The Holy of Holies () or Devir ( had-Dəḇir 'the Sanctuary') is a term in the Hebrew Bible that refers to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, where the Shekhinah (God's presence) appeared. According to Hebrew tradition, the area was defined by four pillars that held up the veil of the covering, under which the Ark of the Covenant was held above the floor. According to the Hebrew Bible, the Ark contained the Ten Commandments, which were given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. The first Temple in Jerusalem, called Solomon's Temple, was said to have been built by King Solomon to keep the Ark.

Jewish traditions viewed the Holy of Holies as the spiritual junction of the Seven Heavens and Earth, the "axis mundi".

As a part of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Holy of Holies was situated somewhere on Temple Mount; its precise location is a matter of dispute, with some classical Jewish sources identifying its location with the Foundation Stone, which sits under the current Dome of the Rock. Other Jewish scholars argue that contemporary reports would place the Temple to the north or east of the Dome of the Rock.

The Crusaders associated the Holy of Holies with the Well of Souls, a small cave that lies underneath the Foundation Stone in the Dome of the Rock.

Hebrew terminology and translation

The construction "Holy of Holies" is a translation of the Hebrew, which is intended to express a superlative. Examples of similar constructions are "servant of servants" (Gen 9:25), "sabbath of sabbaths" (Ex 31:15), "God of gods" (Deut 10:17), "vanity of vanities" (Eccl 1:2), "Song of Songs" (Song of Songs 1:1), "king of kings" (Ezra 7:12), etc.

The translators of the King James Version of the Christian Bible always translated "Holy of Holies" as "Most Holy Place" – in keeping with the intention of the Hebrew idiom to express the utmost degree of holiness. Thus, the name "Most Holy Place" was used to refer to the "Holy of Holies" in many English documents.

A related term, , transliterated in the Septuagint (), either means the back (i.e. western) part of the Sanctuary, or else derives from the verb stem "to speak", justifying the translation in the Vulgate as , which the traditional English translation "oracle" (KJV, 1611) derives from.

The Latin terms and parallel the designation of the Holy of Holies as an inner sanctuary.

Ancient Israel

Tabernacle

According to the Hebrew Bible, so that Yahweh might dwell among the Israelites, he gave Moses instructions for erecting a sanctuary. The directions provide for: The Ark of the Covenant, wood with gilded inside and outside, for the Tablets of Stone, with a pure gold cover as the "mercy seat" for the Shekhinah; A gilt table for the showbread, on which loaves of bread were arranged; A golden Temple menorah, a lampstand of seven oil lamps for a light never to be extinguished; The dwelling, including the curtains for the roof, the walls made of boards resting on silver feet and held together by wooden bolts; the parochet, a multi-colored curtain veiling the Holy of Holies colored blue, purple, crimson, white and gold; the table and candlestick; and the outer curtain A sacrificial altar made of bronzed boards for the korban (sacrifice) The outer court formed by columns resting on bronze pedestals and connected by hooks and crossbars of silver, with embroidered curtains; Recipe and preparation of the fresh olive oil for the lampstand.

According to Exodus 26:31–33, the parochet covered the Holy of Holies and no one was allowed to enter except the High Priest of Israel. Even he would only enter once a year, on Yom Kippur,Leviticus 16 to offer the blood of sacrifice and incense. In the wilderness, on the day that the Tabernacle was first raised, the cloud of the Lord covered the tabernacle according to Exodus 40:33-34. There are other times that this was recorded. Instructions were given that the Lord would appear in the cloud upon the Mercy Seat, and at that time the priests should not enter into the tabernacle according to Leviticus 16:2. The Holy of Holies contained the Ark of the Covenant with a representation of cherubim.

Upon completion of the dedication of the Tabernacle, the Voice of God spoke to Moses "from between the Cherubim" in Numbers 7:89.

Solomon's Temple

The Holy of Holies was the inner sanctuary within the Tabernacle and Temple in Jerusalem when Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple were standing. The parochet, a brocade curtain with cherubim motifs woven directly into the fabric from the loom, divided the Holy of Holies from the lesser Holy place.Babylonian Talmud (Yoma 72b); Rashi's Commentary and Aramaic Targum of Exodus 26:31. The "parochet" was "the work of an artisan," meaning, one who was skilled in motifs worked into the loom. Brocade refers to the decorative elements inserted into the weft on the loom, unlike embroidery that is added to the finished cloth.

The Holy of Holies was located at the westernmost end of the Temple building and was a cube: 20 cubits by 20 cubits by 20 cubits. The inside was in darkness and contained the Ark of the Covenant, gilded inside and out, in which was placed the Tablets of Stone. According to both Jewish and Christian traditions, Aaron's rod and a pot of manna were also in the ark.Midrash Rabba, Midrash HaGadol, et al.; Hebrews 9:4 in the New Testament The Ark was covered with a lid made of pure gold, known as the "mercy seat" (), which was covered by the beaten gold cherubim wings, creating the space for the Shekhinah ().

