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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