I will attempt to draw together many ideas from many sources in an attempt to establish the real nature of the Ark?
“Legends of the Jews” by Louis Ginzberg contains many records of ancient oral traditions relating to the Ark, many refer to “sparks” or “fiery jets” that jump spontaneously from the cherubim and occasionally burned, or even destroyed nearby objects.
The biblical accounts and references to the Ark are so different to any other holy relic, that one can see why so many scholars believe that what was being described was something far more than a religious artefact. In Leviticus there is a detailed and gory reference to how Moses and his followers make animal sacrifices at the tabernacle.
Some say the Ark is under the Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem. Another theory suggests the Ark, along with other temple treasures, are hidden in a cave somewhere near the Dead sea.
So exactly what is the "Ark"
The Ark of the Covenant is the best known item in the Tabernacle, renowned
for its mysterious powers against the enemies of Israel.
The Ark of the Covenant resided in the Holy of Holies, the innermost room of the Tabernacle. Access was only permitted once per year, on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). Access was restricted to one person only, the high priest. He had to come into the Holy of Holies with the blood of a goat, on behalf of his own and the people of Israel's sins.
Ark of the Covenant was composed of two main parts: the Mercy Seat with its two cherubim (Angels) at each end of the Ark, and the Ark (chest or box) itself, upon which sat the Mercy Seat.
The Ark itself was a small box made of acacia wood, overlaid with gold. The word ark comes from the Hebrew word 'Aron', which means a chest or box.Its dimensions are described by the bible as 2.5 cubits by 1.5 cubits by 1.5 cubits (62.5 inches by 37.5 inches by 37.5 inches).
There was a crown around its top and four rings at each end of the Ark. Staves (or bars) were put through the rings to carry it (Ex. 25:13-15). The two long bars, were made of acacia wood overlaid with gold. No one was allowed to touch the Ark of the Covenant, for the penalty was death.
The Ark is said to have contained three items:
Together these three items form the Testimony hence the Ark is called the Ark of the Testimony.The Ark was God's throne in His dwelling place in the Tabernacle. Most people associate the Ark of the Covenant with judgment and wrath, rightly so. The day is soon coming when God will judge the secrets of people's hearts and "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven upon all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth".
On reading Grant R. Jeffrey's book "Appointment with Destiny" I came across a
curious reference these dimensions. The stone chest in the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid in Egypt has the exact same measurement. This Chest was the only object within the King's Chamber, as the Ark was the single sacred object within the Holy of Holies, in the Temple.
Further, the cubit dimensions of the inner chamber of the Temple, the Holy of Holies, are precisely identical in size to the King's Chamber in the Pyramid and the same volume as the molten sea of water on the Temple Mount as prepared by King Solomon.
Since the Pyramid was built and sealed long before the days of Moses, when he built the Ark and the Holy of Holies, and had remained sealed for over twenty-five centuries until the ninth century after Christ, there is no natural explanation for the phenomenon of both structures having identical volume measurements.
It is interesting to note however that the Egyptians had portable shrines in the shape of boats that were very similar to the Ark of the Covenant used by the Israelites. These arks became extremely popular by the New Kingdom when Moses would have been in Egypt.
One of the discoveries in Tutankhamun's tomb was an Ark for the afterlife.
The New Kingdom saw a greater attention to the aspects of both the hidden and revealed in temple worship. The most holy was kept sacred by keeping it hidden, while the adoration of the masses was acquired through the use of the revealed. To accommodate these two conflicting ideals the Egyptians kept their most holy inner sanctuary hidden, while placing within it a sacred bark.
The portable boat shrines (Arks) were made of wood, but ornately gilded and decorated and equipped with a closed cabin (sometimes called a seH-neTr, ‘Tent shrine of the god’) in which the image of the deity sat. Long carrying-poles on each side or set laterally and up to five in number bore the shrine along on the shoulders of priests." (Kemp, Barry J. Ancient Egypt p. 185.)
IN 586 BC the Babylonian army destroyed the magnificent temple built by King
Solomon several hundred years earlier. The Bible lists (in 2 Kings 24:13; 25:13-18; Jeremiah 52:17-23) the items which the Babylonian army carried away from Jerusalem. Missing from these lists are the important central objects of temple furniture, including the Ark of the Covenant.
