The fate of the Ark of the Covenant is mentioned in the Bible...

[tourmaline]

It seems like Bible shows and articles are always claiming that the fate of the Ark of the Covenant is incredibly mysterious and that the Bible is totally silent about what happened to it.  But I don't think that's true. The Bible details what happened to it.

The Bible relates that Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem and installed the Ark of the Covenant within. Then in the reign of Solomon's son, Rehoboam, the Bible says:

"In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. He carried off the treasures of the temple of the LORD and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything." - 1 Kings 14: 25-26

In this passage, the Hebrew text even places the direct object first for emphasis (ve'et hakkol laqach), reading literally "And EVERYTHING he took."

After this passage, there are literally no more mentions of the Ark being extant. The only other mention is in Jeremiah 3:16, when he alludes to the fact that people are still longing for it but that it will not be remade at some future time.

It seems clear to me that the Bible tells what the fate of the Ark was. I'm baffled that people so often comment that the Bible is silent on the Arks ultimate fate when the text makes clear what happened. People have hypothesized that Jeremiah hid the Ark underneath the Temple Mount, and that Templars discovered it there hundreds of years later. I do not believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God - my bachelor's degree is in both Jewish Studies and Biblical Studies so I am very familiar with textual criticism, archaeological findings, etc. - but I find it strange that people hypothesize so wildly on an issue that the Bible is fairly clear about.

[Irishman]

Okay then, let's conduct a little mental exercise. If the Ark was taken by Shishak, where did he take it? Apart from Raiders, I mean.

[stilgar]

If Shishak had taken the Ark of the Covenant, we would expect to find a mention of it in his inscriptions in Egypt, which we do not.  For the most recent lucid discussion of the whereabouts of the Ark and what might have happened to it, see Chapter 6 in Eric H. Cline's book From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible (2007), which just won the BAS 2009 Publication Award for "Best Popular Book on Archaeology" (for books published in 2007-2008). 

[Irishman]

If Shishak had taken the Ark of the Covenant, we would expect to find a mention of it in his inscriptions in Egypt, which we do not.  For the most recent lucid discussion of the whereabouts of the Ark and what might have happened to it, see Chapter 6 in Eric H. Cline's book From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible (2007), which just won the BAS 2009 Publication Award for "Best Popular Book on Archaeology" (for books published in 2007-2008).

Well, to be fair, we don't find an overt mention of the fate of the Ark anywhere. It simply stops being in the narrative. Its absence doesn't speak for or against any theory of its disposition in antiquity. It simply is.

Haven't seen Prof. Cline's book. Can you summarize Chapter 6 for those of us who haven't seen it yet?

[stilgar]

To paraphrase what is stated in the Intro to the book re the approach to the various chapters, in the chapter on the Ark of the Covenant he first presents a brief recapitulation of the relevant biblical account(s), then presents the additional evidence which is available (both textual and archaeological), then briefly discusses and evaluates some of the suggestions that have been proposed previously (in this case, Shishak, Mount Nebo, underneath the Temple Mount, Ethiopia, and others), then includes a section on the historical context, then weighs the pros and cons, and finally suggests what he  believes to be the most likely solution (in this case, probably destroyed or otherwise melted down during Nebuchadnezzar's sack of Jerusalem and burning of the Temple in 586 BCE, if not long before).  It's a pretty thorough and even-handed discussion, but you'll have to read the book for the specific details; you can get it on Amazon.com for cheap these days, especially used copies.

[Irishman]

If that is his conclusion, then I'm disappointed. Because it also happens to be the explanation that requires the least in terms of evidence.

There is nothing in the biblical accounts to support it.
There is nothing in the Babylonian accounts to support it.
There is nothing on the ground to support it.

I'm more and more surprised that only the late Prof. Stuart Munro-Hay, Tudor Parfitt and Prof. Helmut Zeigert are the only scholars to seriously consider the Kebra Nagast as anything more than a fairy tale.

[stilgar]

The Kebra Nagast is also discussed in the chapter.  By the way, Munro-Hay himself debunked the whole "Ark is in Aksum, Ethiopia" theory.  See his 2005 book, The Quest for the Ark of the Covenant[.../i]

[tourmaline]

Irishman: Hi.  The Ark was taken by Shishak to Egypt and placed in the anachronistic Well of Souls, where Indie found it and it then melted someone's face off, and - oops.  Sorry...I slipped off into Movieland for a moment. ;-)

I have no idea what the fate of the ark was. The point of my original post was not to argue that Shishak took it, but merely to argue the oft-posited idea that the Bible is silent on the ark's ultimate fate. I don't think it is: The Bible says Solomon put the ark in the temple, then says that in the reign of his son Rehoboam,  Shishak came  and "carried off the treasures of the temple...He took everything." After that it's only referred to in the Bible as being absent. It seems very cut and dry to me that according to the Bible Shishak carried off the ark. *shrug* Whether he really did, I have no idea.

