Ark of the Covenant

Building the Ark

The construction of the Ark is commanded by God to Moses while the Jews were still camped at Sinai (Ex. 25:10-22; 37:1-9). The Ark was a box with the dimensions of two-and-a-half cubits in length, by one-and-a-half cubits in heights, by one-and-a-half cubits in width (a cubit is about 18 inches). It was constructed of acacia wood, and was plated with pure gold, inside and out. On the bottom of the box, four gold rings were attached, through which two poles, also made of acacia and coated in gold, were put. The family of Kehath, of the tribe of Levi, would carry the ark on their shoulders using these poles.

Covering the box was the kapporet, a pure gold covering that was two-and-a-half by one-and-a-half cubits. Attached to the kapporet were two sculpted Cherubs, also made of pure gold. The two Cherubs faced one another, and their wings, which wrapped around their bodies, touched between them.
The contents of the Ark has been debated through the centuries. The general consensus is that the first tablets containing the Ten Commandments, which were broken by Moses, and the second tablets, which remained intact, were contained in the Ark (Bava Batra 14b). According to one opinion in the Talmud, both Tablets were together in the Ark; according to another, there were two Arks, and each contained one set of Tablets (Berakhot 8b).
The Ark was built by Bezalel, son of Uri, son of Hur, who constructed the entire Tabernacle – the portable Temple used in the desert and during the conquest of the land of Israel. The Tabernacle was the resting place for the Ark, and also contained other vessels that were used in the physical worship of God. The Biblical commentators argue over why God commanded Moses to build a Tabernacle in the first place: According to Rashi (Ex. 31:18), God realized after the sin of the Golden Calf that the Israelites needed an outlet for physical worship, and commanded that they build the Tabernacle as a way of expressing their own need for physical representation of God. According to Nachmanides (Ex. 25:1), however, the Jews were commanded to build the Tabernacle even before the sin of the Golden Calf; rather than filling a human need, the Tabernacle was God's method of achieving continuous revelation in the Israelites' camp. These two opinions as to whether the Tabernacles, and the Temples that followed them, were an a priori necessity or a necessary evil demonstrate the controversial role of physical worship in Judaism as a whole.

History of the Ark

The Ark accompanied the Jews throughout their time in the desert, traveling with them and accompanying them to their wars with Emor and Midian. When the Jews crossed into the land of Canaan, the waters of the Jordan River miraculously split and the Ark led them through (Josh. 3). Throughout their conquest of the land, the Jews were accompanied by the Ark. The most dramatic demonstration of its power comes when the Jews breached the walls of Jericho merely by circling them, blowing horns and carrying the Ark (Josh. 6).
After the conquest was completed, the Ark, and the entire Tabernacle, were set up in Shiloh (Josh. 18) . There they remained until the battles of the Jews with the Philistines during the Priesthood of Eli. The Jews, after suffering a defeat at the Philistines' hands, took the Ark from Shiloh to Even-Ezer in hopes of winning the next battle. But the Jews were routed, and the Ark was captured by the Philistines. Back in Shiloh, Eli, the High Priest, immediately died upon hearing the news (I Sam. 4).
The Philistines took the Ark back to Ashdod, their capital city in the south of Canaan, where they placed it in the temple of their god Dagon. The next day, however, they found the idol fallen on its face. After replacing the statue, they found it the next day decapitated, with only its trunk remaining, and soon afterward, the entire city of Ashdod was struck with a plague. The Philistines moved the Ark to the city of Gath, and from there to Ekron, but whatever city the Ark was in, the inhabitants were struck with plague. After seven months, the Philistines decided to send the Ark back to the Israelites, and accompanied it with expensive gifts. The Ark was taken back to Beit Shemesh, and, according to midrash, the oxen pulling the Ark burst into song as soon as it was once again in Israel's possession (A.Z. 22b). The actual text of the story, however, tells a much grimmer tale: The men of Beit Shemesh were punished for staring disrespectfully at the Ark, and many were killed with a plague.
From Beit Shemesh, the Ark was transported to Kiryat Yearim, where it remained for twenty years. From there, King David transported it to Jerusalem. En route, however, the oxen pulling it stumbled, and when Uzzah reached out to steady the Ark, he died immediately. As a result of this tragedy, David decided to leave the Ark at the home of Obed-edom the Gittite. Three months later, he moved it to Jerusalem, the seat of his kingdom, where it remained until the construction of the First Temple by David's son Solomon (I Sam. 5-6). When the Ark was finally placed in the Temple, the midrash reports that the golden tree decorations that adorned the walls blossomed with fruit that grew continuously until the Temple's destruction (Yoma 39b). 