This reveals that these items never came into the possession of the Babylonian army. Jewish traditional writings, e.g. The Paralipomena of Jeremiah, indicate that these important items were hidden just prior to the Babylonian invasion.
Warned of the impending destruction, the prophet Jeremiah is said to have secreted the items in a cave. When the Temple was rebuilt in later years, the instructions for the rebuilding of the Temple fails to make any mention of the Ark being re-instated.
The Ark of the Covenant disappeared off of the pages of history by the time of the Babylonian Captivity. Nothing in the Bible is said about the Ark in the Old Testament after the return from Babylon, but the Apocrypha states that the Ark could not be found when the Jewish people rebuilt the Temple at the time of Ezra and Zechariah. The explanation in the Apocrypha was that Jeremiah hid the Ark in a cave in Mount Nebo before the Babylonian invasion, and that its location would not be revealed until God was ready for it to be found.
Thus, the Holy of Holies in the Second Temple was an empty chamber, without the Ark of the Covenant. When the Roman General Pompey conquered Jerusalem around 63 B.C., he demanded the privilege of entering the Holy of Holies. When he did, he came out saying that he could not understand what all the interest was about the sanctuary, when it was only an empty room.
The fact that the Ark of the Covenant was not used in the Second Temple has led to the speculation of where the Ark is, or if it still exists on the earth. The Ark was so important in Israel from the time of Moses through the Judges and the First Temple era, that it seems remarkable that nothing is said of it in the Bible after the Babylonian Captivity, until the Letter to the Hebrews and the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. In Hebrews it is described as it was in the original Tabernacle made by Moses; and in Revelation, the Ark is seen by John in heaven. In neither case is the Ark mentioned as something that remains on the Earth now.
Can the Temple be rebuilt if it does not contain the Ark? The Scriptures indicate that the Temple will be rebuilt and standing during the Tribulation period, and that the Tribulation Temple will be desecrated by the Antichrist. How can the worship of Yahweh be resumed as it was in ancient times if there is no Ark in the Holy of Holies? We have already seen, though, that the absence of the Ark of the Covenant did not keep the Temple from being rebuilt at the conclusion of the Babylonian Captivity.
The Second Temple stood for over 500 years without containing an Ark, and it was fully recognized as a valid house of worship for the Lord. Christ Himself declared the Temple to be His Father's House. So it would not be unthinkable to build the Tribulation Temple, even if the Ark is not discovered. If the Ark does still exist, however, and it were somehow discovered, it would certainly give rise to a strong movement in Israel and around the world to rebuild the Temple to house the Ark properly.
There persists a legend that the Ark does exist on earth, but is hidden. A book by Randall Price, entitled In Search of Temple Treasures", presents the various views on what has happened to the Ark. Some of the traditions place the Ark outside of Israel, such as at Mount. Nebo, Egypt and even far-off Ethiopia. But all of these traditions have problems and seem unlikely, since there is a lack of any scriptural evidence for them.
A view that has predominated in rabbinic circles is that the Ark was hidden in a cave beneath the Temple Mount in the very heart of Israel. The theory goes that the priests hid the Ark beneath the Temple Mount, perhaps as early as during the time of King Josiah, since the coming prophesied invasion by the Babylonians was only a matter of time. By hiding the Ark and other Temple treasures, the priests felt that the priceless sacred articles could be protected from desecration by the pagan invaders.
As it turned out, the Babylonians did invade Jerusalem. They destroyed the Temple and carried away many of the vessels and implements to their capital city a thousand miles away. No mention is made in the Scriptures of the Babylonians taking the Ark, the Menorah, or other key Temple items. If the Ark and the other implements were hidden under the Temple, why weren't they recovered and used after the Captivity? It's hard to imagine that the priests would have knowingly left the Ark out of the Holy of Holies if they could have utilized it during the 500 years of the Second Temple.
The explanation offered is that they felt that as long as Jerusalem was subject to domination by the succeeding powers of Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome, the Ark and other treasures could be desecrated and captured by the Gentile armies. Thus, the sacred items would remain in seclusion until it was considered safe to bring them out to be placed in the Temple.
