. Eiruvin 105a
- ^ "Berakhot 54a:7". www.sefaria.org.
- ^ Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, Bernard Avishai, 'Jews Don’t Have a ‘Holiest’ Site,' Haaretz 13 May :’The point is, this kind of recklessness not only offended secular democrats, it vulgarized what “holy” has meant for most observant Jews, too. Not coincidentally, more than 85 percent of Israel’s Haredi Jews oppose prayer on the Mount, for reasons having to do with purity and impurity that cannot be resolved in “our time.” Advocates of such prayer and sacrifice tend to be, like Goren, Orthodox-nationalist zealots educated in local yeshivas and identified with the neo-Zionist settlement project. They are, like Islamists, fanatics warped by violence and nationalist fantasy – “Jewists,” not Jews.‘
- ^ Shragai, Nadav (1 September 2003). "Three Jews Expelled from Temple Mount for Praying". Haaretz. Retrieved 12 April 2017.
- ^ "The Lives of the Prophets – Zechariah son of Jehoiada". Archived from the original on 2016-03-01. Retrieved 2016-03-01.
- ISBN 978-9004177130.
- ^ "New Advent Bible: Hebrews 9". newadvent.org.
- ^ Stuart C. Munro-Hay, Ethiopia, the unknown land: a cultural and historical guide, (London, England: I. B. Tauris, 2002). p. 50.
- ^ a b Ross, Israel J. (1979). "Ritual and Music in South India: Syrian Christian Liturgical Music in Kerala". Asian Music. 11 (1): 80–98.
- ^ a b Damsteegt, P. Gerard (Fall 1992). "How Our Pioneers Discovered the Sanctuary Doctrine". Andrews University.
- S2CID 170375914.
- ^ "Christ's ministry in the Heavenly Sanctuary". General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. Retrieved 2019-10-17.