The
Arks of the Covenant!
The Arks of the
Covenant?
Are there more than one?
This is a representation of what the original
Ark of the Covenant
might have looked like as described in Exodus 25:10-22.
Hebrews 9:4,
The Ark held the Word of GOD written on stone tablets.
Who is the Word? John 1:1, 1:14
It held the symbol of the High
Priest, the Rod of Aaron.
Who is the High Priest? Hebrews 3:1,
4:14, 6:20
It held the Manna, the Bread come down from
Heaven.
Who is the Bread come down from
Heaven? John 6:51
It was made of incorruptible wood.
"And thou
shalt make the ark of testimony of incorruptible wood..."
Exodus 25:10,
Septuagint
"And they shall make an ark of shittim wood"
Exodus 25:10,
King James
A note of interest!
'Shittim' is the Hebrew term for
Acacia wood. Many other Bibles use the word 'acacia' in place of
shittim.
Acacia is very hard and dense. It is dark reddish brown
and makes beautiful furniture. The acacia has internal natural
substances which act as preservatives and these deposits are also toxic to
insects. They also increase the density of the wood, and make it hard for water
and other substances to enter the wood and cause decay.
"And thou shalt
overlay it with pure gold, within and without; and over it thou shalt
make a golden crown round about:"
Exodus 25:11, Douay
"And thou shalt
overlay it with pure gold, within and without shalt thou overlay it, and
shalt make upon it a crown of gold round about."
Exodus 25:11, King
James
The 'Crown of Gold' in Exodus 25:11 is very significant as
we shall see.
Here is the New Ark
of the Covenant...
Compare with Revelation 12:1
For nine months,
She carried the Word of GOD Incarnate in her
womb. John 1:1, 14
She carried the High Priest of GOD in her womb. Hebrews
3:1, 4:14, 6:20
She carried the Bread come down from Heaven in her womb.
John 6:51
"And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in
swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them
in the inn."
Luke 2:7
The GLORY of the LORD:
It was called the Shekinah Glory, which
means 'the Glory and Presence of GOD'.
It is a visible manifestation of
the divine presence.
It was like a pillar of a cloud in the daytime and
a pillar of fire at night, Exodus 13:21.
It was like a devouring fire, Exodus
24:17.
It was like a cloud that filled the tabernacle, Exodus 40:34.
It
was like a cloud that appeared above the "Mercy Seat", the lid of the
Ark of the Covenant, Leviticus 16:2.
It is like the sun (Son) rise, Isaiah 60:1.
"Arise, shine; for
thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon
thee."
It was like a rainbow Ezekiel 1:28,
"As the appearance of the
bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the
brightness round about.
This was the appearance of the likeness of the
glory of the LORD."
The Glory of the Lord manifested
itself several times in the Old Testament,
from Exodus 16:10 until the
last time in
Ezekiel 44:4,
"And he brought me by the way of the north
gate, in the sight of the house: and I saw, and behold the glory of the
Lord filled the house of the Lord: and I fell on my face."
Ezekiel
prophesied to the Jewish captives in Babylon from 593 to 571 B.C..
From
the time of the last appearance of the glory of the Lord in the Old
Testament in Ezekiel 44:4
until Jesus Christ was born in Luke 2:7, is a gap
of around 570 years.
Luke 2:9,
"And, lo, the angel of the Lord
came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and
they were sore afraid."
Luke 2:22,
"And after the days of her
purification, according to the law of Moses, were accomplished,
they
carried him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord:"
Luke 2:27,
"And he came by the Spirit into the temple.
And when his parents
brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the
law,"
Just as the glory of the Lord was carried by the Ark of the
Old Testament (Exodus 25:22) to the tabernacle (tent),
in Exodus 40:21 and
2Samuel 6:17, the glory of the Lord was carried to the temple by the New
Ark, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Luke 2:34, "And Simeon blessed them and
said to Mary his mother: Behold this child is set for the fall and for the
resurrection of many in Israel and for a sign which shall be contradicted."
Study these verses carefully, for Isaiah prophesied much of what was
said in Luke 2:7-34:
Isaiah 40:3-5,
"The voice of one crying in the
desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the
paths of our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill
shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways
plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh
together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken."
Revelation 11:19,
"And the temple of God was opened in heaven: and
the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple. And there were
lightnings and voices and an earthquake and great hail."
Is 'the ark
of His covenant' the wooden box that was carried about by the Hebrews
in the Old Testament?
