Catholic Commentary
The Inner Veil Before the Holy of Holies
35He made the veil of blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twined linen, with cherubim. He made it the work of a skillful workman.36He made four pillars of acacia for it, and overlaid them with gold. Their hooks were of gold. He cast four sockets of silver for them.
Exodus 36:35–36 describes the construction of the veil separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, made of costly materials (blue, purple, scarlet linen) with cherubim woven in, suspended by four gold-overlaid acacia pillars anchored by silver sockets cast from Israel's redemption ransom. This veil represented the boundary between sinful humanity and God's holy presence, accessible only to the High Priest once yearly on Yom Kippur.
The veil that hides God's presence is also the template for how God becomes approachable—and at the Cross, that veil tears open forever.
Exodus 36:35 — The Veil Itself
The veil (Hebrew pārōket) described here is not the outer screen of the Tabernacle court (the māsāk) but the innermost curtain, the one that stood immediately before the Qōdeš haqqŏdāšîm — the Holy of Holies — where the Ark of the Covenant rested beneath the mercy seat. Its construction is deliberate and its materials are laden with significance.
The four materials — blue (tĕkēlet), purple (argāmān), scarlet (tôlāʿat šānî), and fine twined linen (šēš mošzār) — are the same costly materials used throughout the most sacred elements of the Tabernacle (cf. Exodus 26:1; 28:5–6). Blue and purple were dyes derived from marine mollusks, extraordinarily expensive in the ancient world; scarlet came from a crushed insect (the coccus ilicis). Their combination signals royalty, priestly dignity, and the weight of divine holiness. The fine linen, which could be twisted to produce an almost luminous fabric, contributes to the impression of something simultaneously brilliant and opaque: beautiful, yet impenetrable.
The cherubim woven into the fabric are decisive. These are not decorative motifs but theological statements. The cherubim stand as guardians of divine precincts from the moment of the Fall (Genesis 3:24), their presence declaring that the space behind the veil is categorically holy — inaccessible to sinful human beings apart from the singular annual ritual of Yom Kippur, when the High Priest alone, with blood of atonement, could pass through. The veil was thus a boundary made visible: it dramatized the distance between humanity in its fallen state and the manifest presence (the Šĕkînāh) of YHWH.
The phrase "the work of a skillful workman" (Hebrew maʿăśēh ḥōšēb, literally "the work of a craftsman who thinks/designs") distinguishes this veil from plain woven cloth. It is figured or tapestry weaving — patterns visible on both sides — a technique requiring the highest artisanal mastery. The Holy Spirit-filled artisan Bezalel (Exodus 31:1–5) is the agent; divine wisdom takes material form in woven thread.
Exodus 36:36 — The Four Pillars
The four acacia-wood pillars overlaid with gold provide the architectural structure that suspends the veil. Acacia (šiṭṭāh) is the wood of the desert wilderness — dense, resistant to decay, and virtually the only timber available to Israel in Sinai. Its consistent use throughout the Tabernacle's sacred furnishings (the Ark, the Altar of Incense, the Altar of Burnt Offering, the boards of the walls) underscores that God consecrates the ordinary materials of the pilgrim journey. Overlaid with gold, the pillars are transfigured: base matter becoming luminous in divine service.
The golden hooks (Hebrew wāwîm, also translated "clasps" or "pegs") are the fittings by which the veil hangs — the mechanics of the threshold, invisible but essential. The four silver sockets (ʾădānîm) at the base anchor the pillars to the ground. Silver throughout the Tabernacle is associated with redemption: the census ransom money of half-a-shekel (Exodus 30:11–16) was used to cast precisely these foundational sockets. The very ground upon which the veil stands is literally made from Israel's ransom price. The structure is built on atonement.
Typological Sense
The New Testament reads this veil with remarkable specificity. The Letter to the Hebrews explicitly identifies the veil with Christ's flesh: "We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh" (Hebrews 10:19–20). The veil is not an obstacle to be regretted but a way to be entered — and Christ's body is that way. The four pillars, in patristic reading (notably in the Venerable Bede's De Tabernáculo), have been understood to represent the four Gospels, which "hold up" and present to us the mystery of Christ's flesh. The tearing of the Temple veil at the Crucifixion (Matthew 27:51) is the eschatological completion of what Exodus 36 anticipates: the barrier dissolved, the Holy of Holies thrown open, access to the Father granted through the pierced body of the Son.
Catholic tradition brings three especially rich interpretive gifts to these verses.
The Flesh of Christ as the New Veil. The identification of the veil with the Incarnate Word's humanity is not merely a patristic conceit but a theologically precise claim. The Catechism teaches that "the veil of the temple was rent in two, from top to bottom" at the moment of Christ's death (CCC 586), signifying that through his humanity — which both conceals and reveals the divine nature — we now have free access to the Father. Origen (Homilies on Exodus), Cyril of Alexandria, and Bede all elaborate this typology: just as the pārōket simultaneously hid and declared the divine presence, so Christ's humanity is the "veil" through which the eternal Son becomes approachable without consuming us.
Redemption as the Foundation. The silver sockets — literally cast from Israel's ransom silver — articulate a principle the Catechism makes explicit: "The redemption won by Christ consists in this, that he came to give his life as a ransom for many" (CCC 601, echoing Mark 10:45). The architecture of worship rests on atonement, not the reverse. Grace precedes the structures of religion; the liturgical ordering of Israel's life flows from God's prior act of deliverance.
Sacred Beauty and Liturgical Theology. The maʿăśēh ḥōšēb — the "thinking workmanship" of the veil — speaks to the Catholic conviction that sacred art is an act of theological intellection, not mere decoration. The Second Vatican Council (Sacrosanctum Concilium 122) and Pope John Paul II (Letter to Artists, 1999) both affirm that the Church "has always been the friend of the fine arts" and that beauty in liturgical craft serves as an epiphany of the divine. The cherubim-woven veil is Exodus's own Letter to Artists: craftsmanship at the threshold of holiness is a form of prayer.
For the contemporary Catholic, these two verses offer a corrective to two opposite errors: the trivializing of sacred space, and the despairing sense that God is unreachable.
The veil teaches that God's holiness is real and ought to shape how we approach him — with preparation, reverence, and awe. When we enter a church, genuflect before the tabernacle, or observe silence before the Blessed Sacrament, we are living descendants of the veil's logic: the Holy of Holies is not a common space. The beauty of a well-crafted church — its art, its sacred vessels, its liturgical vestments — is not luxury but theology woven in thread and stone, continuing the work of Bezalel.
But the veil also proclaims that access is now fully given. Christ's torn flesh is an open door. Catholics who feel crushed by unworthiness — who hesitate at the threshold of confession or Communion — can hear this passage as an invitation: the curtain has been torn from top to bottom. The ransom has been paid. The silver sockets are already cast. You are not barred from the Holy of Holies; you are called into it, through him who is himself the Way.
Commentary