"Make eleven curtains of goat-hair cloth to serve as a tent covering for the Tabernacle. These eleven curtains must all be exactly the same size - 45 feet long and 6 feet wide. Join five of these curtains together to make one long curtain, and join the other six into a second long curtain. Allow 3 feet of material from the second set of curtains to hang over the front of the sacred tent."
The goat-hair has a double meaning. It typifies our sin and then the offering made to cover that sin.
Moses was told to make 11 curtains from the goat-hair. The number 11 represents human failure, confusion, and judgement. So has goat-hair. Think of Jacob deceiving Isaac (Gen. 27:11, 16) and Michal deceiving Saul's messengers (1 Sam. 19:12-17). In Matthew 25:31-46 the goats were the ones who were rejected.
There were six curtains joined highlighting our fall from grace. Three feet of the sixth curtain hung down over the front of the tent making this part of the goat-hair covering always visible from the area in the front of the Tabernacle. So their sin was always before them as they approached God. Even if we've been forgiven, our sin is ever before us. We need Jesus to continually cleanse and sanctify us. Our sin nature is still very much alive. It has been paralyzed from the neck down. Now all it can do is shout at us and accuse us.
God calls the goat-hair part of the covering, the tent. Other scriptures call our bodies a temporary tent. We groan as we wait for the redemption of our bodies. "Our flesh must be controlled, but it will not be eradicated until it is vacated."*
The goat-hair also represents Jesus as our sin offering. "The Bible specifies eleven occasions when goats were to be used for a sin offering (Lev. 4:22-26, 27-28; 9:3; Nu. 15:22-24; 28:11, 17, 22, 29; 29:5, 11, 16-38)."* Each of these represent Jesus Christ as the one who atones us.
There is also the scapegoat upon which the priest laid the sins of the people before sending it out into the wilderness. Jesus took our sins upon himself and disposed of them as far as the east is from the west.
Isaiah 53:6
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
*Hersberger, Ervin N. (2010) Seeing Christ in the Tabernacle. Harrisonburg, VA: Vision Publishers.
MEMORY VERSES
Sin's Penalty
Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 6:23
Sin's Penalty
Sin's Penalty
Hebrews 9:27
Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgement.
Hebrews 9:27
Sin's Penalty
Sin's Penalty
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