TABERNACLE — literally DWELLING-PLACE, from shakhan, 'to dwell, settle down.' The word names the whole portable sanctuary Moses is shown 'the pattern of' at its first appearance (25:9, already on these pages), and the entire five-chapter construction project it opens — gold, curtains, boards, altar, priestly garments — is a single extended answer to the question the word itself poses: a dwelling for whom? Exodus 29:45-46 (already on these pages) gives the answer directly, in the exact same root: 'I will DWELL (ve-shakhanti) among the children of Israel' — the tabernacle's own name, spoken as a verb, closing the whole instruction. Every major English version renders mishkan 'tabernacle,' following the Vulgate's tabernaculum; this translation keeps the same word, but flags the root wherever the text itself plays on it. → first discussed at Exod 25:9