Preface
It has been my wish in this book, to take the reader back nineteen centuries; to show
him Jerusalem as it was, when our Lord passed through its streets, and the Sanctuary,
when He taught in its porches and courts; to portray, not only the appearance and
structure of the Temple, but to describe its ordinances and worshippers, the ministry of
its priesthood, and the ritual of its services. In so doing, I have hoped, not only to
illustrate a subject, in itself most interesting to the Bible -student, but also, and chiefly,
to sketch, in one important aspect, the religious life of the period in which our blessed
Lord lived upon earth, the circumstances under which He taught, and the religious rites
by which He was surrounded; and whose meaning, in their truest sense, He came to
fulfil.
The Temple and its services form, so to speak, part of the life and work of Jesus Christ;
part also of His teaching, and of that of His apostles. What connects itself so closely
with Him must be of deepest interest. We want to be able, as it were, to enter Jerusalem
in His train, along with those who on that Palm-Sunday cried, 'Hosanna to the Son of
David'; to see its streets and buildings; to know exactly how the Temple looked, and to
find our way through its gates, among its porches, courts, and chambers; to be present
in spirit at its services; to witness the Morning and the Evening Sacrifice; to mingle with
the crowd of worshippers at the great Festivals, and to stand by the side of those who
offered sacrifice or free-will offering, or who awaited the solemn purification which
would restore them to the fellowship of the Sanctuary. We want to see these rites, as it
were, before us--to hear the Temple -music, to know the v ery Psalms that were chanted,
the prayers that were offered, the duties of the priesthood, the sacrificial worship in
which they engaged, and the very attitude of the worshippers --in short, all those
details which in their combination enable us vividly to realise the scenes, as if we
ourselves were present in them. For, amidst them all, we ever see that one great
outstanding Personality, Whose presence filled that house with glory.
The New Testament transports us into almost every one of the scenes describ ed in this
book. It also makes frequent reference to them for illustration. We see the father of John
ministering in his course in the burning of incense; the Virgin -Mother at her purification,
presenting her First-born; the child Jesus among the Rabbis; the Master teaching in the
porches of the Temple, sitting in the Treasury, attending the various festivals, giving
His sanction to the purifications by directing the healed leper to the priest, and, above
all, as at the Feast of Tabernacles, applying to himself the significant rites of the
Sanctuary. And, as we follow on, we witness the birth of the Church on the day of
Pentecost; we mark the frequent illustrations of spiritual realities by Temple -scenes, in
the writings of the apostles, but more especially in the Book of Revelation, whose
imagery is so often taken from them; and we still look for the accomplishment of the one
yet unfulfilled type--the Feast of Tabernacles, as the grand harvest-festival of the
Church.
I have thus placed the permanent Christian interest in the foreground, because it
occupied that place in my own mind. At the same time, from the nature of the subject, I
hope the volume may fulfil yet another and kindred purpose. Although it does not
profess to be a Handbook of Biblical Antiquities, nor a treatise on the types of the Old
Testament, both these subjects had to be constantly referred to. But to realise the
gorgeous Temple ritual, in all its details, possesses more than a merely historical
interest. We are indeed fascinated by it; we live over again, if not the period of Israel's
temporal glory, yet that of deepest interest to us; and we can vividly represent to
ourselves what the Temple had been before its services had for ever passed away. But
beyond this, stretching far back through the period of prophets and kings, and reaching
up to the original revelation of Jehovah amid the awful grandeur of Sinai, our holiest