The Ark Of The Covenant (Part Three)
Picking up from part two of the history of The Ark of the Covenant in the July 2026 issue of the TKC, no one wanted the Ark in their possession. This was because they realized that the God of the golden box was real – it had devastating power. The Philistines ultimately placed the Ark on a cart pulled by cows and directed it to Bet Shemesh in Israel. The Ark had returned to its rightful place!!! 1 Samuel says the people of Bet Shemesh lifted their eyes and rejoiced. The presence of God is back with His people and everything should be fine. However, the people made a big mistake. They opened the lid and looked inside the Ark. The text doesn’t explain why but the result was brutal. The number recorded in the Masoretic Hebrew text is 50,070 men dead. This number is debated ie., Flavius Josephus the Jewish historian, recorded only 70 dead. Whatever the number, the impact on the village was devastating.
Thus, the reaction of the people was predictable as 1 Samuel records “Who is able to stand before the Lord – this Holy God?” The translation of this is that no one wants this thing here – take it somewhere else – the same reaction of the Philistines. This reveals the nature of the Ark. It made no distinction between friend and foe. The Ark was Holy and Holiness, in the original Biblical sense, does not mean gentle goodness. It means absolute separation – a standard that does not change and does not forgive carelessness.
The people of Bet Shemesh told the city of Kirjath- jearim to come get the Ark and, according to 1 Samuel 7: 1-2, Kirjath- jearim accepted and a man named Eleazar was charged to guard it and the Ark stayed there with him undisturbed in a private house for twenty years.
One day, a man emerged who was obsessed with bringing the Ark back to the centre of Israel’s life – because he loved the Ark. This man was David. He asked the most profound question which was “How is it possible to have the presence of God with you without dying?” David had become King of all Israel with Jerusalem as his capital. He realized that Jerusalem was the political centre but, without the Ark, it was not the spiritual centre. David understood better than any other leader of Israel that, without a spiritual centre, the nation fragments. 2 Samuel 6: 3. They put the Ark on a new cart built specifically for the occasion and brought it into the city. David and the whole House of Israel played before the Ark – harps, psalteries, and on timbrels, cornets and cymbals – 30,000 voices – maximum celebration. Everything was perfect. Everything was right.
Then they came to the threshing floor of Nachon. The oxen pulling the Ark stumbled and Uzzah put out his hand to steady the Ark and took hold of it (a perfectly natural reaction, a reflex action). 2 Samuel 6: 7 says; “And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.”
He died instantly for trying to prevent the Ark from falling. Watching this, 30,000 people froze and David became angry and afraid. The Hebrew word used here is carah meaning intense rage. But, as 2 Samuel 6: 9 says; “And David was afraid of the Lord that day, and said, how shall the ark of the Lord come to me?” David knew the history of other cities that were devastated by the presence of the Ark so he carried it to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.
The Ark remained there for three months but, instead of destruction, the Lord blessed Obed-edom and his entire household. Thus, the question is “why were some holders of the Ark destroyed and another blessed?” So David studied and researched. 1 Chronicles records David’s own words months later – because you did not carry it the first time! They did not follow the explicit ordinances, the rules that were given to Moses at Sinai. The Ark was to be transported only by the Levites and carried on poles on their shoulders, never touched directly and never placed on a cart. But, what had David done? He had copied the method of the Philistines putting it on a cart pulled by oxen. It worked for the Philistines because they didn’t have the instructions. Israel should have known. It was willful negligence.
Knowing this, and now following the rules, David understood and brought the Ark back into Jerusalem. David danced before it with all his might wearing only loin cloth in sight of everyone. Michal, Saul’s daughter, looked and saw David’s actions – she thought it embarrassing and vulgar and 2 Samuel 6: 16 states that she despised David in her heart. However, David’s response was profound. A translation of what he said is “ I wasn’t dancing for the people or to impress anyone. I was before the Ark and before the Ark there is no royal dignity, there is no political decorum – there is only the human response before the presence of God and if that is to jump and scream like a mad man then that is what you do.” After this, things didn’t go well for Michal. 2 Samuel 6: 23 records that “Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death.”
