part0093

When Moses received God’s instructions about the proper form of worship, he was told to build an ark to certain specifications and place the “testimony” therein. The “testimony” was that writing on stone tablets that contained “a law and commandments.”

In the discussion of Myth #78, we saw that the traditional Ten Commandments didn’t exist at the time of Moses, so he could not have actually placed them in the Ark of the Covenant But assuming for the sake of argument that the “testimony” and the “Ten Commandments” were one and the same, let’s look at other issues related to the contents of the Ark.

And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, LORD, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee. And when it rested, he said, Return, O LORD, unto the many thousands of Israel. (Numb. 10:35–36)

The Bible often identifies the movement or presence of the ark with the movement or presence of God. When the Ark moves forward into battle, God rises up, and when it rests, God rests. In the history of Israel from Moses to Solomon, the Ark often played a key role in Israelite affairs. Originally housed in Shiloh and associated with the northern tribe of Ephraim, David had it removed to Jerusalem and Solomon placed it in his temple, putting a key Israelite icon in Judahite hands. On the other hand, other passages of the Bible, especially in Deuteronomy, treat the Ark as simply a box that contained the Ten Commandments.

The differing views of the Ark can be seen from the different names associated with it. Sometimes it is called the “Ark of the Covenant,” other times it is called the “Ark of the Testimony,” and on other occasions the Bible associates it with a title for God, such as “Ark of Jahweh” or “Ark of the God of Israel.” The term “Ark of the Covenant” is usually associated with Deuteronomy while “Ark of the Testimony,” usually appears in passages identified with the priestly source. The use of “testimony” or “covenant” in connection with both the Ten Commandments and the ark shows the existence of underlying competing source materials in the development of the final biblical text.

What is most interesting about the Ark is that it seems to have disappeared without any explanation, and this has fueled endless fantasies, legends, and speculations. The Ark was last seen in Solomon’s Temple and then the Bible no longer mentions it. No biblical passage referring to the post-Solomon period describes it as being taken by enemies or destroyed or removed. But obviously it disappeared because we don’t have it. Ethiopian traditions say that a son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba brought the Ark to the city of Axxum and there has been speculation that enemies took it during the occasional sackings of Jerusalem, but while the Bible sometimes lists items removed from the temple, the Ark is never included in those inventories.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments .

With all these commandments against golden images, what are we to make of the Ark with two golden cherubim on top? Cherubim were a common form of Near Eastern icon. They were winged creatures, Near Eastern deities or agents of the deities. The words “cherub” and “griffin” are derived from a common root. The presence of golden cherubim on the Ark violates the second commandment against graven images.

Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. (Num. 21:8–9)

This describes a bronze statue of a serpent that has magical healing powers. Clearly, this statue also violates the second commandment. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s go back to the reign of King Hezekiah, a religious reformer who ruled shortly before King Josiah. 2 Kings 18:4 says,

He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.

Clearly, Hezekiah saw the bronze serpent as an idolatrous image. Shortly after Hezekiah, Josiah came to the throne and launched a full-scale attack on all forms of idolatry. The cherubim upon the ark, and the magical ark itself, would have been offensive in his eyes. The Ark was profane. There is no way that a document forbidding graven images would be placed in a container that violates such a prohibition.

If the Ark didn’t serve to hold the Ten Commandments, what was its purpose? It was a symbol of God’s kingship over Israel, serving as his throne and simultaneously representing the presence of the deity. In the ancient Near East, it was common for statues of deities to be identified with the deity itself. But the Ark is an unusual form of statue. The Hebrew god is an invisible one and can’t be physically displayed. We can be fairly certain, however, that he didn’t resemble the Ark.

The role of the Ark as a symbol of kingship provides an important clue as to its contents. When Israel came out of Egypt, it invented a new political idea. The people had no human king. This was a direct attack on the Egyptian idea of kingship in which the human king was an aspect of the deity. Among the Israelites, God was king but he took no human form.

Egyptian symbolism played an important role in early Israelite life, sometimes positive and sometimes negative. The Mosaic idea of kingship would have been modeled after the Egyptian idea, but the human aspect of deity was eliminated.

God ruled Israel and, like Egyptian kings, the god of Israel would have been identified with a symbol of kingship. Among the Egyptians that symbol was the uraeus crown, otherwise know as the serpent crown. Evidence that this crown may have been associated with the Hebrew Ark can be found in an Egyptian myth that includes a prototype of the Ark.

According to the Egyptian myth, before Osiris and Horus had become kings, the god Geb wanted to seize the crown from Shu. The symbol of kingship was the serpent crown and Geb had to obtain that crown to exercise his authority. Re, the chief deity, had placed it in a chest, along with a lock of his hair and a staff. When Geb and his companions approached the chest, Geb opened it, but a surprise awaited. The divine serpent on the crown exhaled on all those present, killing everyone but Geb, who nevertheless received severe burns across his body. Only the lock of Re’s hair could heal his wounds and Re used it to cure the injured god. Subsequently, Re dipped the lock of hair into the lake of At Nub and transformed it into a crocodile. After Geb healed, he became a good and wise king.

And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. (Num. 21:5–9)

The two stories share the following similarities: there was a rebellion against the leadership of the deity; the deity sent a serpent to kill the rebels; not all the rebels died; and a serpentine symbol of the king, serpents in the Bible, a serpentine crocodile in the Egyptian myth, healed the injured parties.

Most importantly, we should note that the symbols of kingship, crown, and staff, were kept in a chest, which is the equivalent of an ark. This would be the forerunner of the biblical Ark, the chest that contained God’s symbols of kingship, the uraeus serpent crown and the healing staff, both of which may have been symbolically combined in the form of Moses’ bronze serpent staff.

By the time of Josiah, the idea of graven images of deities had become offensive and such symbols were destroyed. In the polytheistic religions of that region, graven images of deities were thought to embody the particular deity portrayed and contain magic power. This contradicted the idea of a universal disembodied spirit that encompassed all of creation. Such a deity could not be contained within an idol. For this reason, the Bible says, Hezekiah destroyed the serpent staff. The people had started to burn incense to it because it had become an item of divine worship.

The Ark, too, had become an item of divine worship, often identified with God himself. The Deuteronomistic view of Josiah would have held this view of the Ark to be blasphemous. Just as Hezekiah destroyed the bronze serpent of Moses because of its veneration, so, too, would Josiah have done likewise to the Ark. In this regard, recall that Deuteronomy downplays the role of the Ark as nothing more than an ordinary chest with no magical powers. Josiah would have replaced the original ornate chest with a simple wooden receptacle for the Book of Law found in the temple by his agent. The iconic objects within the chest would have been removed and destroyed.

At that time the LORD said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark. And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand. (Deut. 10:1–3)

And Bezaleel made the ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half was the length of it, and a cubit and a half the breadth of it, and a cubit and a half the height of it: And he overlaid it with pure gold within and without, and made a crown of gold to it round about. And he cast for it four rings of gold, to be set by the four corners of it; even two rings upon the one side of it, and two rings upon the other side of it. And he made staves of shittim wood, and overlaid them with gold. And he put the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark, to bear the ark. And he made the mercy seat of pure gold: two cubits and a half was the length thereof, and one cubit and a half the breadth thereof. And he made two cherubims of gold, beaten out of one piece made he them, on the two ends of the mercy seat; One cherub on the end on this side, and another cherub on the other end on that side: out of the mercy seat made he the cherubims on the two ends thereof. And the cherubims spread out their wings on high, and covered with their wings over the mercy seat, with their faces one to another; even to the mercy seatward were the faces of the cherubims. (Exod. 37:1–9)