Story: The Ark of the
Covenant
Passage: Exodus 25:10-22
Characters: God, Moses
Summary: God gives
Moses instructions for the Ark of the Covenant.
Notes: The Ark of the
Covenant is an interesting article. It
is the first item which God gives directions to build. The purpose of the Ark is found in verse
22. “There I will meet with you, and
from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of
the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in
commandment for the people of Israel.”
This was to be where God presided.
The Ark was to be a physical object designed to show God’s presence and
His holiness. The ark was to be made
from acacia wood, but overlaid in gold.
The entire thing would be covered in gold. This would be an incredibly beautiful and
precious item! It appears that God saw
gold as the metal which best captures His holiness. Even though the ark would be made of wood, it
would be covered with gold. It was to be
fairly simple. It was a golden box with
a golden lid. The mercy seat is where we
started seeing some intricacy. There
were to be two golden cherubim made of a single piece of gold as the lid of the
Ark. Their wings were to overshadow the
Ark and their faces were to face the center.
God said He would meet them from the middle of the mercy seat. These heavenly worshippers were facing the
center and worshipping. The lid is
called the mercy seat. I don’t know
exactly why it is called that, but I suspect it is because mercy has to be
involved whenever God directly interacts with humanity. This was the seat where He would show mercy
to Israel. This is the first indication
of how much mercy is an aspect of God’s character! The first item He wants built for the
tabernacle is one which directly represents His presence. There are three main concepts which He wants
portrayed with this Ark: holiness, worship, and mercy. I find that incredible! God was going to make Himself present to
imperfect Israel and the attributes He wanted portrayed in His presence were
holiness, worship, and mercy. One other
aspect of the ark is that Israel was instructed to place their testimony in the
Ark. God wanted this item for His
presence to contain proof of His presence.
He would provide testimony of His presence and this belonged in the
Ark. The Ark is referred to as both the
Ark of the Covenant, and the Ark of the Testimony.
Questions: Why was
everything overlaid in gold? Why was the
Ark to be carried with poles?
Lessons: Holiness,
worship, and mercy are the focus of the Ark of the Covenant. Take some time to just think about why God
would choose these things to communicate through the Ark of the Testimony.
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