Concise Bible Dictionary:
Beside the allusions to the veils worn by women (a custom which has become almost universal in the East), the veil is often used symbolically in scripture for that which hides the glory of God. It was this literally when Moses came down from the mount; his face shone because of the glory he had seen, and the people could not bear it: therefore he put a veil on his face. That veil remains to this day on the hearts of the Jews when they read the law (Ex. 34:33-35). They do not see the glory of which the law was typical; but in God’s due time He will remove the veil, and under the shadows of the law they will see Christ, and will receive Him whom they now refuse. In contrast to that ministration, in which the glory had to be veiled because of Israel’s inability to behold it, Christians now can gaze upon the glory of the Lord, whose face is unveiled, and be changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:13-18).
THE VEIL OF THE TABERNACLE AND OF THE TEMPLE witnessed to the fact that under the dispensation of the law the way into the holiest was not made manifest: God had not come out in full blessing, and man could not go in. On the death of Christ the veil was rent from top to bottom, and God has come out in fullest light. In Christianity the believer has boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which He has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. Redemption has been wrought, and God is made known in full grace, and the believer can go into His presence (Matt. 27:51; Heb. 6:19; Heb. 10:20). In Hebrews 9:3 the veil of the Temple is called the “second veil,” the curtains at the entrance being accounted the first.
Strong’s Dictionary of Hebrew Words:
Meaning:
apparently from an unused root meaning to cover; a veil