The Holy Ark: Pointing The Way
Parashat T’rumah, Exodus 25:1–27:19
by Ben Volman, Kehillat Eytz Chaim, Toronto
One of the most intriguing places my wife and I have experienced in Israel is David Ben Gurion’s home in Tel Aviv. The square brick building is not only plain outside; its first floor has sparse, basic furnishings with few touches of color. It almost disdains luxury. But then you reach the second floor and feel you’ve entered the great man’s inner sanctum, his desk, his papers. You sense his presence as he edited Israel’s Declaration of Independence and hosted world leaders. All around you are his books, a vast collection to enrich the mind and heart. All that you knew of this figure, whose indomitable vision led Israel to nationhood, is transformed.
I’ve had a similar change of heart over the years studying the Mishkan—Israel’s desert tabernacle. At first, all the details seemed ponderously boring. But in time, I became fascinated, especially by the centerpiece, its inner sanctum—the Ark of the Covenant. (Mind you, my studies started a few years before Indiana Jones’s daring pursuit of the Ark in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”) Still, no other artifact from Israel’s past has exerted such a hold on our spiritual imagination. This remarkable locus of power and mystery embodies the very heart of God’s purpose in the Mishkan: “that I may dwell among them” (Exod 25:8).
By size, it was not meant to impress: the acacia wood aron (literally a box or chest) covered with gold, was originally built to hold the edut (the “testimony,” the tablets of the law). It was only about three to four feet in length and perhaps two feet high. But the ancients would have definitely understood the significance of its magnificent cover: the elaborate lid of solid gold with the intriguing facing figures of angels (k’ruvim / cherubim) with outspread wings and bowed heads. Despite its otherworldly quality (Moshe “was shown” a vision of the model beforehand, Exod 25:9)—the Ark was very much a creation of its time by skilled artisans trained in Egypt.
The thrones of kings were frequently decorated with pairs of winged angelic beings of a composite nature (animal torsos with wings and sometimes human faces) as supernatural guardians. The aron became known as “the Ark for the covenant of Adonai-Tzva’ot, who is present above the k’ruvim” (1 Sam 4:4; Psa 80:2; 99:1). As God’s throne, it required those who approached it to bow as before a king at his “footstool” (1 Chron 28:2; Psa 132:7).
It was common practice in this era for kings to place treaties and pacts in the temples of their gods, under their feet. The god both acted as guardian of the pact and oversaw its supervision. (Note how Shmu’el “places before the Lord,” at the foot of the Ark, the ordinances of Israel’s new kingdom in 1 Sam 10:25.)
The word Mishkan shares the same root as Shekhinah, the presence of God. In this sense, Israel’s Mishkan with the Ark was likened to a portable Mt. Sinai that they carried with them. Today, the aron kodesh (holy ark) in our schuls reflects this same pattern—at the heart of our sanctuary is God’s law, the Torah scroll, symbolizing God’s presence and our access to him.
The Ark as it went before them and then later traveled in their midst was also a symbol of Adonai Tzeva’ot as a warrior: “When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say, ‘Advance, O Lord! May your enemies be scattered’” (Num 10:35, JPS). This song is now integrated into our Torah liturgy but the words hint at the Ark’s hidden power. As it led Israel into battles for the Holy Land, the Ark was seen as God’s chariot. (With a mysterious power that would strike Uzzah dead when he inadvertently put out a hand to steady the aron on a cart as David led the Ark up to Jerusalem; 2 Sam 6:3–8).
At the height of its significance, the Ark was where God actively exercised sovereignty through his servant, Moshe. Afterwards, the connection almost seemed lost until the revived spiritual authority of Shmu’el and the eventual rise of King David. It was David’s vision to build a Temple for the Ark at the center of his new capital in Jerusalem. During a visit to Shiloh just a few years ago, our group shared an uncanny sense of God’s presence, commonly felt by people who go there, as if the lingering power of the Ark were still resonant in the surrounding valleys.
Today, the Ark’s continuing place in the living memory of Israel is its role as the “mercy seat,” where all sins were cleansed by the sprinkling of blood on Yom Kippur. It was so central to the rituals of atonement that even when it was gone and the Temple rebuilt, the ritual in the Holy of Holies continued as if it were there. But by the time of Jeremiah, the significance of the Ark as a symbol of God’s protective power over his people had become a problem. Israel’s disobedience to the Torah would bring heavy consequences on the nation in 586 BCE as the people and their blinded king were led to Babylonian exile with the burning city in ruins.
Israeli archeologist Leen Ritmeyer is convinced that four indented points on the rock (“al-Sakhra”) under the Dome of the Rock are the last remaining signs of the exact setting where the Ark was placed in Solomon’s Temple. So, what happened to the Ark? Lucas and Spielberg closed their story with a mystery, but the missing Ark still compels believers to hope that it will be seen again. That hope is written into Revelation 11:19, where the Temple of heaven opens and the Ark (or perhaps the model) is revealed. The Scriptural record of the fall of Jerusalem says nothing about the Ark. Jeremiah hid it, according to 2 Maccabees, in the cave where Moshe is buried. Rabbinic traditions say that Josiah had it hidden, but I have read numerous “inside” revelations—that it’s secreted away in hidden passages under the Temple or in Ethiopia.
We take all this with a grain of salt, yet we can never be sure how the Ark will rise again in significance. In 638 CE, after the Caliph Abd al-Malik captured Jerusalem, he demanded to see the “Holy Temple.” The Byzantine patriarch took him to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but the Caliph wasn’t satisfied. Finally, he was taken to the Temple Mount, which had become the city dump. “Here it is,” said his host, “the abomination of desolation.” The Byzantines had presumed this was the end of the story. They were wrong. The story of the Ark is imprinted on the heart of Israel, like the promise of Messiah, an essential reminder of God’s continuing presence on our spiritual journey between exile and nationhood. The Ark pointed the way. All we know is that God in the living reality of Yeshua, alive in the temple of our hearts, will continue to lead us from here.