 Other Facts

Called the Ark of the Covenant, it is described as an ornate chest, approximately four feet long, two and a half feet wide and two and a half feet high, made of wood overlaid with gold. A decorated golden rim ran around the top, and on the sides of the Ark there were rings through which poles could be passed so that it could be carried. On the lid, facing each other, were two golden cherubim, or angels, with their wings outstretched.  They were said to have been the two archangels Michael and Gabriel which according to Hebrew tradition guarded the gates of heaven and were represented in the sky by the two tail stars of the constellation Ursa Major, popularly known as the Big Dipper or the Plough.

 The two tail stars of the Big Dipper, now called Benetnash and Mizar, which to the ancient Israelites represented Michael and Gabriel, the guardian angels depicted on the lid of the Ark.

The Crusader Treasure

It was at the foot of Jebel Madhbah, close to the Spring of Moses, that in the 1180s a group of English knights discovered a treasure that may have included the Ark of the Covenant.

Jebel Madhbah, Is the Arab name for Mount Seir,
which is believed to be another name for Mount Sinai.

Below Jebel Madhbah, to the north, lies a valley called Wadi Musa – Arabic for the “Valley of Moses”.  For years this valley was an important trade route through the Shara Mountains and by Roman times the splendid city of Petra had been built here. The city of Petra was annexed by the Romans in AD 106 and ultimately declined with the fall of the Roman Empire.  By the time of the conversion of the Arabs of the area to Islam in the seventh century it was abandoned altogether.  In the twelfth century, Crusaders from European countries such as France and England conquered Jerusalem and set up a Christian kingdom in what is now Israel.  In order to protect Christian interests in the region, various orders of knights were founded and one of these, the Knights Templar, briefly occupied the ruined city of Petra and built a series of forts to protect the trading route that ran through the Wadi Musa.

According to the Arab chronicler Numairi, who wrote around AD 1300, in the 1180s these knights discovered a sealed cave at Jebel Madhbah where they found “treasures of pure gold, precious stones and a golden chest”.  There was no specific reference to the Ark of the Covenant, but the knight did claim that these were holy relics that had belonged to the ancient Israelites. (See Holy Relics).  Numairi describes the chest as being made from paneled gold with two winged figures on the lid which he describes as being similar to ancient statues that still survived in his native Egypt.  Unfortunately, he does not give the dimensions of the chest, which may have been any size.  If it was large, however, it does sound very similar to the Ark.  In fact, according to the Bible the Ark was made shortly after the Israelites had left Egypt and, as they had been enslaved there for generations, their craftsmen may well have been influenced by Egyptian art.

Who were these Knights Templar who discovered the treasure at Jebel Madhbah in the 1180s? The Knights Templar, or Templars for short, were originally monks of the Cistercian order who had taken a vow to fight for Christianity in the Holy Land.  They became immensely rich from their conquests in the Middle East and used this wealth to found Templar monasteries throughout Europe.  Called preceptories, these monasteries were both centers of religious devotion and training camps for these warrior monks.  It was the founder of one of these preceptories in England, one Ralph de Sudeley, who was the responsible for building the crusader forts in Petra during the 1180s.  In 1189 the Arabs re-conquered what is now southern Jordan and the Templars were forced to abandon the Wadi Musa and returned to England – evidently with the treasures they had found. Had the Knights Templar stationed in the Wadi Musa really found the treasures from the Temple of Solomon that were hidden by Jeremiah in the sixth century BC?  Had they found the Ark of the Covenant?  Reconstruction of the chest discovered by the Crusaders in a cave at Jebel Madhbah in the 1180s.  Although of Egyptian design, it was remarkably similar to the descriptions of the Ark given in the Bible.