King David carrying the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. Painting by Domenico Gargiulo (circa 1640), Pushkin Museum, Moscow • WIKIMEDIA COMMONS One of the most dramatic moments in the story told in the book of Exodus is when Moses, summoned by Yahweh to the top of Mount Sinai, stands in the presence of his god for 40 days and 40 nights. Yahweh then gives Moses specific instructions on the sacred objects that must be made for his worship by the craftsman Bezaléel, of the tribe of Judah:a chest, a table, a candlestick, a tent, an altar, a delimited sacred court by linen cloths, clothes for the servants and a large bronze tub for ablutions. The first and most sacred element of this complex whole is the coffer (in Hebrew ‘aron , in Latin arca ), known as the “ark of the covenant”. It is made of acacia wood, two and a half cubits long (1.25 m), wide and one and a half cubits high (0.75 m). The wood is coated inside and out with pure gold plating. To each of the four legs of the chest is attached a gold ring. In the rings pass two long bars of acacia wood covered with gold for the transport of the ark. The chest is closed by a lid made of a plate of pure gold measuring 1.25 by 0.75 m, on which are placed two protective spirits called keroubim (or "cherubim"), also attested in the Babylonian language as karibu (the "blesser"). Neo-Assyrian bas-reliefs show such spirits with two pairs of wings, which serve as guardians protecting access to a deity. This cover, often also called "propitiatory", is considered the place that serves as a pedestal for the invisible divinity, guarded by the outstretched wings of the two cherubim. The invisible presence of Yahweh What makes the sacred value of the ark is obviously what it contains:the two stone tablets on which were engraved the clauses of the covenant made by Yahweh with the Hebrews and which Moses, by order of the god , deposited inside the sacred chest. But these two stone tablets are also, in a way, symbols of the presence of Yahweh, of which it is forbidden to make a representation. This aniconic tradition is well known for the biblical world, but it is also attested among other peoples of the Western Near East through the worship of stones, the betyles, which can be large standing stones, but of which we also know small portable versions. The Nabataeans of Petra thus transported, from the VI e century BC. J.-C., betyles during their caravan journeys. Pre-Islamic Arabia also had portable sanctuaries where symbolic representations of the goddesses Al-Uzza and Allat were placed, which were later replaced by copies of the Koran. And this practice was not reserved for nomadic peoples since, according to the author Philo de Byblos, the Phoenicians worshiped two agrarian deities called Agros and Agrothes, who were transported on a chariot drawn by oxen. In its first version, the Ark of the Covenant is therefore the main element of the mobile sanctuary that accompanies the Hebrews in their travels, from the moment they became the people of Yahweh. During the rest of the stay in the desert, it is in this sanctuary that the Hebrews come to pay homage to him and to consult his oracles. The ark of the covenant becomes in the book of Exodus a weapon that manifests the terrible power of Yahweh as a warlord. The epic breath of the book of Exodus and the alliance forged between Yahweh and his people are followed by the bloody episodes of the conquest of Canaan. The Ark of the Covenant then becomes a weapon that manifests the terrible power of Yahweh as a warlord. At the instigation of Joshua, the new guide of the Hebrews after the disappearance of Moses, it opens the way during the crossing of the Jordan, carried by the priests cohanim and preceding the whole people. It plays a decisive role in the capture of the Canaanite city of Jericho:preceded by seven priests sounding the trumpet and followed by the army of the Hebrews, it is carried six days in a row around the walls of Jericho. On the seventh day, the walls crumble. After the conquest, the ark is placed in the territory that was assigned to the tribe of Joshua, the mountain of Ephraim, with the sacred places of Shechem, Bethel and Silo. A sacred, but devastating aura However, it was not until the book of Samuel that the ark of the covenant fully played its role again, during the fierce wars between the people of Israel and the Philistines. The ark becomes a kind of last resort when, defeated for the first time by the Philistines, the Elders of Israel decide to bring the ark from Silo:it is welcomed by a tremendous ovation in the Hebrew camp, and its appearance terrifies the Philistines. However, they won a decisive victory at Eben Ezer and seized the ark, the two guardians of which were killed. Having become a victory trophy, the ark was taken by the Philistines to the temple of the god Dagan, in Ashdod. It is then that she reveals her destructive power:the statue of Dagan collapses to the ground twice, and an epidemic strikes the people of Ashdod. The transfer of