Tab'ernacle, in Jewish antiquities, the tent or sanctuary in which the sacred utensils were kept during the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert. It was in the shape of a parallelogram, 45 feet long and 15 feet wide, and it was 15 feet high. Its smaller ends were placed east and west, and its entrance was in the east. Its framework consisted of forty-eight gilded boards of shittim-wood, bound together by golden rings and set into silver sockets. The ceiling and walls were covered with a curtain of linen, made in ten pieces. Outside this was a curtain of goats' hair, made in eleven pieces. Over this covering was thrown one made of skins. The interior was divided by a curtain into two compartments, the outer, the "sanctuary" proper, and the inner, the holy of holies. In the sanctuary was placed, on the north, the table of showbread; on the south, the golden candlestick, and in the middle, near the inner curtain, the altar of incense. In the center of the holy of holies stood the ark of the covenant. The tabernacle was situated in a court 150 feet long and 75 feet wide, surrounded by costly screens 7 1/2 feet high, supported by pillars of brass 7 1/2 feet apart, to which the curtains were attached by hooks and fillets of silver. In the outer, or eastern, half of the court stood the altar of burnt offering, and between it and the tabernacle itself was the laver, at which the priests washed their hands and feet before entering the sanctuary. On the first day of the second year after the Israelites left Egypt, the tabernacle was dedicated. During all their wanderings a cloud rested on it by day, a pillar of fire by night. The Levites had charge of it, taking it down and putting it up at the various stopping places. The tabernacle lost its value and glory after the Philistines captured the ark. It was superseded by the Temple, at Jerusalem.