ritual
sanctuary
משכן · מקדש · בית המקדש
Bottom line
Mishkan is the Mishkan (English "Tabernacle"), the portable Sanctuary of the wilderness and of Gilgal, Shiloh, Nov and Givon. Mikdash, or Beis HaMikdash, is the permanent Temple in Yerushalayim. The distinction is temporary against permanent, and it shows in the building itself: curtains and cloth for the Mishkan, walls and a roof for the Mikdash. The one thing not to get wrong: the Gemara does sometimes use the words for each other, but those are borrowed usages, not evidence that they are synonyms.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| משכן | Mishkan | Mishkan, Tabernacle | portable and temporary; curtains, not walls; from le'shaken, to dwell, and Shechinah |
| מקדש | Mikdash | Beis HaMikdash, Temple | permanent, in Yerushalayim on Har HaMoriah; walls, a roof, larger dimensions |
Where the authorities disagree
The sources do not split on the meanings, but they do pull in two directions on how firm the line is. Eruvin 2a allows that the two words are sometimes used almost interchangeably. Against that stands the whole body of halachic difference: private altars are permitted under a Mishkan and forbidden once the Mikdash stands. The resolution the article works with is that the interchangeable usages are borrowed, and the real referents stay distinct. Mishnah Zevachim 14:6 supplies the middle case that shows how the line can blur: the Mishkan at Shiloh had stone walls, like a permanent building, but was still roofed with a curtain, so it held a quasi-Mikdash status.
Distinctions
Mishkan (משכן)
Root ש-כ-נ, the root of le'shaken and of Shechinah: the place where Hashem's Presence dwells. Its structure was cloth: the Kodesh HaKodashim marked off by a curtain, and ten curtains over the whole, because the building was made to be taken down and carried. It stood mobile for the forty years in the wilderness, then at Gilgal for the fourteen years of conquest and division of the Land, then at Shiloh for 369 years, and after the Pelishtim destroyed the Shiloh Sanctuary, at Nov and Givon for a combined fifty-seven years. Private altars were permitted during the Mishkan era, except during the forty years in the wilderness and the centuries at Shiloh.
Mikdash (מקדש)
Root ק-ד-ש, holiness. The permanent structure on Har HaMoriah in Yerushalayim, built by Shlomo HaMelech and rebuilt under Persian rule after the seventy-year exile in Bavel; the second stood some four centuries until the Romans destroyed it. Its Kodesh HaKodashim was marked off by a wall in the first Beis HaMikdash (by two curtains in the second), it had a true roof rather than curtains, and its dimensions were larger. Once it stood, private altars were forbidden for good.
The two eras
Yoma 9a-9b gives the causes of each destruction: the Shiloh Sanctuary for desecration of holy foodstuffs and immorality, the first Beis HaMikdash for the three cardinal sins, the second for baseless hatred among Jews. Zevachim 119a reads Devarim 12:9, "for you have not yet come to the resting place or to the inheritance," as the two stages: the resting place is the Mishkan at Shiloh, the inheritance the Beis HaMikdash in Yerushalayim. Rabbi Avraham Wittenstein: the Mishkan paradigm had an advantage of its own, since it carried the Presence forward unbroken from Har Sinai; when the Pelishtim destroyed Shiloh they cut that continuity, so the Presence in the later Sanctuaries at Nov and Givon and in the Beis HaMikdash was a fresh revelation, earned by the work of Shmuel HaNavi and David HaMelech, rather than the direct continuation of Sinai.
Rendering guidance
- Trap: English "Temple" and "Sanctuary" will each cover both words. Keep Mishkan transliterated (or "Tabernacle" in an older register) and reserve "Temple" or Beis HaMikdash for the permanent building, so a passage that moves from one era to the other stays legible.
- Where the two words stand together in a Gemara, do not smooth them into one English word on the strength of Eruvin 2a; render both and, if the passage turns on it, note that the usage there is loose.
- "Mishkan Shiloh" is best left as it stands, with the Mishnah's quasi-Mikdash status noted; "the Tabernacle at Shiloh" loses the point that this one had stone walls.
- Shechinah in the same passage is "the Divine Presence" or is left transliterated; do not render it "the Tabernacle" even though the root is shared.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Sacred Spaces," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 6 Adar II 5777 (2017-03-04): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/7164-sacred-spaces.md. Primary loci cited: Eruvin 2a; Mishnah Zevachim 14:6; Yoma 9a-9b; Zevachim 119a; Devarim 12:9. This is a historical and halachic piece more than a lexical one: beyond the roots ש-כ-נ and ק-ד-ש it names no grammarians, so the distinctions here rest on the Gemara and on the physical differences between the two buildings. The article's line that the Babylonians destroyed the first Beis HaMikdash "about 410 years after its destruction" is a slip for after its building.