What was the Ark of the Covenant?
There is much that can be said about the Biblical Ark of the Covenant. It’s one of the most fascinating artifacts from the Bible and, indeed, all of human history. As its name implies, it is deeply symbolic of the Covenant between God and humanity and is directly tied to God’s saving action in our history.
The Ark was crafted by Moses at God’s command to hold the Ten Commandments and also held manna and Aaron’s rod, to serve as a reminder to the Israelites.
And, most importantly, it was above the lid of the Ark (referred to as the “mercy seat”) that the presence of God was made manifest to the High Priest when the Ark was in the Tabernacle.
Okay, so how is it like Mary?
Like so many Biblical types, the Ark of the Covenant as a “type” of Mary is so multivalent that it’s hard to know where to begin.
First of all, the Ark was made of setim wood which was a type of incorruptible acacia. This obviously reminds us of the Virgin Mary, from whose incorruptible flesh the Second Person of the Trinity received his human nature.
Exodus describes the cloud of God’s presence overshadowing the Ark, and the Gospel of Luke uses the same Greek word to describe the Holy Spirit, who overshadows Mary at the Annunciation.
In fact, there are several such similarities between how the Biblical text refers to the Ark of the Covenant and Mary.
We see other examples in the Visitation.
When Elizabeth says to Mary “why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” it calls David’s words to mind in 2 Samuel when he asks “how can the ark of the LORD come to me?”
And just as David leapt and danced for joy when the Ark was brought into the holy city of Jerusalem, so did the infant John leap for joy when Mary visited Elizabeth.
The Ark of the Covenant, which was placed in the Tabernacle, was the place where God’s presence was made manifest to the Jewish people.
And in a more perfect manner, the presence of God was made manifest in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the person of Jesus Christ.
But there is more to what the Ark of the Covenant meant in the Old Testament.
The Ark was what contained the 10 commandments. It was where God communicated with his people. And it was a powerful symbol of God’s saving action in Israel’s history
The Israelites made the Ark (under God’s direction) after the Exodus from Egypt. And it was through the Ark that God led the Israelites through the desert.
And manna was stored in the Ark to remind them of how God had fed them when there was no food in the desert.
Why would God specifically ask the Israelites to keep manna in the Ark as a reminder?
The manna was miraculous, no doubt, but among all of God’s wonderful deeds, providing bread to eat seems less…amazing than other things.
But the Jewish people had many traditions related to the expected Messiah that aren’t mentioned in the Bible. Specifically, they believed that there would be a new manna when the Messiah arrived, a manna that already pre-existed in heaven.
Recall, for example, how Our Lord refers to himself as new bread from heaven in John 6, just as “our ancestors ate manna in the desert.” (For more details I can’t recommend enough Brandt Pitre’s book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist).
So the Ark of the Covenant was not only a reminder of the manner in which God had saved the Israelites in the past but it was meant to be a sign of how God would save Israel in the future, during the new Exodus, led by the Messiah.
For this reason, when we think of Mary as the New Ark of the Covenant, we realize that the Ark was the place of God’s presence, the locus of God’s saving grace, the teaching of the law that gives life, and the giving of the Bread that gives eternal life.
All of these aspects of saving grace are prefigured in the Ark and fulfilled in Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant. The manna that fed the Israelites in their path through the desert would prefigure a new manna that will feed us on the path through this life to heaven.
Remember that the purpose of studying types isn’t just to confirm what you already know but to help you understand what you already know even more.
It’s not enough to read the Old Testament and marvel at how cool it is that it predicted the New Testament - we should want to study the Scriptures more and understand the Old Testament as much as we can on its own terms so that we can understand that which it prefigures even more!
(Check out part 1 and part 2 and part 4 here)
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