The Tabernacle
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40 free The Tabernacle trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The tabernacle was the tent sanctuary that Israel carried through the wilderness, and Exodus gives thirteen chapters to its design and construction. Every frame, curtain and piece of furniture had a set place and a purpose, and later writers, Jewish and Christian alike, kept returning to it for its meaning. This quiz covers how the tabernacle was built and who made it, the courtyard, the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, the furniture in each room and what it was for, the garments of the high priest, the Day of Atonement ritual, how the camp packed up and moved, and what became of the sanctuary once Israel settled in the land. A few questions follow the theme into the New Testament. It suits Sunday school and youth sanctuary classes, Bible quiz teams, and anyone studying Exodus or Leviticus. Every answer comes with a short explanation that points back to the text.
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Q 01What did Moses do when Israel brought more tabernacle materials than the craftsmen could use?
Told them to stop giving
Moses told them to stop giving: a proclamation went round the camp that no man or woman should make anything more for the sanctuary, because the craftsmen already had more than enough.
Q 02Which word for a person blamed for others' wrongs comes from an animal released on the Day of Atonement?
Scapegoat
Scapegoat was coined by William Tyndale for his 1530 Bible translation. Leviticus 16 describes the animal bearing the people's sins away into the wilderness.
Q 03What covered the tabernacle and signalled the Israelites to break camp and move on whenever it lifted?
A cloud
A cloud rested over the tabernacle by day and looked like fire by night. Numbers 9 says Israel stayed put while it lingered, whether for two days or a month, and set out when it rose.
Q 04Which Hebrew name is given to the seven-branched gold lampstand that lit the tabernacle's Holy Place?
Menorah
The menorah lit at Hanukkah is a nine-branched variant. The Temple's seven-branched one was carried off to Rome in 70 CE, a scene still carved on the Arch of Titus.
Q 05Which idol did Israel worship while Moses spent forty days on the mountain receiving the tabernacle plans?
A golden calf
A golden calf was cast by Aaron from the people's earrings, though the plans had just named him as priest. Moses ground it to powder, scattered it on water and made the people drink it.
Q 06Which king of Israel built the stone Temple in Jerusalem that finally replaced the portable tabernacle?
Solomon
Solomon had the old tent and its sacred furnishings carried up to Jerusalem when the Temple was dedicated. His father had wanted to build it but was told his son would.
Q 07A gold jar of which food, eaten by Israel for forty years in the wilderness, was kept in the Ark?
Manna
Manna was kept so that later generations could see the bread that fed Israel in the desert. Exodus 16 says one omer of it, a single day's portion, went into the jar.
Q 08Which text was kept inside the Ark in the tabernacle's innermost room?
The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments were the only thing left inside the Ark when it was carried into the Jerusalem Temple centuries later, 1 Kings 8 records.
Q 09Which boy, serving the priest Eli at the sanctuary, heard God call his name while lying near the Ark?
Samuel
Samuel went to Eli three times, thinking the old priest had called him, before Eli worked out who was really speaking and told him how to answer.
Q 10How often could the high priest go behind the veil into the Most Holy Place, where the Ark stood?
Once a year
Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, he went in alone. Leviticus 16 warns that entering behind the veil at any other time would cost him his life.
Q 11The tabernacle's bronze basin was cast from which objects, given by women who served at the entrance?
Mirrors
Mirrors became the basin where Aaron and his sons had to wash their hands and feet before entering the tent or approaching the altar, so that they would not die.
Q 12Which direction did the tabernacle's entrance face, the side where Moses and Aaron pitched their tents?
East
East, toward the sunrise, was the open side, while the solid rear wall of frames stood at the opposite end. The priests' families camped right in front of the entrance.
Q 13Which craftsman, said to be filled with the Spirit of God, was put in charge of building the tabernacle?
Bezalel
Bezalel is credited in Exodus with constructing the Ark himself, and the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Israel is named after him.
Q 21Which two sons of Aaron died at the tabernacle after offering unauthorized fire before the Lord?
