Question about the location of the ark

[Relztrah]

According to 1 Kings 8:6 (and 2 Chron. 5:7) the ark was carried into the newly built temple.

But during Josiah's reforms, he ordered that the ark be placed in the temple. "He said to the Levites, who instructed all Israel and who had been consecrated to the Lord: 'Put the sacred ark in the temple that Solomon son of David king of Israel built. It is not to be carried about on your shoulders. Now serve the Lord your God and his people Israel.'" (2 Chron. 35:3)

Had the ark been removed from the temple at some point? This passage seems to indicate the the ark was somewhere outside the temple, and Josiah is ordering that it be put back. But I may be misreading the passage.

Now, on a related matter, am I correct that the ark was carried away to Babylon? 2 Chron. 36:18, "He [Nebuchadnezzar] carried to Babylon all the articles from the temple of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the Lord’s temple and the treasures of the king and his officials."

But the ark is not listed in Sheshbazzar's inventory in Ezra 1:9-11. So I am assuming that Zerubbabel's temple had no ark. Am I correct here, or missing something?

I'm sure there are many books and PhD theses written on this subject, but I'm really just looking for the short answer. Thanks in advance to any members who reply.

 

[Jack K]

The most fun answer, of course, is that the ark lies forgotten in a massive U.S. military warehouse. But the best answer is that we just don't know where it ended up.

I believe the uncertainty is intentional and ought to be embraced. It fits the same pattern we see, a bit more clearly, with the glory cloud that's associated with the ark. The glory cloud clearly entered the temple when Solomon dedicated that building. But then we stop hearing about it. Ezekiel gives us apocalyptic visions of it first leaving and then returning in connection with the captivity and some future restoration. But there's no mention of it in the historical accounts of the captivity and return, nor in the building of the second temple. It seems Ezekiel foresaw something bigger than that. It's as if the physical cloud is a shadow from an earlier time, and is being forgotten. In the same way, the ark is largely forgotten too.

Of course. Because Scripture and the historical happenings ordained by God are teaching us that God is preparing to live among his people in even better and closer ways. The ark is supposed to be forgotten.

 

[NaphtaliPress]

Following on Jack, it was likely destroyed with the carved work ., Jeremiah 52:13; Psalm 74:6, when the temple and other buildings were destroyed and out of the way. And it may be that was lest it be worshipped as an idol or because of their idolatry or something, hid as it were like Moses' body.

 

[Kinghezy]

Matthew Henry discusses the following passage:

2 Kings 25:8-9
In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month—that was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. And he burned the house of the Lord and the king’s house and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down.
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He thinks it probably got burnt when the temple was burnt (I bolded that section). It's wordy, as is his want, but a similar conclusion to Jack and Chris.

The city and temple are burnt, v. 9. It does not appear that the king of Babylon designed to send any colonies to people Jerusalem and therefore he ordered it to be laid in ashes, as a nest of rebels. At the burning of the king's house and the houses of the great men one cannot so much wonder (the inhabitants had, by their sins, made them combustible), but that the house of the Lord should perish in these flames, that that holy and beautiful house should be burnt with fire (Isa. lxiv. 11), is very strange. That house which David prepared for, and which Solomon built at such a vast expense--that house which had the eye and heart of God perpetually upon it (1 Kings ix. 3)-- might not that have been snatched as a brand out of this burning? No, it must not be fire-proof against God's judgments. This stately structure must be turned into ashes, and it is probable the ark in it, for the enemies, having heard how dearly the Philistines paid for the abusing of it, durst not seize that, nor did any of its friends take care to preserve it, for then we should have heard of it again in the second temple. One of the apocryphal writers does indeed tell us that the prophet Jeremiah got it out of the temple, and conveyed it to a cave in Mount Nebo on the other side Jordan, and hid it there (2 Macc. ii. 4, 5), but that could not be, for Jeremiah was a close prisoner at that time. By the burning of the temple God would show how little cares for the external pomp of his worship when the life and power of religion are neglected. The people trusted to the temple, as if that would protect them in their sins (Jer. vii. 4), but God, by this, let them know that when they had profaned it they would find it but a refuge of lies. This temple had stood about 420, some say 430 years. The people having forfeited the promises made concerning it, those promises must be understood of the gospel-temple, which is God's rest for ever. It is observable that the second temple was burnt by the Romans the same month, and the same day of the month, that the first temple was burnt by the Chaldeans, which, Josephus says, was the tenth of August.​