The Ark of the Covenant first appears in the Hebrew Bible in Exodus 25, when God explicitly instructs the Israelites as to its construction. Between this and the furnishing of Solomon’s temple when the Ark drops out of the Biblical narrative, it serves as a container, a guide, a military aid, a prophetic medium, and a concrete symbol of God’s presence on earth. The Ark narrative proves a dependence on the Sinai theology prevalent during the period of time that the Ark was in use. However we cannot fully understand the ideological implications of the Ark of the Covenant without first delving into the translation(s) of its name, its physical appearance, and its relation to everyday life.
Our English word “ark” translates two Hebrew words, of which aron is used here. (The other, teba, is used in respect to Noah’s Ark.) Aron generally gives the connotation of a coffin or a chest for money offerings (Metzger 55). The Hebrew word eduth, most commonly translated as “covenant” can also easily mean “treaty” or “testimony.” The JPS translation of the Torah consistently uses “Pact” instead. Considering these translations allows for a greater understanding of the object in question. Instead of the holy “ark of the covenant” we may instead only be dealing with a “chest, generally for money offerings, that is being used for a treaty.”
In this context, the idea of God’s Ark is not far-fetched. As God instructed Moses to place the Ten Commandments (or covenant, or treaty, or testimony) in the Ark, so did many ancient cultures place important documents in chests, “protecting them from damage or loss” (Exodus 25:21, Sarna 104). This corresponds to our modern notion of placing important documents in the National Archives for public viewing and safekeeping. Yet God’s covenant did not stand as an ordinary document to the Israelites.
To aid in making this object into a holy Ark of the Covenant, God instructed that the Ark be overlaid with pure gold, fixed with rings and poles for carrying, and adorned with two golden angels facing each other on the lid (Exodus 25:11-20).
The ornateness described here is also not uncommon for ancient societies. Since “carefully crafted wooden chests with gold overlay are known from the time of Tutankhamen [ca. 1340 BCE] and earlier” and the Israelites had only recently left Egypt, the assumption that Israelites held knowledge of such containers and their construction is logical (Bromiley 292, Derby). Furthermore, God asked the Israelites to furnish the gold for the Ark from what they carried out of Egypt (Exodus 25:3). This is also a logical step if we assume, as mathematician-turned-rabbi Josiah Derby does, that over a million Israelites were delivered to Mt Sinai. Derby continues to estimate that the gold of the Ark weighed 177.61 pounds – a feasible sum if each Israelite wore only half an ounce of gold. Here we must also consider that the dimensions of the Ark were specified as being only four feet long and two feet in width and height (“Ark of the Covenant” 37). Even if we take the number of liberated Israelites to be a much smaller number, the amount of gold would still be sufficient as Derby’s model supplies the Israelites with 15,000 pounds of gold.
Underneath the gold, God specifically called for the Ark to be composed of acacia wood. Desert acacia (acacia seyal), which the Israelites would presumably have found in the wilderness outside of Egypt, is known for its durability (Buttrick 1021). Whether to hold fast underneath 177 pounds of gold or to remain strong for countless generations, God dictated the Ark of the Covenant to be resilient, much like his recently delivered Israelites.
It is also not illogical to suppose that the Israelites had the knowledge to build such an Ark. Exodus 35:30 states that Bezalel, a man of Judah, crafted the Ark. As we know from the Joseph story, Egyptians respected their slaves’ varying skills (Genesis 39). Thus artistic slaves would have been “given to Egyptian craftsmen as helpers,” and the idea of Bezalel building such a magnificent object is perfectly achievable (Derby).
Now that we have reached a reasonable understanding as to the naming, connotation, appearance, and construction of the Ark of the Covenant, we (like the ancient Israelites) may begin to comprehend the Ark’s function. Only after describing the Ark’s appearance did God mention his plan to speak to Moses from the Ark (Exodus 25:22). In addition to commands from God, the Ark was also employed as a container for precious objects, a guide through the wilderness, an aid in battle, and a medium for oracles.
The 1859 edition of A Dictionary of the Holy Bible states that four objects were placed in the Ark of the Covenant: the Ten Commandments (Ex 25:21), Aaron’s rod (Num 17:10), manna from the wilderness (Ex16:3-4), and a copy of the book of law (Deut 31:26) (38). Upon inspecting the bible verses the dictionary provides, however, problems arise in this interpretation. God overtly tells Moses “in the ark you shall put the covenant that I shall give you,” which presumably refers to the Ten Commandments (Ex 25:21). Yet in Deuteronomy Moses declares “Take this book of the law and put it beside the ark of the covenant” (31:26). The writer leaves unclear whether the book of the law is the Covenant or Deuteronomy itself. Either way, the item is to be set beside the ark “as a witness against you” (31:26).