Nadab and Abihu
Nadab and Abihu were consumed by fire that came out from the Lord's presence. Aaron stayed silent, and he and his two surviving sons were told not to show the usual signs of mourning.
Q 22What did the high priest sprinkle seven times in front of the Ark's cover on the Day of Atonement?
Blood
Blood from a bull came first, for the priest's own sins, then from a second sacrifice for the people's. He applied it with his finger while incense smoke screened the Ark.
Q 23Which fruit, made of yarn, alternated with gold bells around the hem of the high priest's robe?
Pomegranates
Q 14Which tree supplied the wood for the Ark, the table, the altars and the tabernacle's upright frames?
Acacia
Acacia appears in the King James Version as shittim wood. The Ark, the table and the frames were all overlaid with gold, so little of the timber ever showed.
Q 15Which name is given to the twelve loaves kept on the gold table in the tabernacle and replaced each week?
Showbread
Showbread, also called the Bread of the Presence, went to the priests once fresh loaves were set out. Only they could eat it, and only in a holy place.
Q 16Which winged beings, hammered in gold, faced each other on the lid of the Ark in the tabernacle?
Cherubim
Cherubim also guard the way to the tree of life in Genesis. God told Moses he would speak with him from the space between the two figures.
Q 17At the foot of which mountain, where Moses was shown its design, did the Israelites build the tabernacle?
Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai was Israel's camp for most of a year. The tabernacle went up on the first day of the second year after the Exodus, and the people marched on about seven weeks later.
Q 18Which ancient unit of length does Exodus use for the tabernacle's measurements, such as its 100-long courtyard?
Cubit
The cubit was based on the forearm, from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. At about 18 inches each, the courtyard came to roughly 150 feet by 75.
Q 19By which other name is the tabernacle known in Exodus, because God spoke with Moses there?
Tent of Meeting
Tent of Meeting was also the name of a simple tent Moses pitched outside the camp before the tabernacle existed, where anyone seeking God could go.
Q 20What do the Gospels say happened to the Temple veil, the tabernacle's successor, at the moment Jesus died?
It was torn in two
It was torn in two from top to bottom, Matthew and Mark both say. Matthew adds that the earth shook and the rocks split at the same moment.
Pomegranates alternated with gold bells, whose sound let the priest be heard going in and out of the sanctuary, which Exodus says kept him from dying.
Q 24Each gemstone set in the high priest's breastpiece, worn over his heart, was engraved with the name of what?
A tribe of Israel
A tribe of Israel was named on each of the twelve stones, set in four rows, so that the priest carried the whole nation with him whenever he entered the Holy Place.
Q 25In which town in the territory of Ephraim was the tabernacle set up once Israel had settled in Canaan?
Shiloh
Shiloh held the tabernacle through the period of the judges. Psalm 78 later says God abandoned the tent he had pitched there.
Q 26Which enemy people captured the Ark in battle after Israel's army carried it out from the sanctuary?
Philistines
The Philistines set it in the temple of their god Dagon, whose statue was found face down before it the next morning. After seven months they sent it back.
Q 27Which fuel did the Israelites bring to keep the lamps of the tabernacle lampstand burning through the night?
Olive oil
Olive oil for the lamps had to be pure and pressed. Aaron and his sons tended them outside the veil from evening until morning.
Q 28Which New Testament book calls the tabernacle a copy and shadow of a sanctuary in heaven?
Hebrews
Hebrews argues that Jesus serves as high priest in the true tent, and recalls that Moses was warned to build everything to the pattern shown him on the mountain.
Q 29Which observance does Exodus command, on pain of death, right after its instructions for building the tabernacle?
The Sabbath
The Sabbath is commanded at the end of the building instructions in Exodus 31 and again before work starts in Exodus 35, which adds a ban on lighting a fire at home that day.
Q 30Aaron's staff, later kept in front of the Ark, budded and blossomed overnight and produced which ripe nuts?
Almonds
Almonds grew on it by morning, a sign that Aaron's family alone held the priesthood. The cups of the gold lampstand were shaped like blossoms of the same tree.