What is “the sanctuary of the tent of witness”?

The term translated here as “sanctuary” was earlier translated as temple (Revelation 11:19; Revelation 14:15, Revelation 14:17). We need to bear in mind that the earthly tabernacle Moses built (Exodus 25:40) and the earthly temple Solomon built (1 Chronicles 28:11) were patterned after the temple of heaven (Hebrews 8:5). This temple (or “sanctuary”) is now further qualified as “the tent of witness.” In our translation, the term rendered as “witness” appears regularly in the books of Moses as testimony (Exodus 38:21; Numbers 1:50, Numbers 1:53; Numbers 9:15; Numbers 10:11; Numbers 17:8; Numbers 18:2). The point of the term “witness” (or “testimony”) was that the tabernacle witnessed to the relationship between God and his people. The layout of the tabernacle (God dwelling with yet separate from his people) as well as the activities in the tabernacle (sacrifices for sin on the bronze altar) contributed to this witness. Yet the primary indication of this relationship was the ten words of the covenant that God inscribed with his own hand. Those two tablets of the law were placed deep inside the tabernacle, in (or under) the throne of God on the ark In the Most Holy Place (Exodus 25:16). In its preamble, the ten words stated that the Lord was Israel’s God, and the commandments themselves stipulated how God’s covenant people ought to/could live with him. With the ten words of the covenant housed deep inside the sanctuary, the tabernacle truly was a “tent of witness.”