THE "DIVINITY" OF THE ARK OF THE COVENANT

(By Solomon Mahoi, [Pseudonym, "Abck Obba"])

July 11, 2024

The account of the Ark of the Covenant is perhaps one of the greatest mysteries throughout all of Christendom as it is one which, generation after generation, according to biblical Hebrew lineages, remained the most solid manifestation of God's power and might encompassed in a gold-plated wooden box, whose presence anchors victory and dominion. And so from the unanticipated mystery of the Burning Bush to the Red Sea's jaw-dropping display of God's awesomeness and to Mount Sinai's spectacular of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments, the Ark of the Covenant remains an emblem of divinity despite what location in the world it is believed to currently be physically, after its disappearance from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem before or around 586 B.C., during an attack by the Babylonians. And so as titled above, this article is therefore designed for the purpose of bringing to light the divine symbolism that is the Ark of the Covenant and how the significance of this divine symbolism extends to this present day in age as well, to either the individual or to a collective whole. With that said, let's dive into it right away, shall we? Great!

Now to the devout Christian whose steadfastness in the walks of virtues and whose direct intimacy with the Holy Spirit has earned him or her the seasoned understanding of the nature of the Divine, especially of the Divine's righteous and just composition that hallmarks Him as "Holy," the divinity of the Ark of the Covenant therefore comes as no surprise. In fact, it solidifies the devout Christian's spiritual conviction of the Sovereign Being that the Divine is, of His omnipotence status along with His ever-present presence, as well as His all-knowing abilities. And like Noah’s Ark whose symbolism represents the preservation of humanity (including humanity’s related creaturies, or the various creature-species that cohabit the earth with human beings), the purpose of the Ark of the Covenant therefore was to preserve the tableted laws known as the Ten Commandments, as these were spiritual laws which the Hebrews or Israelites were to live by as a spiritual way of life. 

Now although the spiritual way of life which the purpose of the Ten Commandments did prescribe to the Israelites (or Hebrews) were laws which the Israelites rebelled against time after time, however, the Israelites' rebellion against these laws did not diffuse God's sovereignty as the "Almighty" and neither did it diffuse the moral sacracy or moral guidance which the laws of the Ten Commandments inspire spiritually. Rather, the Israelites' rebellion against these laws only show that God's divine standards are very high spiritually, whilst the standards of the human nature need constant practice from the excessiveness of the human nature's lustful practices in order for the human nature to be able to adapt to these laws as a spiritual way of life.

Now detouring this line of reasoning for a moment, especially to the modern-day society which we live in for example, and assuming that the Ten Commandments which were preserved in the Ark of the Covenant are now officially preserved in the Hebrew Bible in the Book of Exodus 20:3-17, and also assuming that there are laws of the land in every country on the face of the earth, therefore the spiritual guidance that each of the Ten Commandments admonishes could be seen as a moral template that when practiced devotionally and when becomes second nature, could not only make our compliance to the laws of the lands we live in be fairly easy to follow, but it also creates an atmosphere of harmony because the main objective of the laws to each land (in the modern-day society which we live in) are generally designed to keep the peace person-to-person, neighbourhood-to-neighbourhood, and community-to-community.

And so the divinity of the Ark of the Covenant by way of the spiritual laws preserved in it in the form of the tableted Ten Commandments (which in spiritual perspective signifies the presence of God), was not only a template for harmony into the land of Canaan where Yahweh was taking the Children of Israel into as a nation, but them continuing to abide by these Ten Commandments would help maintain their spiritual connection or relationship with Yahweh, including Yahweh's communication with them through their "leaders" via visions (or dreams or divine revelations) as these laws were the spiritual standard in Yahweh's holy standards of the "Holy" God that Yahweh is, in order to gain and maintain the direct (or one-on-one) spiritual communion or guidance that Yahweh was bestowing on the Children of Israel as a nation.

To this end, it is therefore clear to me that the divinity of the Ark of the Covenant along with the symbolism of the significance of the Ark of the Covenant extends to this day in age as well, either to the individual or to a collective whole.

Shalom.