Exodus 25:10-22 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

Exodus 25:10-22 P. The Ark (cf. Exodus 37:1-9). Three stages of tradition may be distinguished with regard to the Ark (pp. 105f., 123f.): (a) In JE, and in the earlier historical books, it is the visible seat of Yahweh's presence, guiding and protecting His people. Various explanations are offered. Other ancient peoples carried images in similar chests; the ark may have held some such symbol; Kennett (ERE, vol. i. 791- 793) suggests the brazen serpent. Or it may have contained a stone from the sacred mount to serve as a throne for Yahweh as He went forth with His people to find a new home amongst men (cf. Naaman's mules-' burden of earth). But it is not thought likely that it originally held the tablets, which would be publicly exhibited not hidden from sight. Dibelius and Gressmann expound the attractive view that the Ark, with its cover and cherubim, was the throne of the invisible Yahweh, the rider upon the storm-cloud, and the occupant of the sacred height of Sinai. They support this by referring to the box-seats which on the monuments serve as thrones, and claim with justice that all early references to the Ark are made more intelligible on this view, which also permits the belief that the official public worship of Israel was imageless from Mosaic times. (b) In D (see Deuteronomy 10:1-5 *) the Ark, perhaps in order to rescue it from superstitious veneration, such as gave occasion to the disparaging words of Jeremiah 3:16, was regarded as the receptacle of the tablets, and was called the ark of the covenant, since, for D, the covenant at Horeb was on the basis of the Decalogue. So it became rather a memorial of the once-for-all-concluded alliance between Yahweh and Israel, than the instrument of the Divine presence. (c) In P we find it here set in the forefront of Israel's sacred things, as that for the sake of which the whole sanctuary was made. It is minutely described as about 3 feet 9 inches long, 2 feet 3 inches wide, and 2 feet 3 inches high, heavily gilded inside and out, with a rim or moulding of solid gold (Exodus 25:11), and with gold rings and gilded poles (Exodus 25:12-15). It is to hold the testimony, i.e. the Decalogue, which Yahweh would give to Moses, no allusion being made to the awful sights and sounds publicly manifested according to Exodus 25:19 f. (Exodus 16:21 b). Upon it vv. (Exodus 25:17-21 a) was to rest a slab of gold, the mercy-seat (Tyndale's word, and still the best, as the Hebrew verb never means to cover in the literal sense). For its use and meaning see Leviticus 16:2; Leviticus 16:14 f., and Deissmann in EBi. Two golden cherubs, i.e. winged figures (cf. the bearers of Yahweh's throne in Ezekiel 1:5 ff.), were fixed to the mercy-seat at its ends, and overshadowed it, facing one another (Exodus 25:18-20). Contrast the great gilded cherubs that guarded the Ark on either side in Solomon's Temple (1 Kings 6:23-28). Here (Exodus 25:21), above the mercy-seat and between the two cherubim, was to be the scene of Yahweh's gracious approach as the invisible King and Lawgiver, the meeting-point between earth and heaven, the place of those solemn meetings between God and man's representative, from which the commonest name for the sanctuary, the tent of meeting, was derived. The blood-stained mercy-seat has thus become the pledge of that loving search of the Father for spiritual worshippers which is described in John 4:21-24, while the hedging of it round with courts and chambers of graduated sanctity symbolised the progressive stages of holy fear by which alone man can draw nearer and nearer to God.