The Ark was now in Jerusalem, inside a tent and David organized worship before it. This was continuous worship, singing, playing instruments every day. Then, in 2 Samuel 7, the Bible says that David was sitting in his palace made of wood imported from Lebanon. He said to the prophet Nathan see now I dwell in a house of cedar but the Ark of God dwelleth within curtains (a tent). Thus, David wanted to build a temple – a permanent magnificent structure worthy of housing the most important object in the world. But what God said to David (through Nathan) was not what anyone expected. He said that you will not build a house for me but I will build a house for you. And the house God promised David was not a building, it was a dynasty, a lineage – a throne that would last forever. This was called the Davidic covenant – the promise that culminates in Jesus. Thus, David did not build the temple but he spent his life preparing everything so that his son Solomon would build it.
It should be noted that, as part of this covenant, 2 Samuel 7:10 relates God’s promise to David “Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as beforetime.” I believe this place is the British Isles where all twelve tribes of Israel eventually migrated to with the hand of God guiding them through the wilderness – later to expand forth to form the Commonwealth of Nations and the USA.
The Arc now filled Solomon’s temple with such density that 1 Kings says the priests could not stand to minister, they could not stay on their feet . The presence was so intense and so physically overwhelming that men trained for sacred service had to leave. The Ark had found its home and, for approximately 370 years, there it stayed.
However, we note that King Solomon died around 930 B.C. and the temple, which contained the Arc, was destroyed in 586 B.C. by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. At some point between these two events the Ark of the Covenant vanished and it seems odd that it is not mentioned again in the Biblical text. The silence is deafening!
When Solomon died his son Rehoboam took the Throne and he did everything wrong. Because of his heavy taxation and harsh treatment of Israel, ten northern tribes rebelled and seceded forming the northern Kingdom under Jeroboam. However, the Ark stayed in Jerusalem, in the southern kingdom.
Both kingdoms sinned greatly against God under a series of unfaithful kings. Manasseh was the worst. He reigned for fifty five years and he transformed the temple into something Solomon would not recognize. 2 Kings 21 lists the things he did including building altars to Baal inside the temple, he practiced divination, he consulted mediums, he made his son pass through the fire ie., human sacrifice. The text says that Manasseh shed so much innocent blood that it filled Jerusalem from one end to the other.
Think about what this means for the Arc which was sitting only metres away from this blasphemy. Many scholars believe that during this period, the Arc was removed by faithful priests who decided that it needed to be protected, not from foreign armies but from the King himself. This theory is supported by the actions of Josiah the last great king of Judah. 2 Chronicles 34 records that he purified the temple and in chapter 35:3 , Josiah said to the Levites “put the holy ark in the house which Solomon, the son of David King of Israel did build.” This proves that the Ark had been removed at some point.
The question is “what happened to the Ark? The Jewish Talmud describes that there are many underground secret chambers beneath the Temple Mount and King Josiah, knowing that the temple would eventually be destroyed, hid the Ark in one of these chambers.
However, there are at least four main traditions about what happened to the Ark. One is that described above – it is under the Temple Mount. The second theory is that the Ark was taken to Ethiopia and that it is still there. The third is that when Cyrus, King of Persia conquered Babylon and allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem, he returned the temple objects as stated in Ezra 1:7. However, the Ark was not mentioned as one of the objects returned. Fourthly, according to the second book of the Maccabees, chapter 2: 4-8, the prophet Jeremiah received a divine order and had the Ark accompany him to mount Nebo. There he placed the Arc and the tabernacle in a cave and sealed the entrance. According to the Maccabees, Jeremiah said “the place shall remain unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows His mercy. Then the Lord will disclose these things and the glory of the Lord will appear as it appeared in the time of Moses.”
The Ark of the Covenant is gone or is hidden by divine will. We look for everything to be revealed only in God’s timing.