the ark to other Philistine cities, to Gad then to Ekron, produces the same effects... After seven months, the Philistines end up returning the sacred object to the Hebrews, accompanied by reparation offerings. The biblical story insists here on an aspect which may seem paradoxical:the sacred aura which emanates from the ark of the covenant and which gives it its destructive power strikes both the enemies of Israel and those of the Hebrews who dare to look or hand over it without permission. Thus, when it is returned to Israel by the Philistines in the village of Beth Shemesh, 70 of the inhabitants die for having looked at the ark and profaned its mystery. It is therefore deposited in the village of Kiryat-Yéarim, about twenty kilometers from Jerusalem, where it remains more or less forgotten for 20 years. The journey is finally over But when Israel transformed itself into a royal state in the image of its Near Eastern neighbors and then endowed itself, on the initiative of King David, with a capital and a royal palace in Jerusalem, the question arose of the place where the worship of Yahweh was to be celebrated. In the book of Samuel, the dream in which Yahweh speaks to the high priest Nathan testifies to the change in status that will affect the ark of the covenant:"Thus says the Lord:Will you build me a house to that I live there? From the day I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt until this day, I have never dwelt in a house; I was like a traveler, in the tent that was my home. » If Yahweh finally accepts the transfer of the ark to Jerusalem, it is not yet to reside there in a building. David then arranges for the ark to rest under a tent, according to tradition. The transfer of the ark to Jerusalem, first placed on a cart drawn by oxen, then carried by men, very much resembles the processions during which the representations of certain Near Eastern deities left their habitual residence to circulate on ritualized routes, accompanied by music, songs, dances (including here that of the king himself) and offerings, and thus marked their stranglehold on their territory. The ark finally finds its place in the holy of holies of the temple built by King Solomon in Jerusalem. We know that it was Solomon who had the privilege of building the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem and finally placing the ark there in the sacred chamber, where the cult statue normally resided. According to the First Book of Kings, she rested there under the protection of two statues of keroubim in olive wood, 5 m high:“Then the priests carried the Ark to its place, in the Holy Chamber which is called the Holy of Holies, under the wings of the keroubim . […] In the Ark, there was nothing, except the two tables of stone that Moses had placed there at Mount Horeb, when the Lord had made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt. When the priests came out of the sanctuary, the cloud filled the house of the Lord. » If the ark is therefore an element of the divine presence, assimilated to the pedestal on which it rests, it is above all through the cloud that this presence manifests itself. An unsolved disappearance From then on, the ark is hardly mentioned any more in the biblical account. The book of Chronicles mentions that King Josiah of Judah (640-609 BC) indicates that she must remain in the temple and that the Levites no longer have to carry her. In any case, it is not mentioned in the booty taken by Nebuchadnezzar II from the temple of Jerusalem in 587, nor in what Cyrus restored to the people of Judah returning from exile. The second temple restored and enlarged by Herod the Great from 19 AD. J.-C. did not contain it either. The ark had therefore disappeared. The second book of Maccabees speaks of a mysterious writing relating how the prophet Jeremiah, when leaving Jerusalem after its destruction by the Babylonians in 587 BC. J.-C., would have taken and hidden in a cave located at the foot of Mount Nebo (from where Moses had seen the Promised Land and where he was supposed to be buried), "the tent, the ark and the altar of the perfumes, after which he obstructed the entrance". But, according to another tradition specific to Ethiopia, King Solomon would have given the ark to Menelik, the son he had had from the Queen of Sheba during her stay in Jerusalem, and who was the founder of Ethiopian royalty. The ark would therefore still be in Ethiopia, kept out of sight in the Maryam Seyon church in Aksoum. Finally, a recent work of fiction establishes that after being found at Tanis in Egypt, the ark would have been fiercely disputed between archaeologists René Belloq and Henry Jones Jr. (the famous "Indiana"), before disappearing again. The ark of the covenant therefore took on multiple aspects which are closely linked to the biblical story of the Exodus, then to the taking possession of the land of Canaan:it was the sacred receptacle in which the text of the alliance between Yahweh and the Hebrews, but it was also the pedestal allowing the divine