Journey to Worship pt. 3

The Ark of the covenant

A wooden chest overlaid with gold that contained the tablets of the law.

The Israelites believed the ark of the covenant was symbolically Yahweh’s throne—representing His very presence on earth. The Hebrew word for “ark” (ארון, 'rwn) designates a chest or coffin. However, the Bible makes a clear designation between the ark of the covenant and a common chest. While the most common name for the ark is “ark of the covenant,” it is also referred to as “the ark of God,” “the ark of might,” “the holy ark,” and “the ark of testimony” (or simply “the testimony”).

The ark of the covenant is first mentioned in Exodus, where it is presented as the location from which Yahweh promises to speak to Moses, as a king speaks to his advisor from a throne.

Ark as a Storehouse While 1 Kings 8:9 indicates that the ark contained only the stone tablets of the covenant, the author of Hebrews records that the ark also contained an omer of manna and Aaron’s staff (Heb 9:4).

First Samuel 4:7–8 records that when the Israelites bring the ark of the covenant into battle, the Philistines exclaim that “gods have come into the camp” (1 Sam 4:7 NRSV) and recognize them as the same “gods” who caused disease and pestilence in Egypt (1 Sam 4:8). Personifications of the plagues elsewhere in Scripture and the Ugaritic god list may provide insight into the Philistines’ exclamations here. For example, Psalm 78:48 refers to Resheph (רֶשֶׁף, resheph, “thunderbolts”) and Barad (בָּרָד, barad, “hail”) afflicting the Egyptians’ livestock. Likewise, Habakkuk 3:5 refers to Deber (דֶּבֶר, dever, “pestilence”) and Resheph (רֶשֶׁף, resheph, “plague”) going before and following after Yahweh. In the Ugaritic god lists, Resheph is equated with Nergal, the god of pestilence, who is associated with the divine Lamma, a composite creature similar to the cherubim (del Olmo Lete, 73; Lipiński, Resheph, 88). The Philistines may have viewed the two cherubim above the ark as representations of these deities.

Capture of the Ark. First Samuel 5:1 records that the Philistines captured the ark and took it to the temple in Ashdod, where it caused Dagon’s statue to topple and break and afflicted the city with a plague of mice. When the Philistines send the ark to other cities, they become similarly afflicted. These incidents reflect the plagues of Egypt and encourage the identification of Resheph and Deber as the cherubim atop the ark. The Philistines return the ark to the Israelites along with gold offerings, and the ark ends up in Kiriath-Jearim (1 Sam 7:1–2).

Movement of the Ark. In 2 Samuel 6, David orders the Israelites to fetch the ark from Baale-judah (i.e., Kiriath-Jearim). After Uzzah touched the ark en route and was killed, David “was not willing to take the ark of the Lord into the city of David” (2 Sam 6:7 ESV) and left it in the care of Obed-Edom. Upon witnessing the blessing Obed-Edom received “because of the ark of God,” David brings the ark into Jerusalem. The account of the procession of the ark in 2 Sam 6 is mirrored closely by a Babylonian religious ritual. According to the annals of Ashurbanipal, as the army carries the statue of Marduk into Babylon, there is rejoicing, playing of musical instruments, and the offering of sacrifices at regular intervals (Miller & Roberts, The Hand of the Lord, 24). First Chronicles 13 provides a parallel account of the retrieval of the ark from Kiriath-Jearim. Noting that the Chronicler’s account reflects 2 Sam 6 nearly verbatim, Klein suggests the Chronicler used a vorlage that included 2 Samuel as its principal document (Klein, 1 Chronicles, 329). However, Klein further notes that the Chronicler reinterprets history significantly when he argues that Saul’s failure as king was a result of failing to seek Yahweh—demonstrated by his refusal to retrieve the ark from Shiloh (Klein, 1 Chronicles, 331). First Chronicles 15 and 16 provide greater detail of the movement of the ark from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David.

The Fate of the Ark

The fate of the ark of the covenant is unknown. Biblical descriptions of the second temple and post-exilic works contain no references to it. The closest reference to the disappearance of the ark is Jer 3:16, which refers to a time when “they shall no more say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made again” (ESV). Day notes that throughout history, some interpreters have seen this verse as a hint that the Ark had already been taken or that there were plans to remove the ark in preparation for the Babylonian invasion (Day, “Whatever Happened to the Ark,” 260). It is more likely that Jeremiah was envisioning a future world in which Yahweh reigned supreme over the nations with the city of Jerusalem as His eternal throne (Jer 3:17). In this case, there would be no use for the ark, which served as a mobile throne for the semi-nomadic Israelites