Numbers 17:10 leaves Aaron’s rod in a similarly slippery situation when God instructs Moses to “put back the staff of Aaron before the covenant.” Since the covenant resides in the Ark, this statement can be interpreted as placing the staff next to the covenant, in the Ark. The words also carry a connotation of placing the staff before the covenant outside of the Ark, perhaps with the words “Ark of the” missing from the manuscript. Lastly it must be noted that the manna of the wilderness is mentioned before the construction of the Ark and is also placed “before the covenant” (Ex 16:3-4). The manna cannot be located in a nonexistent container; in order to be in the ark the jar of manna must have been moved when the covenant was placed in God’s Ark.
As Buttrick notes, almost a century after A Dictionary of the Holy Bible, objects were originally placed before the Ark to represent God’s power. Later editors of the biblical text are most likely to blame for putting things in the Ark itself (1022). The JPS version of the Torah, an original translation of the Masoretic text, does not mention Aaron’s rod or the jar of manna, leaving only “the Pact” (Ex 25:21) and “this book of teaching” (Deut 31:26) to be placed in and beside the Ark, respectively (Torah 149, 396). In what is perhaps the most famous adaptation of the Ark story, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones believed that the only items in the Ark are the broken fragments of the first version of the Ten Commandments.
Whether or not the Israelites used the Ark as storage, Old Testament narratives bestow it with theological functions as well. Numbers 10 describes the emancipated Israelites as ready to depart from Mt Sinai, and specifically mentions the Ark “going before them three day’s journey, to seek out a resting place” (Num 10:33). In this fashion, with a symbol of God before them, the Israelites felt secure both in their traveling and their intended destination. A traveling Ark also lent itself as “the locus of public worship in the wilderness,” a function the Israelites no doubt needed in the infancy of their structured religion (Derby).
The connection between God and his people through the Ark is mentioned mainly in Exodus, while Deuteronomy “does not mention that the Ark is a symbol of God’s presence, but only that it contains the tablets” (Sarna 105). If Deuteronomy is in fact the “book of the law” placed beside the covenant, the emphasis on God’s power need not be stated, as ancient Israelites reading it would already be near the holy presence of the Ark (Deut 31:26). However a religious undertone may be missing in Deuteronomy because it is a book of law containing very little plot meant to give rules to the Israelites, rather than Exodus which tells a coherent story and more sets up for the laws of Deuteronomy.
The Ark narrative in Exodus (and both Samuel books, as we’ll address later) may be seen to interpret the past “not as a priestly concoction of wonder and fantasy, but as theology” (Campbell). Since ancient Israelites viewed God as being distant, judging, and wholly superior, the idea of a man-made object acting as “a legitimate symbol of God’s presence” fit neatly into their ideology (Sarna 105). The Ark of the Covenant led them through the wilderness as an act of divine prophecy, not an act of mere directional guidance. Indeed the Israelites who attempted to enter the Promised Land before “the ark of the covenant of the Lord” were defeated by the current inhabitants of the land (Num 14:44-5).
Shortly after this occurrence Moses died and appointed Joshua his successor (Deut 34). God then commanded Joshua to cross the Jordan and finally proceed into the Promised Land (Josh 1:2). As was customary the Ark proceeded first and before it the waters of the Jordan parted so that the Israelites traversed the river without problems (Josh 3:17). A similar situation occurs in Joshua 6 when the walls of Jericho fall with the aid of God in the presence of the Ark. While Israelite men marched around Jericho carrying the Ark, blowing trumpets, and shouting, “it is indicated that it was God’s presence in the Conquest that brought victory” (Kelly 99). Now the Ark has proven useful not only for physically keeping the covenant and for literally guiding Israelites through the wilderness, but for performing unnatural acts (of God) as well.
A general use of the Ark in military activities can be seen as early as Numbers 10, where the “Song of the Ark” appears, sung by Moses. The words “O Lord, let your enemies be scattered, and your foes flee before you” allow the reader to assume the Ark’s presence in battle as medium for God’s presence while not overtly identifying anything (Num 10:35). Assumptions and vague identifications stand as a theme throughout the Ark narrative and give dissenting opinions a solid ground. This is evident as God aids the Israelites in battle (against the Egyptians) in Exodus 14, which takes places significantly before the Ark is conceived of or built.