Second Temple

When the Temple was rebuilt after the Babylonian captivity, the Ark was no longer present in the Holy of Holies; instead, a portion of the floor was raised slightly to indicate the place where it had stood. In Jewish tradition, two curtains separated the Holy of Holies from the lesser Holy place during the period of the Second Temple. These curtains were woven with motifs directly from the loom, rather than embroidered, and each curtain had the thickness of a handbreadth (c. ).Midrash HaGadol on Exodus 26:31; Babylonian Talmud (Yoma 72b) Josephus records that Pompey profaned the Temple by insisting on entering the Holy of Holies in 63 BCE. When Titus captured the city during the First Jewish–Roman War, Roman soldiers took down the curtain and used it to wrap therein golden vessels retrieved from the Temple.

Yom Kippur

The Holy of Holies was entered once a year by the High Priest of Israel on Yom Kippur, to sprinkle the blood of sacrificial animals: a bull offered as atonement for the High Priest and his household, and the scapegoat offered as atonement for the people and offer incense on the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat that sat on top of it in the Solomon's Temple. The Second Temple had no Ark, so the blood was sprinkled where the Ark would have been, and an Altar of Incense was built. The goat was sacrificed and the blood was carried into the Holy of Holies. Gold was also present in the Most Holy Place.

In ancient Judaism The Magdala stone is thought to be a representation of the Holy of Holies carved before the destruction of the Temple in the year 70.

In Rabbinical Judaism Traditional Judaism regards the location where the inner sanctuary was located as retaining some or all of its original sanctity for use in a future Third Temple. The exact location of the Holy of Holies is a subject of dispute.

Traditional Judaism regards the Holy of Holies as the place where the presence of God dwells. The Talmud gives detailed descriptions of Temple architecture and layout. According to the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Yoma, the Holy of Holies was located in the center of the esplanade from a north–south perspective, but significantly to the west from an east–west perspective, with all the major courtyards and functional areas lying to its east.

The Talmud supplies additional details and describes the ritual performed by the High Priest. During the annual ritual, the High Priest would pronounce the Tetragrammaton, the only time it was pronounced. According to tradition, the people prostrated themselves fully on the ground when the Name was spoken. According to the Talmud, the High Priest's face upon exit from the Holy of Holies was radiant.

While under normal circumstances, access to the Holy of Holies was restricted to the High Priest and only on Yom Kippur, the Talmud suggests that repair crews were allowed inside as needed but were lowered from the upper portion of the room via enclosures so that they only saw the area they were to work on.Talmud Mas. Pesachim 26aTalmud Mas. Eiruvin 105a

Synagogue architecture Jews regards the Torah ark, a place in a synagogue where the Torah scrolls are kept, as a miniature Holy of Holies.

Modern location The exact location of the Holy of Holies is a contentious issue, as elements of questioning the exact placement of the Temple are often associated with Temple denial. There are three main theories as to where exactly the Temple stood on the Mount: where the Dome of the Rock is now located; to the north of the Dome of the Rock (Professor Asher Kaufman); or to the east of the Dome of the Rock (Professor Joseph Patrich of the Hebrew University).See article in the World Jewish Digest, April 2007.

The location of the Holy of Holies is connected to the location of the Jewish Temple. The location of the Temple, however, had become uncertain already less than 150 years after the Second Temple's destruction, as detailed in the Talmud. Chapter 54 of the Tractate Berakhot states that the Holy of Holies was directly aligned with the Golden Gate, which, assuming the current gate follows the same course as the now buried Herodian gate, would have placed the Holy of Holies slightly to the north of the Dome of the Rock, as Kaufman postulated. Chapter 54 of the Tractate Yoma and chapter 26 of the Tractate Sanhedrin, on the other hand, assert that the Holy of Holies stood directly on the Foundation Stone.

The Crusaders associated the Holy of Holies with the Well of Souls, which is located under the Foundation Stone of the Dome of the Rock. Most Orthodox Jews today completely avoid climbing up to Temple Mount, to prevent them from accidentally stepping on any holy areas.Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, Bernard Avishai, 'Jews Don’t Have a ‘Holiest’ Site,' Haaretz 13 May :’The point is, this kind of recklessness not only offended secular democrats, it vulgarized what “holy” has meant for most observant Jews, too. Not coincidentally, more than 85 percent of Israel’s Haredi Jews oppose prayer on the Mount, for reasons having to do with purity and impurity that cannot be resolved in “our time.” Advocates of such prayer and sacrifice tend to be, like Goren, Orthodox-nationalist zealots educated in local yeshivas and identified with the neo-Zionist settlement project. They are, like Islamists, fanatics warped by violence and nationalist fantasy – “Jewists,” not Jews.‘ A few Orthodox Jewish authorities, following the opinion of the medieval scholar Maimonides, permit Jews to visit parts of the Temple Mount known not to be anywhere near any of the sanctified areas. Orthodox Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount, who come especially from those groups associated with the Temple Institute and its efforts to rebuild a Temple, seek to conform to the minimal requirements for coming near the Temple, such as immersing in a mikvah ("collection of water"; a ritual of purification), not coming during or following menstruation or immediately following a seminal emission, not showing their back towards its presumed location, etc.

To avoid religious conflict, Jewish visitors caught praying or bringing ritual objects are usually expelled from the area by police.

In apocryphal literature