As a mini-cosmos, the tabernacle enabled God to live among his people. But what happens when that mini-cosmos becomes defiled by sin and death? The remedy was the Day of Atonement ceremony, as the blood of sacrifice cleansed both God’s house and his people.

The Lord God created the first couple, Adam and Eve, to know fellowship and communion with him in the garden of Eden. Tragically, the Serpent deceived Eve, and Adam willfully ate fruit from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” transgressing the one divine commandment God gave him (Gen. 2:17; 3:1–7).

As a result, the Lord God “drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life” (3:24; emphasis added). Humanity, being separated from God, who is the fountain of living waters, now entered a realm of death. Genesis’s narrative never loses sight of this eastward movement, away from the glory of God. We read, for example, that Cain, after slaying his brother Abel, “settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden” (4:16; emphasis added).

These Eden stories likely informed Israel’s liturgy, especially the ceremony given in Leviticus 16. On Israel’s holiest day of the year, the Day of Atonement, the movement away from God’s presence was reversed through the path of the high priest, who functioned as an Adam figure. How can we grasp the high priest’s entrance into the Holy of Holies, once a year on the Day of Atonement, as a liturgical drama?

Tabernacle and the Garden

We’ll appreciate the beautiful theology of the Day of Atonement more deeply by first understanding how the tabernacle symbolized Eden.

Scholars have long recognized a host of parallels between Eden and Israel’s tabernacle (and later temple), along with the portrayal of Adam as a priest-king. Both the garden and the tabernacle were oriented toward the east (see Ex. 26:18–22; 27:9–18; Ezek. 40:6; 47:1). Moreover, Adam’s service in the garden is described with two verbs (to “work” and “watch over,” Gen. 2:15, CSB) used later in the Pentateuch to describe the service of Levites as they ministered in the tabernacle (Num. 3:7–8; 8:26; 18:5–6).

The rich arboreal decor of the tabernacle recalls Eden’s lushness, including the menorah that, as a stylized tree, represents the tree of life. And the cherubim stationed by the Lord at the garden’s entry show up again in the Pentateuch: this time in the tabernacle, woven onto the veil guarding entry to the holiest place.

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