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instructions Moses received from God. Inside was placed the rod of Aaron, a pot of manna
(which had been sent by God to feed the Israelites during their time of wandering in the
wilderness), and the two tablets of the Law given to Moses (known as the Ten Commandments).
Some sources also claim that it contains the original Books of Moses. It represented the divine
presence of God, and was the point where the literal manifestation of God on this Earth took
place. Just looking at it was known to cause death. The Bible tells us of the power it possessed. It
caused the Jordan River to part (Joshua 3:8 - 4:11), aided in the destruction of Jericho (Joshua
6:4-21), and brought about numerous military victories when it was present. Needless to say, it
developed quite a mystique.
Inside the Temple, the Ark was placed in a dark, windowless room known as the Holy of
Holies. A vale was placed around the Ark, and only once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the
high priest was allowed to enter. Even then, he was to carry a container of burning incense,
which filled the room with smoke, thus obscuring his view of the Ark. He would sprinkle the
blood of a bullock on the ground in front of the Ark, and on the mercy seat, as atonement for the
sins of the priests; and then the blood of a goat, as a symbolic atonement for the sins of the
people. A rope would be tied around his waist, so if for some reason he accidentally touched the
Ark and was killed, he could be pulled out without risk by the other priests.
In the Bible, there are 200 references to the Ark of the Covenant up to the time of Jeremiah,
but nothing afterward. It has since disappeared, and nobody is really sure where it’s at. The
common belief is that the Temple will not be rebuilt unless the Ark is found.
The Ark had not been removed from the Temple during or after the reign of King Josiah,
which had begun in 640 BC, and it was in place in the Holy of Holies in 701 BC, which leaves
61 years in which it could have disappeared. It is unlikely that Hezekiah (716-687 BC) would
have allowed the Ark to be taken away. Between the time of his death, and Josiah’s reign, there
were two other rulers, Manasseh (687-642 BC) and Amon (642-640 BC). Amon discovered that
Manasseh had been involved in a form of Baal worship, and had erected an image of Astarte
(Asherah) in the Temple (2 Kings 21:4-7, 2 Chronicles 33:7), and it is believed that he would
have ordered the Levites to remove the Ark. The Ark reappeared in 622 BC (2 Kings 22:1-7, 2
Chronicles 34:8-33, 2 Chronicles 35:3), during the reign of Manasseh’s grandson, King Josiah,
who vanquished idolatry, repaired and purified the Temple.
However, idolatry took root again, and the actions of Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, caused the
kingdom to be divided, with Judah (Judea) in the south, and Israel to the north. Judgment came
upon the Northern Kingdom in 721 BC when the Assyrians attacked them; and the Southern
Kingdom paid the price for they idolatry when the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian
king, swept through the land in 606 BC, and then again in 597 BC. During the second invasion, 2
Kings 24:13 says that “all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasure of the king’s
house” were taken, and “all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the
temple of the Lord” had been cut in pieces. The original Temple was destroyed in 586 BC by the
Babylonian commander, Nebuzaradan (2 Kings 25:8-9), and the rest of the treasures were
plundered and taken to a Babylonian temple at Shinar (Daniel 1:2), which has led some to
theorize that what was taken previously came from the Temple treasury, since Nubuchadnezzar’s
initial action against Judah was in response to them not paying tribute to him.
Through all of this, the Ark was not mentioned. Lists of Temple items (2 Kings 25:13-17,
Jeremiah 52:17-23) do not refer to any Temple treasures from the Holy of Holies, and it is this
silence that could indicate that it wasn’t captured, since there is a Biblical record of the time
when the Philistines captured the Ark. In addition, Ezra 1:7-11 states that all the captured items