[Irishman]

The Kebra Nagast is also discussed in the chapter.  By the way, Munro-Hay himself debunked the whole "Ark is in Aksum, Ethiopia" theory.  See his 2005 book, The Quest for the Ark of the Covenant[.../i]

I tried my best for 3 years before he passed to change his mind on that. Sometimes once someone's focused on a particular solution, they can't see any others.

Arabist Irfan Shahid of Georgetown shares my views about a 6th century CE origin for the Kebra Nagast. I think it's very telling that Arabists don't talk to Ethiopicists and vice-versa.

[Irishman]

Irishman: Hi.  The Ark was taken by Shishak to Egypt and placed in the anachronistic Well of Souls, where Indie found it and it then melted someone's face off, and - oops.  Sorry...I slipped off into Movieland for a moment. ;-)

I have no idea what the fate of the ark was. The point of my original post was not to argue that Shishak took it, but merely to argue the oft-posited idea that the Bible is silent on the ark's ultimate fate. I don't think it is: The Bible says Solomon put the ark in the temple, then says that in the reign of his son Rehoboam,  Shishak came  and "carried off the treasures of the temple...He took everything." After that it's only referred to in the Bible as being absent. It seems very cut and dry to me that according to the Bible Shishak carried off the ark. *shrug* Whether he really did, I have no idea.

You know, the Kebra Nagast speaks of why there was no mention of the disappearance of the Ark. It suggests there was a conspiracy of silence so that heathen nations would not view them as weak and open to conquer.

[Moses]

There is a tradition that the Ark and number of artifacts from the Solomon's temple were carried out by a group of priests and hidden during the siege of Jerusalem.

I think Shishak would have been afraid to enter the Holy of Holies and take anything from there. He would take everything in treasure houses of the temple but wouldn't dare to enter the Holy of Holies.

 In I Samuel 13, the Israelites were fighting the Philistines, and they brought the Ark to the battle to inspire them. The Philistines won the battle and captured the Ark, it brought them bad luck or divine wrath,   -- their main idol, Dagon, kept falling over and they got smitten by all sorts of diseases and plagues. So, seven months later, they brought the Ark back to the Israelites and said, here, we don't want it any more. The text is very clear that these nuisances come from God's anger, not from any magic inherent in the Ark itself.

In II Samuel 6:3-7, when David is bringing the Ark to Jerusalem, Uzzah, son of Abinadab, inadvertently touches the Ark and he falls dead.

Wile some think most likely answer is that the Babylonians melted it down for the gold when they destroyed the Temple in 587 BC.

There is another view. As we know Ezekiel and other royalty priesthood got taken to exile in Babylon yet the Solomon's Temple wasn't destroyed immediately.

Why is that?

Babylonians afraid of the deity in the Holy of Holly's temple didn't dare to touch it.
But after the visions of Ezekiel, what he seen on the river of Kebar is the departure of the Lord Yahweh, who took Ezekiel to the temple and showed him all the evil that was happening there.

He showed Ezekiel the plans of another temple. And on the way out the Lord took the Ark to heaven with his departure from the temple.

Only after when Yahweh the Lord left the Temple the Babylonians destroyed it and burned it.

When Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem, he carried off the treasures of the temple of the LORD and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including the gold shields Solomon had made.

What was so special about the shields that the text has to mention - including. And what wasn't included?

First there was a special storage in temple for the treasures and other vessels.
The shields mentioned also in that storage that Solomon the King showed earlier to the king who came back to take the treasures of the temple during Solomon's son time..
Solomon didn't let Pagan to look inside the the Holy of Holies - the Hebrew Bible which referred to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle and later the Temple in Jerusalem. Only sanctified, purified high priest entered there on a special appointed time.

Depleting the storage doesn't mean that Holy of Holies were the Ark stood was touched.

After Solomon's death the kingdom of Israel continued to deteriorate in strength except for occasional revivals, until the time of the Babylonian captivity in 586 BC During the revivals of Joash, (II Chronicles 24), and Josiah, (II Kings 22), generous contributions were made by the citizenry for repairs and refurbishing of the temple. Except for these revivals much of the wealth of the temple appears to have been confiscated to pay national expenses and tributes to threatening foreign powers. Asa depleted the temple treasures by sending "all" that was left of the silver and gold to Ben-hadad, king of Syria, to buy his help against Baasha, king of Israel (I Kings 15:18, 19).