Even if the Ark figured prominently in military maneuvers, it spent most of the time sitting around, such as “in Abinadab’s house” (2 Sam 6) King David removed the Ark from its humble abode and moves it to Jerusalem, wishing to build a temple for it (2 Sam 6-7) God denies David’s wish and instead builds a house for David, promising to carry his line “forever” (2 Sam 7:16). Establishing a permanent home for the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem would negate much of the need that the Israelites had for a portable Ark, and is perhaps why God refuses David’s offer. However God does allow David’s son Solomon to build the temple, but only after the Israelites accept the monarchy and settle away from the Sinai theology.
We see in 1 Samuel 3 that the Ark provided one final purpose: a medium for oracles. God called Samuel’s name while he slept by the Ark, and remained with Samuel “as he grew up” (1 Sam 3:19). However each time Samuel was called he went to Eli, assuming it was Eli who had called him and not God (1 Sam 3:4-6). This presents a challenge to the idea that Israelites believed God was in or on the Ark. The argument that Samuel may not have been old enough to know God’s presence around the ark still supports the notion that the Ark and its uses were not widespread knowledge in Israelite culture. Although Samuel’s acknowledgement of God through the Ark is in dispute, the idea of God calling Samuel through the Ark to prophesy is not.
Thus the Ark of the Covenant was given four main purposes under the Sinai theology: a container, a guide, a military aid, and a prophetic medium. These uses allowed the Israelites to hold a concrete vision of God until the establishment of Jerusalem as the holy city. The Ark narrative serves “as the expression of the nearness to Yahweh, against the insistence of the Zion tradition” (Campbell). Once God decreed Jerusalem/Zion to be His place on earth the emphasis of the narrative shifts to the Temple rather than the Ark kept in the Temple.
The Ark of the Covenant drops out of the biblical after it is placed in the Temple, and is not mentioned at all during the Babylonians’ destruction of Judah. Whether the Ark was lost or destroyed in the sacking of Jerusalem we cannot know. However two possibilities are present: that the Ark was taken by King Nebuchadnezzar when he “carried off all the treasures of the house of the Lord,” and that the gold was taken from the Ark when the Babylonian captain “took away” all that was made of gold (1 Kings 24:13, 25:15) In the aftermath of this tragedy Jeremiah predicted that “in the future New Jerusalem nobody will concern himself about the ark, nor make an attempt to rebuild it” (3:16). Jeremiah played into the idea that Mt Zion served as God’s place at that point in time and a portable Ark was no longer central to the Israelites’ worship.
The Ark of the Covenant was mainly active in Moses and Joshua’s time before the establishment of an earthly government. Certainly the Ark is not mentioned in the time of Judges except to appear in Bethel at the end of the period (Judges 20:18). Both Samuel and David use the Ark in Israel’s transition from a theocracy to a monarchy, only to have the Ark dwindle and drop out of the narrative with the end of the monarchy. The “little rectangular chest that figured so prominently in Israel’s history” seems only to appear in periods when the people need a concrete example of God (Bromiley 292). Due to the Ark’s four documented purposes in ancient Israel it was able to function with the larger purpose of a theological tool, prominent as a symbol of God under the Sinai theology and disappearing with the acceptance of the Zion theology.
Works Cited
"Ark of the Covenant." A Dictionary of the Holy Bible for General Use in the Study of Scriptures. ed. 1859. pp. 37-38.
Bromiley, Geoffrey W. "Ark of the Covenant." The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. ed. 1979. pp. 291-294.
“Buttrick, George Arthur, ed. The Interpreter's Bible, vol. 1. 1952. pp. 1021-23.
Campbell, Antony F. "Yahweh and the Ark: A Cast Study in Narrative." Journal of Biblical Literature 98.1 (1979). pp. 31-43.
Derby, Josiah. "The Gold of the Ark." Jewish Bible Quarterly Vol. 33 Issue 4 (2005). 09 Apr 2006 <http://libgateway.susqu.edu/login?url=http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&an=18395276>.
Kelly, Balmer H., ed. The Layman's Bible Commentary: Volume 5. London: SCM Press Ltd., 1964. pp. 99-100.
Metzger, Bruce M., and Michael D. Coogan, ed. The Oxford Companion to the Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. pp. 55-56.
Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dir. Stephen Spielberg. Perf. Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, and Ronald Lacey. 1981. Videocassette. Lucasfilm Ltd., 1989.
Sarna, Nahum M., ed. The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1996. pp. 104-05.
The Torah: The Five Books of Moses. 3rd ed. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1992.
Why: For a class on the Old Testament in Spring 2006. I got an A- for shaking the instructor’s faith in God.
Contact: Confront Heather with any questions or comments.