The Forever Word

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isaiah 40:1-8 ESV).

The “Ark of the Covenant” (Hebrew: אָרוֹן הַבְּרִית ʾĀrôn Habbərît, or the modern pronunciation of Aron Habrit), is also known as the “Ark of the Testimony.” It is a gold-covered wooden chest described in Exodus as containing the two stone tablets Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments written on them. According to various texts within the Hebrew Bible, it also contained Aaron’s rod and a pot of manna. The biblical account relates that, approximately one year after the Exodus, the Ark was created according to the pattern given by God when the Israelites were encamped at Mt. Sinai. Thereafter, the gold-plated acacia chest was carried by its staves while en route by the priests. When carried, the Ark was always hidden under a large veil made of skins and blue cloth, always carefully concealed, even from the eyes of the priests and the Levites who carried it. There is great division among Biblical scholars as to the location of the ark. Some believe it is still hidden in one of buried treasure rooms beneath the Temple Mount. Others hold that it was indeed carried away in the plundering of the temple by the Babylonians. Still others believe it may have survived that destruction only to be obliterated by the Romans when they obliterated the temple one more time in 70 AD. Regardless it has not been seen in over 2,000 years. It may be natural to wonder, if the Ark represented the presence of God to the people of Israel, why would God let it be destroyed? Perhaps God allowed this because He knew that if we had it with the two tablets of the Ten Commandments inside, we might make it a shrine and worship it. More closely to the truth is that since Jesus died and rose again, we can have the presence of God within us at all times when we trust Christ as Savior and Lord. That presence is called the Holy Spirit. Finding Jesus is a whole lot better than finding a lost ark. He is the Forever Word!