No, that Ark was hidden by Jeremiah in Mount Nebo
(2Maccabees 2:4-8). It has not been found since then.
Jeremiah
3:16,
"And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days,
says 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."
That verse excludes any possibility that the Ark
envisioned in Revelation 11:19 is the wooden ark of the Old Testament.
Is
there anything at all that is man-made in Heaven? Well there are the five
wounds of Jesus.
The New Ark of the Covenant is what was seen in
Heaven.
The New Ark carried the realities of what the Old
Testament wooden ark symbolized.
Revelation
12:1,
"And a great sign appeared in heaven:
A woman clothed with the
sun, and the moon under her
feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars."
A woman who wears a
crown? Does this bring to mind Exodus 25:11 where the Acacia wood Ark was also
adorned with a crown?
The golden crown of Exodus 25:11 is a type that
is vastly surpassed by its starrycrown antitype reality of
Revelation 12:1.
The first word of Revelation 12:1, 'And', is a
conjunction that ties Revelation 12:1 to 11:19.
Given the fact that the Book
of Revelation is highly symbolic, the 'woman'
mentioned here can be considered symbolic of the Church, the twelve Apostles or
the twelve tribes of the Old Testament. However, it cannot be denied that the
context of Revelation 12 shows that the woman is also the mother of Jesus the
Christ. The proof falls in the fact that there are four persons mentioned in the
context.
There is:
1. A woman. (12:1)
2. A great red dragon.
(12:3) The dragon is Satan as shown in 12:9.
3. A male child who is to rule
all nations. (12:5) This is obviously Jesus the Christ.
4. Michael the
Archangel. (12:7) The naming of him is self explanatory.
Since three of
the four persons are clearly identified,
the context demands that the fourth
person be identified as well.
She could be none other than the Blessed
Virgin Mary, the Queen Mother of Jesus
(12:5).
The Mother of Jesus is the New Ark of the Covenant.
Here are some New Testament to Old Testament comparisons
that
enlighten our understanding of just who the New Ark of the Covenant
is:
Luke 1:39,
"And Mary rising up in those days, went into
the hill country with haste into a city of Juda."
2Samuel
6:2,
"And David arose and went with all the people who were with him from
Baale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is
called by the name of the LORD of hosts who sits enthroned on the
cherubim."
Baale-judah is called by several other names in Holy
Scripture, including Kiriath-Jearim (Joshua 9:17). It was a town in the hill
country about ten or so miles west of Jerusalem which was in Judah.
It
is likely that it was the same town in the hill country where
Mary visited Elizabeth in Luke 1:39.
Luke 1:40,
"And she
entered into the house of Zachary and saluted Elizabeth."
2Samuel
6:10,
"So David was not willing to take the ark of the LORD into the city of
David;
but David took it aside to the house of O'bed-e'dom the
Gittite."
Luke 1:41,
"And it came to pass that when
Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb.
And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit."
2Samuel 6:13-14,
"And when
they that carried the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed and ox
and a ram:
And David danced with all his might before the Lord:
and David was girded with a linen ephod."
Luke 1:42,
"And she
cried out with a loud voice and said: Blessed art thou among women and
blessed is the fruit of thy womb."
The Greek word 'anaphoneo (anaphoneo),
is used in Luke 1:42, for Elizabeth's words, 'cried out'. It is
significant because this is the only time that this Greek word is used in the
New Testament. This word appears a few times in the Greek Old Testament
(Septuagint or LXX) where it describes Levitical priests praising GOD before the
Ark of the Covenant. Also of interest here is that Elizabeth was the wife
of Zechariah (Zachary), a Levitical priest (Luke 1:5), and since it was the
custom that marriage was between members of the same tribe, she had to have
been also a Levite.
Luke 1:43,
"And why is this granted me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"
2Samuel 6:9,
"And
David was afraid of the Lord that day, saying: How shall the ark of the Lord
come to me?"
Luke 1:56,
"And Mary remained with her about three
months, and returned to her home."
2Samuel 6:11,
"And the ark of the
LORD remained in the house of O'bed-e'dom the Gittite three months; and
the LORD blessed O'bed-e'dom and all his household."
Coincidences? There
are no coincidences with GOD.
©
Written by Bob Stanley, March 23, 2007
Updated April
20, 2007, thanks to valuable input from Terry Williams
"Have I then
become your enemy, because I told you the truth?"
Galatians 4:16
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