Elijah seems to have led Peter to think of tabernacles, and being a Jew,

knowing the history of his people, he would remember that immediately after

the Passover, Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, which movement

afterward, was impressed upon the nation's memory by the institution of the

feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23:42,43).

Again, whether we perceive all the reasons or not, there is an obvious

connection between 2 Peter 1, and 2 Peter 3.  Let us tabulate a few of the

parallels and correspondences.  In both chapters Peter desires to 'stir up'

their minds by way of 'remembrance' or 'to put in mind'.  In both, prophets

are referred to as 'holy'.  In both he uses the words 'knowing this first';

in both a 'day' is the object of desire, and in both there is a reference to

opposition to the doctrine of the Second Coming, 'cunningly devised fables';

'where is the promise of His coming?' (2 Pet. 1:13,16,19-21 and 3:1,2,4,11).

In chapter 1 it is Peter who would put off his tabernacle, i.e. his body, in

chapter 3 it is the heavens that are to be dissolved, or as other passages

indicate, will be put aside as a tent or an old garment.  The apostle Paul

also has used the tent or tabernacle as a figure of the present body of the

believer.  The outward man indeed is perishing, but the inward man is renewed

day by day; the afflictions of this present pilgrimage are 'light' when

compared with the 'weight' of future glory.  The things which are 'seen' are

temporary, the 'unseen' things abide (2 Cor. 4:16-18).  And leading on from

these considerations, he continues:

'For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were

dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands,

eternal in the heavens.  For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be

clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so be that being

clothed we shall not be found naked.  For we that are in this

tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be

unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of

life' (5:1-4).

The words 'our earthly house of this tabernacle' are a little confusing, the

Greek tou skenous 'of this tabernacle' should be treated as a genitive of

apposition 'that is to say', thus: 'For we know that if our earthly house,

that is to say this tabernacle (or better still, "this tent"), were taken

down, we have' etc., etc.  'Dissolved' translates the Greek kataluo, which is

elsewhere rendered 'destroy' (Matt. 5:17); 'throw down' (Matt. 24:2), and

eight of the references, where 'throw down' is the translation, refer to a

building.  'To take down' which is the translation given by Bengel is

acceptable.  Most readers have a difficulty when they come to the words

'clothed upon', 'clothed' or 'unclothed', and many commentators go off into

the realm of the so-called intermediate state to find an explanation.  Enduo

'to clothe' is used sometimes as we use the English endue or indue, as 'endue

Thy ministers with righteousness'.  One of the earlier occurrences of enduo

is found in the Greek version of Job 10:11, where Job says, 'Thou hast

clothed me with skin and flesh', showing that from earliest times the figure

of clothing could and did refer to the human body.  Enduo is used in the

literal sense of putting on clothing, or armour, but it is also used in the

wider sense of 'putting on' as in Galatians 3:27 to 'put on Christ', or as in

Ephesians 4:24 or Colossians 3:10 for 'putting on the new man'.  But more to

the point is the recurring use of enduo in 1 Corinthians 15:53 and 54, where

it is definitely used of resurrection, when 'this corruptible shall put on

incorruption', and 'this mortal shall put on immortality'.  In addition, the

figure of being 'swallowed up' which is found in 2 Corinthians 5:4 is already

used of the final triumph of resurrection, when 'death is swallowed up in