Let’s read from our Parsha:
Exo 37:1 Bezalel made the ark of acacia wood. Two cubits and a half was its length, a
cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height.
Exo 37:2 And he overlaid it with pure gold inside and outside, and made a molding of
gold around it.
…
Exo 37:6 And he made a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half was its length,
and a cubit and a half its breadth.
Exo 37:7 And he made two cherubim of gold. He made them of hammered work on the
two ends of the mercy seat,
Exo 37:8 one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with
the mercy seat he made the cherubim on its two ends.
Exo 37:9 The cherubim spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat
with their wings, with their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat were the faces of
the cherubim.
The children of Israel constructed the ark of the covenant according to the specifications
revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. The ark of the covenant was lost during the
Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 586 BCE. No one knows what
happened to it at that time. When the Jewish people returned from captivity in the days
of Ezra and Nehemiah and rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem, they did not make a new
ark. They built replicas of all the other Temple furnishings, just as Solomon had done,
but they did not feel that they had the Almighty’s permission to make a replica ark of the
covenant. Therefore, the Holy of Holies was left ark-less throughout the entire second
Temple period. The sages explain that inside the Holy of Holies was a foundation stone, a
piece of bedrock, on which the ark used to sit during the days of first Temple.
Talmudic lore contains several traditions about the ark. Some of the sages insisted that
the ark was carried away by the Babylonians and never seen again. Others held that
Jeremiah the prophet or King Josiah had hidden the ark away prior to the Babylonian
conquest. One tradition has it that the ark was hidden in a secret cellar below the chamber
of the woodshed where wood for the altar fires were kept. There it remained hidden
through the Babylonian destruction, but its location was forgotten. According to this
tradition, it once happened in the days of the second Temple that a priest whiling away
his time in the chamber of the woodshed noticed that one of the floor pavers was different
from the others. He was about to lift it to investigate when he was struck down dead.
Later, two priests were gathering wood for the altar when one dropped his axe on that
same paver. Fire leapt up from the floor and killed him. Though stories like this are
entertaining, they are only apocryphal anecdotes with no real historical basis. They are no
more reliable than the modern-day pseudo-archaeologists and sensationalist junk scholars
who claim to have found the ark or to know where it is hidden.
The prophet Jeremiah says that in the Messianic era, when all nations are gathered to
Jerusalem, the ark of the covenant will not even be missed. This implies that, though it
will not be missed, it will still be missing:
Jer 3:14 Return, O faithless children, declares the LORD; for I am your master; I will
take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.
Jer 3:15 “‘And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with
knowledge and understanding.
Jer 3:16 And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, declares
the LORD, they shall no more say, “The ark of the covenant of the LORD.” It shall not
come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made again.
Jer 3:17 At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the LORD, and all nations
shall gather to it, to the presence of the LORD in Jerusalem, and they shall no more
stubbornly follow their own evil heart.
In that day, King Messiah’s throne will be Jerusalem. He doesn’t need a mercy seat in
the Holy of Holies because each person will be the mercy seat containing the dwelling
presence of God. May Messiah Yeshua come soon, and in our days. May our eyes behold
His return to Jerusalem. Amen.
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