presence to sit in all its glory and its formidable power. A partaker of the deity, the ark was not to be seen or touched by profane people, and death struck those guilty of such sacrilege, even among the people of Israel. Being transportable, the ark followed the Hebrews in their wanderings, as did other peoples of the Near East with their mobile sanctuaries. But, partaking of this divinity, the ark was neither to be seen nor touched by the profane, and death struck those who were guilty of such sacrilege, even among the people of Israel. In a way, the story of the ark ends when it is deposited in the holy of holies of the temple of Jerusalem, because its function as a mobile receptacle of divine power then had no more reason to to be. Find out more The Bible Unveiled , from Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, Gallimard (Folio), 2004. Divine precepts Written between the VII th and the V e century BC. J.-C., long after the facts it retraces, the book of Exodus recounts the presumed peregrinations of the Hebrew people from Egypt to the land of Canaan, whose conquest Yahweh promised them. Installed in the Nile delta, the Hebrews would have left Egypt at the instigation of Moses, on a date impossible to fix. According to the Exodus, it is on Mount Sinai that Moses receives from Yahweh the precepts that will govern his people, engraved on stone tablets that he will have to place in the Ark of the Covenant. There he also received the instructions that would allow the Hebrews to build the ark of the covenant and the tent that would house it (the tabernacle), but also to render to Yahweh the worship that was due to him. Skeptical, the Hebrews are condemned by Yahweh to wander in the desert for 40 years before arriving in Canaan, which Moses contemplates from the top of Mount Nebo before dying. Julio Trebolle (Complutense University, Madrid) An arch made of acacia wood and plated with pure gold The book of Exodus contains the instructions dictated by Yahweh and collected by Moses on Sinai to build the ark. Made of acacia wood, it was to be 1.25 m long, wide and 75 cm high. It was entirely plated with pure gold, inside and out, and four rings had to be placed at its four corners to pass through the bars of acacia wood, also plated with gold, used to carry it. At both ends of the mercy seat (or kapporet ), the pure gold lid that covered the ark, stood two golden cherubim facing each other and spreading their wings above the ark. Moses placed the Decalogue there:the ten commandments engraved on the stone tablets that God also gave him on Sinai. Julio Trebolle (Complutense University, Madrid) Sacred and mythical content Attributed to Saint Paul and probably written before AD 70. J.-C., the Epistle to the Hebrews informs us about the objects contained in the ark. There was of course the Decalogue, engraved on stone tablets given by God to Moses on Sinai. But the text indicates that it also contained two other objects. First of all, the staff of Aaron, brother of Moses, kept as a sign of warning to the rebels:after having killed by the thousands those who refused the religious direction of Moses and Aaron, consecrated high priest of the cult established on Sinai, Yahweh made it flower to signify that Aaron was indeed the man He himself had chosen. The other object was a golden vase containing manna, the miraculous food eaten by the Hebrews in the desert, reminding us that Yahweh was watching over his people. Julio Trebolle (Complutense University, Madrid) The Cloud of Yahweh In the Bible, three books (Exodus, Numbers and the first book of Kings) mention a cloud manifesting the divine presence in the tabernacle. The use of the term "smoke" in Isaiah's prophetic vision suggests that this image originated from the altar described in the book of Exodus, on which the Hebrews were to burn incense:"From generation to generation, the incense will perpetually ascend before the Lord. » Julio Trebolle (Complutense University, Madrid) The Desert Sanctuary “Tabernacle” comes from tabernaculum , Latin word by which Saint Jerome translated in the IV e century the Hebrew term and expressions corresponding respectively to "tent", "tent of meeting" and "tent of testimony". Yahweh had the Hebrews build this traveling sanctuary so that they could place the ark there and take it with them during their journey through the desert. According to the book of Exodus, its construction was directed by two craftsmen, Bezaléel and Oholiab. About 5 m wide and 15 m long, the tabernacle stood on a court 20 by 50 m. The interior of the tabernacle consisted of two parts separated by four wooden columns plated with gold and resting on silver pedestals, from which hung a purple veil bordered by cherubim. Called "most holy place" or debir , the part located at the bottom of the tabernacle was reserved for the ark. The part closest to the entrance housed a candlestick (menorah) and a table for worship, as well as a gold-plated altar for burning incense. Julio Trebolle (Complutense University, Madrid)
