{"id":5580,"date":"2026-07-15T08:48:59","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T12:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5580"},"modified":"2026-07-15T08:48:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T12:48:59","slug":"readers-of-the-lost-ark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/readers-of-the-lost-ark\/","title":{"rendered":"Readers of the Lost Ark"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast<\/em>,\u00a0click here<\/a>

So, whatever happened to the ark of the covenant?

That\u2019s easy. If you saw the first of the Indiana Jones movies back in 1981, you know that it is securely tucked away in some back corner of a vast, unidentified warehouse.

The actual story is more interesting. And a lot more mysterious.

There are two arks in the Bible. One of them was the floating zoo that saved Noah and his family from a cataclysmic flood. The other was a sacred piece of furniture \u2013 an acacia wood chest about three and a half feet long, two feet wide, and two feet high, completely covered with gold. It was assembled according to divine specifications by craftsmen during the time of Moses.

The ornamental lid of the box featured two carved cherubim \u2013 supernatural beings, angel-like in nature, with outstretched wings.\u00a0God was present at all times around the ark.\u00a0It was the focal point of his power and majesty on earth.\u00a0

According to Scripture, this special box was the storage place for two stone tablets on which God had personally inscribed the Ten Commandments. It also contained a bowl of manna. Aaron\u2019s rod, which had supernaturally budded, was always nearby.

The ark played a prominent role in the time of Joshua. It was present when the Hebrews crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land, and when they won their first major battle at Jericho.

A number of Old Testament accounts make it clear it was never wise to take the ark lightly. Levitical priests were the only ones authorized to carry it, and only in a carefully prescribed manner. For reasons that God never chose to explain, if you dared to take on the ark, you were actually taking on the living God.

That becomes clear in a fascinating series of accounts in I Samuel chapters 4, 5, and 6.

The narrative unfolds during an ongoing state of war between the Israelites and their sworn enemies, the Philistines. God\u2019s people have been getting the worst of it.\u00a0An idea occurs to them: Why don\u2019t we carry the ark of the covenant into battle?\u00a0They presume that will guarantee a military triumph.

For the Israelites, however, the ark doesn\u2019t turn out to be the good luck charm they had hoped.\u00a0They are soundly defeated.\u00a0Far worse, the ark falls into the hands of the Philistines. It is a dark day for God\u2019s people.

The Philistines are giddy with joy. It seems like a good idea to parade this new war trophy from town to town.\u00a0Little do they realize that the happy times are suddenly going to end.\u00a0

Wherever the ark shows up on the Philistine Victory Tour, unnerving things take place.\u00a0A celebrated idol falls on its face and shatters into pieces.\u00a0Plague breaks out.\u00a0The people are afflicted with tumors. Soon the mayors of the five primary Philistine communities are playing musical ark<\/em>.\u00a0\u201cHere, you take it.\u201d\u00a0\u201cNo, it\u2019s your turn.\u201d\u00a0\u201cNo way!\u00a0We had it last Tuesday.\u00a0Take it to your <\/em>neighborhood.\u201d

At last, the Philistine leaders ask a timely question: \u201cHow are we going to get rid of this thing?\u201d

They come up with a plan.\u00a0\u201cLet\u2019s put it on a brand-new cart and hitch the cart to a pair of cows and see where the cows go.\u201d\u00a0And here we encounter the most interesting sentence in our story, which is found in I Samuel 6:9:\u00a0\u201cIf the ark goes up to its own territory, toward Beth Shemesh, then the Lord has brought this great disaster on us.\u00a0But if it does not, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us and that it happened to us by chance.\u201d<\/em>

The Philistines are still entertaining the possibility that all of these calamities have happened to them coincidentally.\u00a0Maybe this is all just a run of really bad luck.\u00a0\u201cLet\u2019s use the Cow-O-Meter,\u201d they decide.\u00a0\u201cThe cows will demonstrate what\u2019s really going on here, one way or the other.\u201d

In order to make it harder for the God of Israel to prove himself, the Philistines decide to make things rough for the cows.\u00a0Neither of them has ever been hitched to a cart.\u00a0Both have recently had calves, which are now penned up nearby.\u00a0A cow in this situation would ordinarily stay near its calf \u2013 in this case, that would mean staying in Philistia.

