Right Words

After David brings the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem during his reign, it remains there until the temple is completed, when it is moved to “the most holy place” of Solomon’s temple (2 Chron. 4:7). At some point, however, it is moved, since Josiah, during his reforms centuries later, orders the Levites to return it to “the house which Solomon the son of David king of Israel did build” (35:3). Since the temple was desecrated by Ahaz, Manasseh, and perhaps others, likely the Levites moved it to a safe place until temple order was restored at various points (Joash, Uzziah, Hezekiah, Josiah).

But what happens to it when Judah falls in the 23 years following Josiah’s death? At first, maybe nothing (36:1-5), but when the Babylonian captivity progresses in stages, the vessels of the temple are removed in batches (36:7, 10, 18) before the structure itself is destroyed. Nothing specific, however, is said of the ark.

Now let’s consider a certain aspect of the ark’s history. Only the Levites, specifically the Kohathites, were permitted to bear it. When the men of Beth-shemesh look into it after its return from Philistia (1 Sam. 6:19), fifty thousand of them are slain for the sacrilege (they may also have stolen “the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded,” since those articles are not there when the ark is placed in the temple; cf. Heb. 9:4, 2 Chron. 5:10). When Uzzah, a Benjamite (2 Sam. 6:3; Gibeah) touches it, he’s also slain (2 Sam. 6:6-7). And as we saw in 2 Chron. 35, even to the end of the Judean kingdom, only the Levites were authorized to bear it.

My view is that God did not let the ark fall into the hands of the heathen a second time (the first time was 1 Sam. 4-5). When the Philistines take it home, their nation is afflicted. Since that is not the outcome for the Babylonians, I doubt that they acquired the ark. Nor do I think it ended up in Egypt to later be discovered by Professor Henry “Indiana” Jones. Revelation 11:19, near the end of the Bible, gives us clues about what happened to the ark before the Babylonians got to it.

Here we see “the ark of the testament” in heaven. The context is the great tribulation period to come, where there are “lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail” (all of these things are mentioned in connection with the great tribulation, including in Revelation itself). This would indicate that the ark has been in heaven since the time of the Babylonian captivity and will remain there until the return of Christ and beyond. The millennial temple described in Ezek. 40ff. does not mention the ark, so perhaps once it’s glorified, it remains on high forever. Jeremiah 3:16-18 seems to affirm this also, i.e., that the ark won’t be present when Israel is restored in the Millennium. But how did it get there over 2600 years ago?

I think that it was carried up to heaven, maybe invisibly, since nothing is said of its fate until Revelation, either by Ezekiel or any post-exilic writer. It does not return to Judea with Zerubbabel and Jeshua, nor is it mentioned in connection with the temple constructed in their day or that built by in Jesus’ time (John 2). It served its purpose leading up to the time of Christ but was taken up to heaven before “God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16), the type giving way to the antitype, residing in the heavenly temple, not a top-secret federal warehouse (sorry, Indy).