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A model of the Ark of the Covenant from biblical description

The Missing Contents of the Ark of the Covenant: What Was Inside the Ark? (HINT: Not just the 10 Commandments)

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Whenever the subject of ancient technology comes up, most people have been conditioned by spectacular movies and TV shows to think right away about the Ark of the Covenant. Some say it was a capacitor of some kind—a power source containing a communicator with which to converse with ancient aliens. Others insist it was a weapon of mass destruction. Fantastic claims have been published describing beams issuing from it that destroyed entire armies, although those claims are not found in the Bible. The Ark is also said to have been the place where the Ten Commandments were kept.  But if you read the passage quoted above from the book of Hebrews, and parallel passages from Exodus and Numbers, you soon realize that's only part of the story. 

The Ark of the Covenant According to the Book of Exodus

The book of Exodus tells us that when Moses climbed Sinai to receive the Law (delivered to the Israelites after their escape from Egypt), he was instructed to build an Ark upon which the glory of God would rest.

"Ark" comes from the Greek word for chest. A "covenant" is a binding contract or legal agreement. When the original Hebrew texts were translated into Greek, forming what is now called the Septuagint, (the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament), the translated words carried over into our English versions of the Bible. Hence, the Ark of the Covenant was originally meant to serve as a religious symbol of God's ‘contract’ with the Israelite people—not a technological marvel or weapon of war.

Model Ark of the Covenant

Model Ark of the Covenant (Public Domain)

It was a box, about two and a half feet high and wide and four and a half feet long, made of wood, covered with gold leaf, and transported by means of two long poles that ran through rings placed on its side.  When not being carried about it was housed within the Holy of Holies—the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, or Tent of Meeting, during the forty years the Israelites were said to have wandered in the Sinai desert. After the conquest of Canaan, it was placed in a sanctuary at Shiloh, and was later brought by King David, it is said, to the site of the future Temple at Jerusalem, built by King Solomon. This was the occasion that so inspired David that he "danced before the Lord," much to the disgust of his wife.

By the time the Babylonians destroyed Solomon's temple in 586 BCE the Ark had disappeared from history. Although many have tried to find it, its location has remained a mystery. Some think it resides in a temple in Ethiopia, brought there by the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Others believe it is hidden in the caves of Qumran, buried under the temple mount, or even hidden in a booby-trapped pit on Oak Island off the coast of Nova Scotia! Most scholars believe it was destroyed. Many doubt it ever existed.

The Missing Contents of the Ark

Although most people who have watched the History Channel or read some of the spectacular articles about the Ark know it housed the Ten Commandments, there were actually two more symbolic objects that were alleged to have been placed within the Ark.  Exodus 16 and 25, along with Numbers 17, emphasize all three items equally. I Kings 8, which describes the ceremony when Solomon brought the Ark into the temple, mentions only the Ten Commandments. Apparently by then, some 500 years after the Ark had first been constructed, the other two objects so important to the original authors had either been lost or forgotten.

What were they and why were they so important to the story of the original Ark of the Covenant?  

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Jim Willis is author of nine books on religion and spirituality, he has been an ordained minister for over forty years while working part-time as a carpenter, the host of his own drive-time radio show, an arts council director and adjunct college professor in the fields of World Religions and Instrumental Music. He is author of Supernatural Gods: Spiritual Mysteries, Psychic Experiences, and Scientific Truths | Visit  JimWillis.net

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Top Image: A model of the Ark of the Covenant from biblical description (Blake Patterson/CC BY 2.0);Deriv.

By Jim Willis

 

Comments

Jim, I’d recommend you learn Hebrew and read attentively.  The Book of Kings (and for that matter, Ex. 16 and Num. 17) is right:  the only thing inside the Ark were the Tablets of Stone.

AldoZL

The cover pic is 100%WRONG ....the word Cherubim doesn't mean 2 child like Angel's....good LORD doesn't anyone study archaic poetry?
SCHEREBIUM - is the correct spelling and its comes from SCHERE which means crab claw scissor shears and THE OLD WORD FOR VAGINA in GERMAN pre Black Sea Flood.
They traded metal horses wagons and cattle with Asian tribes in the area of the BLACK SEA .......and IDEAS OF THE MIND
One of which was YIN YANG male female BALANCE the TAO DISK this became the word DEUTSCHE.
On TOP of the ark were ot 2 tiny angels but 2 TAO DISKS SCHEREBIUM the symbol of CARCERATION SEIDEL MAGIC the power of the mystic symbol was sacred to the CREATOR BEING God being FEMALE......

Judgealan

YHWH Allah's picture

In addition to the above IS the filled with pozzolanic concrete inside my Ark of my Testimony when I cemented it inside my Altar of Burnt Offering together with all of my other preserved Mishkan relics at the bottom of easternmost Scroll Trench.

Plenty of pulverised volcanic ash at my Stonehenge for that pozzolanic concrete slurry which I poured throughout before skidding my Heel Stone 3.6m (12ft) southeast over it (rotated 1/4 turn clockwise) from its original location by the builders.

YHWH Allah

Mishkan 1.2m below Heel Stone
@ Stonehenge, United Kingdom

jim willis's picture

Jim

After graduating from the Eastman School of Music, Jim Willis became a high school band and orchestra teacher during the week, a symphony trombonist on the weekends, a jazz musician at night and a choral conductor on Sunday mornings. ... Read More

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