This ark was the most sacred object among the Is- raelites ; it was deposited in the innermost and holiest part of the tabernacle, called "the holy of holies" (and afterward in the corresponding apartment of the Temple), where it stood so that one end of each of the poles by which it was carried (which were drawn out so far as to allow the ark to be placed against the back wall) touched the vail which separated the two apart- ments of the tabernacle (1 Kings viii, 8). It was also probably a reliquary for the pot of manna and the rod of Aaron. We read in 1 Kings viii, 9, that "there was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb." Yet Paul, or the author of Heb. ix, 4, asserts that, besides the two ta- bles of stone, the "pot of manna" and "Aaron's rod that budded" were inside the ark, which were direct- ed to be " laid up" and " kept before the testimony,'" i. e. before the tables of the law (Exod. xl, 20) ; and probabl}-, since there is no mention of any other re- ceptacle for them, and some would have been neces- sary, the statement of 1 Kings viii, 9, implies that by Solomon's time these relics had disappeared. The expression ",TnX ^£33, Dent, xxxi, 26, obscurely ren- dered "in the side of the ark" (Auth. Vers.), merely means "beside" it.
During the marches of the Israelites it was covered with a purple pall, and borne bj' the priests, with great reverence and care, in advance of the host (Num. iv, 5, 6 ; x, 33). It was before the ark, thus in ad- vance, that the waters of the Jordan separated ; and it remained in the bed of the river, with the attendant
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priests, until the whole host had passed over ; and no sooner was it also brought up than the waters resumed their course (Josh, iii ; iv, 7, 10, 11, 17, 18). We may notice a fiction of the Rabbis that there were two arks, one which remained in the shrine, and another which preceded the camp on its march, and that this latter j contained the broken tables of the law, as the former the whole ones. The ark was similarly conspicuous in the grand procession round Jericho (Josh, vi, 4, G, 8, 11, 12). It is not wonderful, therefore, that the neighboring nations, who had no notion of spiritual worship, looked upon it as the God of the Israelites (1 Sam. iv, 6, 7), a delusion which may have been strengthened by the figures of the cherubim on it. After the conquest, the ark generally (see Judg. xx, 27) remained in the tabernacle at Shiloh, until, in the time of Eli, it was carried along with the army in the war [ against the Philistines, under the superstitious notion I that it would secure the victory to the Hebrews. They were, nevertheless, not only beaten, but the ark itself was taken by the Philistines (1 Sam. iv, 3-11), whose triumph was, however, very short lived, as thej- were so oppressed by the hand of God that, after seven months, they were glad to send it back again (1 Sam. v, 7). After that it remained apart from the taber- nacle, at Kirjath-jearim (vii, 1, 2), where it continued until the time of David, who purposed to remove it to Jerusalem ; but the old prescribed mode of removing it from place to place was so much neglected as to cause the death of Uzzah, in consequence of which it was left in the house of Obededom (2 Sam. vi, 1-11) ; hut after three months David took courage, and suc- ceeded in effecting its safe removal, in grand proces- sion, to Mount Zion (ver. 12-19). When the Temple of Solomon was completed, the ark was deposited in the sanctuary (1 Kings viii, G-9). Several of the Psalms contain allusions to these events (e. g. xxiv, xlvii, exxxii), and Psa. cv appears to have been com- posed on the occasion of the first of them. See Psalms. The passage in 2 Chron. xxxv, 3, in which Josiah directs the Levites to restore the ark to the holy place, is understood by some to imply that it had either been removed by Anion, who put an idol in its place, which is assumed to have been the "trespass" of which he is said to have been gurlty (2 Chron. xxxiii, 23), or that the priests themselves had with- drawn it during idolatrous times, and preserved it in some secret place, or had removed it from one place to another. But it seems more likely that it had been taken from the hoi}- of holies during the purification and repairs of the Temple by this same Josiah, and that he, in this passage, merely directs it to be again set in its place. Or it may have been removed by Manasseh, to make room for the " carved image" that he placed "in the house of God" (2 Chron. xxxiii, 7). What became of the ark when the Temple was plun- dered and destroyed by the Babylonians is not known, and all conjecture is useless. It was probably taken away or destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar (2 Esdr. x, 22). The Jews believe that it was concealed from the spoilers, and account it among the hidden things which the Messiah is to reveal (see Ambros. Off. iii, 17, 18 ; Joseph. Gorionid. i, 21 ; Wernsdorf, Be Ji.de Maccab. p. 183 sq. ; Mishna, Shekal. vi, 1). It is certain, how- ever, from the consent of all the Jewish writers, that the old ark was not contained in the second temple, and there is no evidence that any new one was made. Indeed, the absence of the ark is one of the important particulars in which this temple was held to be inferior .to that of Solomon. The most holy place is therefore generally considered to have been empty in the second temple (as Josephus states, liar, v, 14) ; or at most (as the rabbins allege, Mishna, Yoma, v, 2) to have contained only a stone to mark the place which the ark should have occupied (comp. Tacit, Hist, v, 9). The silence of Ezra, Nehemiah, the Maccabees, and Josephus, who repeatedly mention all the other sacred