Hezekiah paid tribute to Sennacherib, king of Assyria, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold, "and Hezekiah gave him 'all' the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasures of the king's house. At that time Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord and from the doorposts which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria,"

 

So were is the Ark?

In Heaven

"And the Temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His Temple the Ark of His Testament

The NT states its in heaven. Not any other Ark but clearly stated the Ark of His Testament.
 
Aron Ha Edut, Aron HaBrit.
Revelation 11:3-19 KJV


"And He said to them, "This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many" (RSV)
"And He said unto them, This is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many." (KJV)

Examples of the original Greek word dee-ath-ay-kay translated as "covenant" in the King James Version:


The Old Testament tells of the yet future restoration of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem when Messiah returns, and a still greater future glory for Israel than that attained during the times of David and Solomon, (Micah 4:1-4; Zechariah 8; Zephaniah 3:14-20).

[Irishman]

Moses,

While I do concur that the best explanation for why the Ark is not mentioned as being a spoil of Shishak is that it was not in Jerusalem, I disagree with your interpretation for where it went.

If the Hebrew Bible itself doesn't invoke a miracle to explain something, nor should we. And here, the HB clearly doesn't. What it does do is, as you said, give very clear and precise information as to what WAS taken from the Temple of YHWH, it also very clearly omits the most important object of all - the Ark of the Covenant.

Why? Because, as you suggested, it was no longer in the Temple. I believe  that, in seeking to explain where the Ark was taken (or otherwise what became of it), we should focus on the prosaic and naturalistic explanations long before focusing on the divine.

So, while you've made quite the effort in constructing your point (one that is not new by the way), ultimately I have to disagree.

The first problem I have is that you suggest that Shishak would been afraid of entering the debir (Holy of Holies), but then don't give evidence for why.

Secondly, the part about Ezekiel doesn't seem to fit thematically with the rest of your post. I'm struggling to find relevance.

[Moses]

I'm of the view that New Testament is not contradicting but complementing the Old Testament.

Since the Ark is in heaven according to Revelation (Revelation 11:3-19 KJV)
It is an ark of the testament - covenant it is called this way for a reason.
Because its not a different or new ark , I think its the very ark that stood in Solomon's temple and was before that in the Tabernacle in Shiloh etc.

My reference to Ezekiel is innocent if one looks at his visions in a way I see it.

I asked a question and I repeat it.

Why didn't the king of Babylon and his armies destroy and burned the temple when they took Jerusalem t but waited and destroyed it much later?

YHWH didn't let them do that not until he departed from the Temple.

Thw same applies to Shushang king of Egypt.
He was allowed to take what YHWH allowed him to take.

As I see it the temple was destroyed later after departure of God's glory from the temple.

Ezekiel was born and raised in Jerusalem.
How did Ezekiel and the exiles got to Babylon?
If they got taken from Jerusalem it means what?
That Jerusalem fell in to the hands of Babylonians.
- he was exiled with Jehoiachin and the nobles of the country to Babylon.

If so then why when they went to exile the temple wasn't destroyed.

We know that temple was destroyed later after the departure of God's glory from the temple.
Departure of God's Glory (chapters 8 – 11)

The Abominations in the Temple (Chapter


There are six abominations that God reveals to Ezekiel in a vision:

Idolatrous Portrayals on the Wall (8:10)

Hidden Idolatry (8:11-12)God's Fury (Chapter 9)

Weeping for Tammuz (8:13-14)

Turning their back on God (8:15-16)

Violence (8:17)

Insulting God (8:17)

God's Glory Departs (Chapter 10)

Ezekiel then watches as the glory of the LORD departs from the temple. This happens in stages as God's glory first leaves the Holy of Holies (10:4) and pauses at the threshold of the temple. Ezekiel describes the process in detail as the cherubim move with God's glory from place to place. Then in verses 18-19, the glory of the LORD leaves the threshold and rests above the east gate of the temple.

Only after the departure ( I think this is when the Ark is taken to heaven with

YHWH departure)

As it is in heaven today and we know it from the revelation  11:3-19

Blessings

[Irishman]

You should start your own thread. This is getting off topic, I think.

[Moses]

I don't think so,
I build a case for the initial post that the Ark wasn't taken to Egypt.

I provide just another opinion based on scripture that the Ark was taken to heaven as it is in Heaven according to the New Testament interpretation of the book of revelations.