The Ark

[Gregory Matthews]

The Ark of the Covenant has never been discovered and is the subject of much speculation.  In 2 Maccabees 2:4ff, we are told that Jeremiah hid it on Mt. Nebo and that it would not be discovered until aa later time. 

NOTE:  My source for this is a digital course on the Old Testament, by Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, in a series by The Teaching Company.  If you want to know more about her, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy-Jill_Levine

 

"In spring 2019 she taught New Testament at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, the first Jew to do so, and she has had multiple audiences with Pope Francis."

 

[Kevin H]

There are also scholars who believe that it was dismantled in the time of Manasseh.  

One problem with the 2 Maccabees quote is the relationship between Jeremiah and the Ark. 

The Hebrews had two priestly families. One was the descendants of Eleazar, which was very Arronite. The other possibly Ithamar, but very much the family of Moses. The differences could be compared to two different denominations of the ancient YAHWHIST religion. While the ark was important in the Moses priesthoods for a while, after coming back from the Philistines it became more important to the Arronites. We talk about the "United Monarchy" of Saul, David and Solomon. But in the days of the judges the northern tribes and Judah pretty much formed into two nations. David was king of Judah for 7 years, meaning about 5 years David was king of Judah while Saul was king of Israel. Then David became king of both Judah and Israel, more of two countries sharing a king. Then after Solomon they divided. The accusations of how evil Samuel's sons were may have been more political than actual evil, since we find Samuel's descendants getting very involved with the religion and politics of the southern kingdom, and it was people of the north that complained about them. 

The descendants of Eleazar were the temple priests, and the ark became the center of their worship. The northern tribes became less interested in the ark. An interesting thing about the Deuteronomic History (Joshua - Kings, maybe Deuteronomy) has stories of how God blesses people, but often people turn their blessing into curses. And there are curses from God that God turns into blessings. (The prophecy that Eli's house would not have old men... an unusual number of the men in the family became prophets and Bible writers. Prophets have a tendency of not making it to become old men.)  The northern tribes were based more on the Book of the Law, while the south more on Leviticus (and the book of the law got lost). When you follow the curses in the Deuteronomic history, while some had a local situations that affected say the rise of David; most of the major curses you can follow over the Deuteronomic history and most of them land on one man-- Jeremiah. 

Had the northern kingdom not fallen, Jeremiah would have been the high priest of the north. Hezekiah gave some room for the priests from the north for ministry. And when the book of the law was found in the temple, since Jeremiah's background was based more on the book of the law, he was the natural source for understanding it. But Jeremiah was only allowed in a section on the edge of the temple. He and his ancestors were under the curse and the rest of the temple was off limits to them under the penalty of death. The Ark did not mean much to Jeremiah. It would have been important to Ezekiel. If the story was Ezekiel took it and hid it, there could be more credibility. But for it being applied to Jeremiah would be similar to saying that Ellen White took and hid the Shroud of Turin to protect it.