But the cows start walking.\u00a0They head straight for Israel.\u00a0

They\u2019re not hanging around their own home.\u00a0Now that they\u2019re connected to the ark of the covenant, they are walking intently toward its<\/em> home.\u00a0

The Bible tells us that the cows don\u2019t turn to the left or to the right, and that they are mooing all the way. Theologian R. C. Sproul wondered if they might be singing in cow-song, perhaps something like Onward Christians Cows.\u00a0<\/em>

By day\u2019s end, the Philistines have gotten a graduate theological education from a couple of barnyard bovines.\u00a0And what\u2019s the lesson? Things in God\u2019s kingdom don\u2019t happen by chance.\u00a0<\/em>

Sometime around the year 960 B.C., the ark is transported with great fanfare into the first temple in Jerusalem, the one that Solomon built.

It apparently remains there for the better part of the next four centuries, sitting in the Most Holy Place \u2013 the sacrosanct inner chamber of the temple, a room the high priest alone could visit just once each year on the Day of Atonement.

But everything changes in 586 B.C. An invading army from Babylon overwhelms Jerusalem. They demolish the city, including the temple.

After this moment, the ark is never again mentioned on the pages of the Bible. What happened to it? No one knows.

Theories abound.

It\u2019s possible that it was hidden by priests, perhaps in a cave or tunnel beneath the temple mount. According to the apocryphal book of 2 Maccabees, the prophet Jeremiah secretly hid the ark in a cave on Mt. Nebo a few miles from Jerusalem.

One enduring conjecture is that the ark was sent for safekeeping to the Egyptian city of Tanis. That\u2019s where Indiana Jones finds it in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/em>.

Others suggest that the ark was retrieved by the Knights Templar, a medieval order of warrior monks, who presumably found it in a secret chamber in Jerusalem during the Crusades. Could they have whisked it off to Paris or some other European city? This sounds like a plot worthy of Dan Brown of Da Vinci Code<\/em> fame.

Members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church have long insisted they know exactly where to find the ark. It\u2019s resting in a small chapel in the Church of Our Lady, Mary of Zion in the city of Axum, Ethiopia. It\u2019s guarded by a single monk \u2013 the only person allowed to see it.

Scholars and historians have collectively sighed, \u201cUh, that would be a little too easy.\u201d\u00a0

As recently as 2019, treasure hunters and archeologists have claimed satellite imaging and ground-penetrating radar have given them new places to look.

Perhaps, however, the ark will never be found for the simple reason that it no longer exists.

Maybe it was looted by the Babylonians, melted down for its gold. Maybe it was lost to the sands of time through circumstances we will never discover.

But here\u2019s the most provocative statement:

It doesn\u2019t really matter whether the ark is still around or whether it will ever be found.<\/em>

That\u2019s because the ark of the covenant (that is, the ark of the old<\/u><\/em> covenant) is no longer the focal point of God\u2019s power, majesty, and abiding presence on earth.

According to the new<\/u><\/em> covenant \u2013 the one that came into effect through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus \u2013 God\u2019s power is now centered on Jesus\u2019 followers.

That means you<\/u><\/em>. You are God\u2019s temple on earth. Your heart is now his Most Holy Place.

You may never get to meet Harrison Ford, and cows are unlikely to walk up to your front door any time in the future.

But the center of God\u2019s work in the world just happens to be wherever you are right now.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here So, whatever happened to the ark of the covenant? That\u2019s easy. If you saw the first of the Indiana Jones movies back in 1981, you know that it is securely tucked away in some back corner of a vast, unidentified warehouse. The actual story is more interesting. And a lot more… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[89,1148],"class_list":["post-5580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archeology","tag-ark-of-the-covenant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5582,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5580\/revisions\/5582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}