The tent of God’s presence is rendered in most translations as “the tent of witness” (Revised Standard Version; see Phillips “the Tabernacle of witness”) or “the Tent of the Testimony” (Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible). This tent was called “the tent of witness” because either in a general sense it was a witness to the presence of God among his people, or else, in a more specialized sense, it contained the covenant box (Exodus 25.22) in which were deposited the stones on which the Law had been written and which were a witness to God’s covenant with his people.

The phrase tent of God’s presence may be rendered in a number of different ways, for example, “tent which showed that God was present,” “tent which contained that which showed that God was present,” or “tent which said to the people, God is here.”

The literal expression “the one speaking to Moses” (see Revised Standard Version, Zürcher Bibel, An American Translation*) is made explicit in the Good News Translation, God had told Moses (see Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible, Phillips). The Good News Translation translation according to the pattern that Moses had been shown accomplishes at least two things: (1) it clears up the ambiguity in the Greek phrase “according to the pattern that he had seen” (which the reader could possibly understand to mean the pattern that God had seen), and (2) it indicates that what Moses saw was something that had been shown him by God.

A term for pattern is essentially the word “model.” In certain languages, however, the closest equivalent is “picture,” as any kind of representation.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .