Types of Christ · The Tabernacle's Furniture
The Ark of the Covenant
A gold-covered box with a promise attached to it — there I will meet with thee. It crossed a flooded river, took a city, went into captivity, killed a man who steadied it, and then walked out of the Bible without a word of explanation.
A Box, and the Sentence Attached to It
— Exodus 25:10-22 — the furniture is ordinary joinery until verse 22THE ARTWORKBenjamin West painted the Jordan crossing at the exact moment the instrument on this page is built around: the priests standing in the riverbed with the ark on their shoulders while the nation walks past them. West puts the box high and small and the water enormous — which is the right proportion. The ark did not part the river. The God who met Israel above it did.
Exodus 25 reads like a specification: acacia wood, overlaid with gold inside and out, a moulding around the top, four gold rings, two poles — and then an instruction that sounds fussy until you notice what it protects. The poles stay in the rings. They are not to be taken out. Nobody is ever meant to have to touch the ark itself.
And they are to construct an ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high. Overlay it with pure gold both inside and out, and make a gold molding around it.Acacia wood, overlaid with pure gold inside and out. The dimensions are given in cubits — see the size below.
The poles are to remain in the rings of the ark; they must not be removed.The poles stay in the rings and are not removed — a small rule that will matter enormously in 2 Samuel 6.
an ark--a coffer or chest, overlaid with gold, the dimensions of which, taking the cubit at eighteen inches, are computed to be three feet nine inches in length, two feet three inches in breadth.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Exodus 25:10
They shall make an ark - ארון aron signifies an ark, chest, coffer, or coffin. It is used particularly to designate that chest or coffer in which the testimony or two tables of the covenant was laid up, on the top of which was the propitiatory or mercy-seat, (see on Exo 25:17), and at the end of which were the cherubim of gold, (Exo 25:18-20), between whom the visible sign of the presence of the supreme God appeared as seated upon his throne.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Methodist
Exodus 25:10
Three feet nine by two feet three. A strong man could carry one end of it. That is worth holding on to, because most of what has been written about the ark in the last century treats it as a machine or a weapon, and the Bible treats it as a piece of furniture with an appointment attached.
Verse 22 is the whole reason the box exists. God does not say there you will keep the tablets. He says there I will meet with thee — above the lid, between the two cherubim. The meeting place is the point; the chest is the address.
And there I will meet with thee - That is, over the mercy-seat, between the cherubim. In this place God chose to give the most especial manifestations of himself; here the Divine glory was to be seen; and here Moses was to come in order to consult Jehovah, relative to the management of the people.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Methodist
Exodus 25:22
Set the mercy seat atop the ark, and put the Testimony that I will give you into the ark. And I will meet with you there above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony; I will speak with you about all that I command you regarding the Israelites.The lid on top, the testimony inside — and the promise: there I will meet with you, from above the mercy seat.
אָרוֹן
aron — a chest
An ordinary word for a box. It is used of this chest all through Exodus 25, of the ark the priests carry through Joshua 3, and fifteen times in the single chapter of 2 Samuel 6.
עֵדוּת
eduth — the testimony
What went inside: Exodus 25:16, 25:21, 25:22, and again at 31:7 and 31:18. The tablets are not called a souvenir or a relic. They are called evidence.
כְּרוּב
kerub — cherub, cherubim
Exodus 25:18-22 puts them over the lid — and Genesis 3:24 puts them at the entrance to Eden with a flaming sword. The same creatures guard the way in, and stand over the place where mercy is given.
What Was Inside — and the Verse That Complicates It
— Hebrews 9:4 and 1 Kings 8:9 do not obviously agree, and this page does not pick for youAnd place inside the ark the Testimony, which I will give you.Put into the ark the testimony that I will give you — the tablets, and at this point nothing else.
containing the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. Inside the ark were the gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant.Hebrews itemises three things with the ark: the golden pot of manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets.
The testimony - The two tables of stone which were not yet given; these tables were called עדת eduth, from עד forward, onward, to bear witness to or of a person or thing. Not only the tables of stone, but all the contents of the ark, Aarons rod, the pot of manna, the holy anointing oil, etc., bore testimony to the Messiah in his prophetic, sacerdotal, and regal offices.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Methodist
Exodus 25:16
The superb and elaborate style of the ark that contained "the testimony" was emblematic of the great treasure it held; in other words, the incomparable value and excellence of the Word of God, while its being placed in this chest further showed the great care which God has ever taken for preserving it.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Exodus 25:16
Then Solomon brings the ark into the temple, and the historian stops to tell us what was in it: nothing but the two tablets of stone. Set beside Hebrews 9:4 that reads like a contradiction, and it has been answered two different ways for a very long time. Both answers are honest readings of the same words, and this site does not stamp one of them as the house position.
There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the LORD had made a covenant with the Israelites after they had come out of the land of Egypt.Nothing in the ark but the two tablets Moses put there at Horeb — stated as a fact about the day of the dedication.
“By it, not in it”
On this reading Hebrews is describing the whole holy of holies, not the inside of the box. The pot and the rod stood beside the ark, before the testimony, exactly where Exodus 16 and Numbers 17 said to put them — so nothing was ever removed and nothing contradicts. John Wesley takes this line.
Nothing - Strictly and properly: but in a more large sense, the pot of manna, and Aaron's rod were also in it, Heb. ix, 4, that is, by it, in the most holy place, before the ark of the testimony, where God commanded Moses to put them.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Wesleyan
1 Kings 8:9
They were in it, and then taken out
On this reading Hebrews describes the earlier arrangement accurately, and something changed at the dedication: with the ark finally at rest in a room with furniture around it, the pot and the rod were set elsewhere in the holy of holies. Albert Barnes takes this line.
Comparing this statement with Heb 9:4, it would seem that Solomon, now that the sacred chest had reached its final resting-place, and stood in a large chamber surrounded by tables 2Ch 4:8, removed the pot of manna and the rod from the interior, and set them elsewhere in the holy of holies.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New TestamentsPresbyterian
1 Kings 8:9
The difficulty is old, not modern
The words "there was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone" does not mean that the author did not know that there were also the jar [containing the manna], the staff [of Aaron], and so forth. He simply wants to signify all …
Ishodad of Merv· Books of Sessions, on 1 Kings 8:9, 850Church of the East
1 Kings 8:9
A ninth-century bishop in Mesopotamia was working the same sentence, and reads it as a way of speaking rather than an inventory. Nobody discovered this problem recently, and nobody has been embarrassed into hiding it.
Wesley on what Hebrews is actually listingHebrews 9:4
Wesley reads the three items as monuments — of God’s care, of God’s choice of a priesthood, and of God’s covenant. Read that way, the list is not an inventory at all; it is a summary of what Israel had been given, kept in the one place Israel could not go.
Having the golden censer - Used by the high priest only, on the great day of atonement. And the ark, or chest, of the covenant - So called from the tables of the covenant contained therein. Wherein was the manna - The monument of God's care over Israel.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
Hebrews 9:4
Where It Actually Went
— Sinai to Solomon — nine stops, and then the record stopsThe ark is one of the few objects in Scripture with a travel history. Follow it and a pattern appears that no single episode shows on its own: it is safe where it is carried the way it was told to be carried, and dangerous wherever it is handled as a thing to be used.
Where the ark actually went
Nine stops the Bible names, in order, and then the slot where the record simply stops. Scroll the band sideways.
1. Sinai
Exodus 25:10-22
Built to a pattern given on the mountain, and given a purpose in the same breath: there I will meet with thee.
2. The Jordan
Joshua 3:15-17
The river was at flood. The priests carrying it stepped in first, and stood in the riverbed until the nation had crossed.
3. Jericho
Joshua 6:6-11
Carried around the city once a day for six days, and seven times on the seventh.
4. Ebenezer
1 Samuel 4:11
Carried into battle as a talisman by a corrupt priesthood, and captured. Israel learned that the box was not a weapon.
5. Ashdod
1 Samuel 5:1-4
Set beside Dagon in a Philistine temple. Seven months later the Philistines sent it back themselves.
6. Kiriath-jearim
1 Samuel 7:1-2
Twenty years in a private house on a hill, in the care of one family, while Israel got on with other things.
7. Perez-uzzah
2 Samuel 6:6-7
Moved on a new cart instead of on the shoulders of Levites. Uzzah steadied it, touched it, and died there.
8. Jerusalem
2 Samuel 6:12-17
Brought up the second time, carried this time, with sacrifice every six paces and David dancing before it.
9. Solomon's temple
1 Kings 8:6-9
Set in the inner sanctuary under the wings of the great cherubim. The last place Scripture puts it on earth.
10. Scripture stops here
No capture, no burning, no hiding, no removal. The Bible does not report an ending, and this page does not supply one.
The Jordan crossing is the ark’s great scene. The river was at flood stage — its widest and fastest — and the instruction was to walk into it carrying the box. The water stopped when the priests’ feet touched it, and the priests then stood in the middle of the riverbed until every last Israelite was across.
Note, Though the opposition given to the salvation of God's people have all imaginable advantages, yet god can and will conquer it. Let the banks of Jordan be filled to the brink, filled till they run over, it is as easy to Omnipotence to divide them, and dry them up, as if they were ever so narrow, ever so shallow; it is all one with the Lord.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Puritan
Joshua 3:15
The miraculous passage to the holy land through Jordan is not less pregnant with typical meaning than that through the Red Sea (compare 1Co 10:1-2).
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New TestamentsPresbyterian
Joshua 3:17
Now the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest season. But as soon as the priests carrying the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the flowing water stood still. It backed up as far upstream as Adam, a city in the area of Zarethan, while the water flowing toward the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. The priests carrying the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, while all Israel crossed over the dry ground, until the entire nation had crossed the Jordan.The waters stood in a heap, and the priests bearing the ark stood on dry ground in the middle of the river.
The ark of God was captured, and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.The ark taken, and Eli's two sons dead in the same sentence. Carrying it into battle did not make Israel safe.
Uzzah, and the cart
Uzzah put out his hand to steady the ark when the oxen stumbled, and he died beside it. Read alone it looks arbitrary. Read with the chapter that comes before it, it is not: the ark was on a new cart. The law said it travels on poles, on the shoulders of Levites, and that the men who carry the holy things are not to touch them, on pain of death. The cart was borrowed from the Philistines, who did not know any better. Israel did.
Scripture does not tell us what Uzzah was thinking, and this page will not invent a motive for him. It records what he did, what the law had said, and what happened. When David moves the ark the second time, three months later, Levites carry it on their shoulders — and nobody dies.
When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen had stumbled. And the anger of the LORD burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down on the spot for his irreverence, and he died there beside the ark of God.He reached out to the ark, and God struck him down there. The text gives the act and the outcome, and no speech.
When Aaron and his sons have finished covering the holy objects and all their equipment, as soon as the camp is ready to move, the Kohathites shall come and do the carrying. But they must not touch the holy objects, or they will die. These are the transportation duties of the Kohathites regarding the Tent of Meeting.The Kohathites carry the holy things but must not touch them, lest they die — the rule already in force.
The artwork
Field was a New England portrait painter who taught himself scripture painting late, and this is folk art rather than academy work — flat, frontal, and entirely unembarrassed. It is here because it shows something the grander pictures hide: an American farmer's imagination of the ark is as speculative as anyone else's. Scripture gives dimensions, materials and two cherubim. Everything else in any painting of it, including this one, is the painter.
Erastus Salisbury Field, Ark of the Covenant (c. 1865) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Shadow, and the Last Sighting
— Hebrews 9 puts the ark inside an argument; Revelation 11:19 puts it in heavenHebrews does not treat the ark as a curiosity. It names it in the middle of an argument that the whole first tabernacle was a shadow of something real — a copy, working on a schedule, waiting for the thing it was a copy of. And then, at the far end of the Bible, John sees the temple in heaven opened and the ark of the covenant inside it.
Then the temple of God in heaven was opened, and the ark of His covenant appeared in His temple. And there were flashes of lightning, and rumblings, and peals of thunder, and an earthquake, and a great hailstorm.God's temple in heaven opened, and the ark of His covenant seen inside — the ark's last appearance in Scripture.
And the ark of the covenant was seen in his temple - The ark of the covenant which was made by Moses was not in the second temple, being probably burnt with the first temple by the Chaldeans. But here is the heavenly ark of the everlasting covenant, the shadow of which was under the Old Testament, Heb. ix, 4.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
Revelation 11:19
κιβωτός
kibōtos — ark, chest
The same Greek word does both arks: this one at Hebrews 9:4 and Revelation 11:19, and Noah's at Hebrews 11:7 and 1 Peter 3:20. Hebrew keeps them apart — aron here, tebah for Noah's — and Greek does not. A vessel that carries people through judgement, and a vessel that carries the covenant through the wilderness.
What the church has read into the ark — labelled as traditionBede, 8th century
Bede reads the golden urn inside the ark as Christ’s human soul containing the fullness of deity, and Aaron’s budded rod as the power of His priesthood. It is careful, beautiful, eighth-century allegory — and it is not what Hebrews says. Hebrews lists the objects; it does not assign them meanings. The same goes for the medieval reading of the ark as Mary, which is devotional tradition of long standing and is nowhere in the text.
Both belong on this page as history of interpretation. Neither belongs on it as the Bible’s claim, and the difference is not a technicality.
A reading, not the text’s claim
Now the golden urn in the ark holding the manna is the holy soul in Christ that contains in itself all the fullness of divinity. Aaron's rod that budded although cut off from the tree is the invincible power of his priesthood, concerning which the …
Bede· On the Tabernacle 1.4.17, 735Church Father
Hebrews 9:4
Origen's warning about this whole method, in the third centuryOn First Principles 4.2.2
Origen was one of the most enthusiastic typological readers who ever lived, and he is the one who states the danger plainly: believing the tabernacle is a type of something is right; deciding which detail stands for which idea is where readers go wrong. It is a good sentence to keep in view on a page like this one.
But when the passage about the equipment of the tabernacle is read, believing that the things described therein are types, some seek for ideas which they can attach to each detail that is mentioned in connection with the tabernacle. Now so far as concerns their belief that the tabernacle is a type of something they are not wrong. But in rightly attaching the word of Scripture to the particular idea of which the tabernacle is a type, here they sometimes fall into error.
Origen of Alexandria· On First Principles 4.2.2, 253Church Father
Exodus 25:10
Then Scripture Stops
— the ark's disappearance is the loudest silence on this site, and it stays a silenceAfter 1 Kings 8 the ark is barely mentioned again, and its end is never reported. The Bible does not say it was destroyed when Jerusalem fell. It does not say it was carried to Babylon — and the lists of temple treasure that were carried off do not name it. It does not say it was hidden, or buried, or moved.
People have filled that silence for two and a half thousand years. A second-century-BC Jewish text says Jeremiah hid it in a cave on Mount Nebo; the Ethiopian tradition says it is in Axum; there are theories placing it under the Temple Mount, and a film that put it in a warehouse. Only the first of those is even ancient, and it is a labelled study resource on this site rather than Scripture — and it presents itself as a report of what was said, not as a record of what happened.
So the honest answer is short: nobody knows, and the Bible does not say. A page built on this site’s evidence standard is allowed to end a section that way, and this one does.
What the text does give us
Jeremiah, a generation before the exile, says something stranger than any of the theories: a day is coming when nobody will say the ark of the covenant of the LORD any more. It will not come to mind, nobody will miss it, and it will not be made again. The prophet does not mourn its loss. He treats its irrelevance as good news — because Jerusalem itself will be the throne.
“In those days, when you multiply and increase in the land,” declares the LORD, “they will no longer discuss the ark of the covenant of the LORD. It will never come to mind, and no one will remember it or miss it, nor will another one be made.Spoken while the ark was still in the temple: the day is coming when it will not be missed, or made again.
Whatever happened to the box, that is the direction the Bible itself points: not to a search, but to a Presence that no longer needs an address.