The Lord said to Moses: Tell the Israelites to take for me an offering; from all whose hearts prompt them to give you shall receive the offering for me. This is the offering that you shall receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze, blue, purple, and crimson yarns and fine linen, goats’ hair,tanned rams’ skins, fine leather, acacia wood, oil for the lamps, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, onyx stones and gems to be set in the ephod and for the breastpiece. And have them make me a sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them. In accordance with all that I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle and of all its furniture, so you shall make it. They shall make an ark of acacia wood; it shall be two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high. You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and outside you shall overlay it, and you shall make a molding of gold upon it all around. You shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them on its four feet, two rings on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side. You shall make poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. And you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, by which to carry the ark. The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it. You shall put into the ark the covenant that I shall give you. Then you shall make a mercy seat of pure gold; two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its width. You shall make two cherubim of gold; you shall make them of hammered work, at the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub at the one end, and one cherub at the other; of one piece with the mercy seat you shall make the cherubim at its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings. They shall face one to another; the faces of the cherubim shall be turned toward the mercy seat. You shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark; and in the ark you shall put the covenant that I shall give you. There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the covenant, I will deliver to you all my commands for the Israelites. (Exodus 25:1-22, NRSV)
When I think of the Ark of the Covenant I think of Indiana Jones and the raiders of the Lost Ark. And the image that comes to mind is the one to the left at the top here. But when I was looking for a picture for this blog I found a different view of the ark. One that had the poles in a different place. And I thought, maybe this is a better rendition for the ark. You see the text says that the cherubs are to be above the mercy seat. And to me, the mercy seat is just that a seat. And who would be sitting on the box that contains the tablets that God has given the people? God would. And would God, or any of us for that matter, want a pole where our legs would be? Seems a bit uncomfortable to me…
So this picture here to the right is the other one I found that I think is probably a better rendition of what the ark would have looked like. The length of 2 and a half cubits is just about the right distance to hold the handles and carry the ark. remember a cubit is the length of the arm from the tip of the tallest finger to the elbow. So it wouldn’t be too wide to carry it this way and the pole would then not be in the way of the seat.
This is important because God took the time to give specific instructions for its construction so we need to follow them. And it is amazing to me the Israelites wandering in the desert were able to do this. It shows we can do anything as long as God is with us!
aSacredRebel 