Pavilions, tents, and canopies.

Robert Frost, The Silken Tent

She is as in a field a silken tent

At midday when the sunny summer breeze

Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,

So that in guys it gently sways at ease,

And its supporting central cedar pole,

That is its pinnacle to heavenward

And signifies the sureness of the soul,

Seems to owe naught to any single cord,

But strictly held by none, is loosely bound

By countless silken ties of love and thought

To every thing on earth the compass round,

And only by one’s going slightly taut

In the capriciousness of summer air

Is of the slightest bondage made aware.

 

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Isaiah 54:2

Enlarge the place of thy tent,
and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations:
spare not, lengthen thy cords,
and strengthen thy stakes.

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Exodus 36:14-19, Exodus 40:19

And he made curtains of goats’ hair for the tent over the tabernacle: eleven curtains he made them.

The length of one curtain was thirty cubits, and four cubits was the breadth of one curtain: the eleven curtains were of one size.

And he coupled five curtains by themselves, and six curtains by themselves.

And he made fifty loops upon the uttermost edge of the curtain in the coupling, and fifty loops made he upon the edge of the curtain which coupleth the second.

And he made fifty taches of brass to couple the tent together, that it might be one.

And he made a covering for the tent of rams’ skins dyed red, and a covering of badgers’ skins above that.

And he spread abroad the tent over the tabernacle,
and put the covering of the tent above upon it;
as the Lord commanded Moses.

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It occurs to me that the tent and the tabernacle together are a metaphor for the temple and the church.


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