Day 12: The Ark of the Covenant

And the Lord said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all  And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the veil: And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not: And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times. Leviticus 16:12-14

The Ark. The Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Testimony. The Ark of the Lord God. The Holy Ark. All these are names given to this box. Powerful names for a powerful purpose. For here God sat on the mercy seat and waited for the offering. A chest about 3’9” X 2’3” high. A solid flat lid called the Mercy Seat, upon which sat two Cherubim with wings touching, all overlaid with gold.It was the first piece of furniture God instructed Moses to make, symbolic of God’s presence and throne so that makes sense.

Inside of the ark were three items: a bowl of manna, Aaron’s staff that budded and the tablets with the commandments.

Manna is the transliteration of two Hebrew words that would translate to English as: ‘what is it’. And while we don’t know exactly what it is, it was sweet, nutritious, perishable and from God. They have also been called ‘Bread of Heaven’, ‘Angels Food’ and ‘Light Bread’. It points directly at Christ, who referred to Himself as ‘the true bread from Heaven’ in John 6:32, and Paul called it ‘spiritual food’ because of it’s supernatural origins-and connected it directly with Christ who led them, and now us.

Aaron’s staff budding is found in Numbers 16-17. During the rebellion of Korah, Abriam and Dathan, who were subsequently swallowed by the earth. Their followers-some 250 were destroyed by fire from God. From there God instructed each of the twelve tribes to bring a rod from an almond tree with the name of the tribe on it. On the rod from Levi was Aaron’s name. Placed in the tabernacle overnight the next morning Aaron’s staff had budded, blossomed and yielded almonds, showing that God was the one who chose him to be the High Priest. God then commanded the rod to be placed in the ark as a remembrance. Some consider this an antitype of the verification of Christ as our High Priest-dead then resurrected, first fruit of the dead, and His desire to bear fruit within us.

The stone tablets that were placed inside were the second ones God had given. The first were broken in anger by Moses. But God’s commandments-His moral law He gave us-cannot be broken. We can try and break them, change them to suit our purposes but they cannot be. They are HIS laws given to His creation. He promises another though, a law that He will put in our minds and write on our hearts. That was fulfilled with Christ. We can try and change that, mold it, but the reality-the truth of who He is and what He came to do is real and no amount of twisting or denying that changes it. Once we realize that then we see as He promised in Jeremiah that ‘…I will be their God and they shall be My people.

Scripture reading for today:
I Corinthians 10:1-5
For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

Jeremiah 31:31-33
The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

The only thing left in the Ark at the building of Solomon’s Temple was the stone tablets of the law.