Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 25:21
And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee.
21. Cf. Exo 40:20.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Or, after thou shalt have put in the ark; for the ark was not to be opened after the covering was put upon it. The Hebrew particle vau oft signifies after that, as Jer 43:13; 51:60.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark,…. Over it, as a covering for it: this situation of the mercy seat above the ark, where the law was, signifies, that there is no mercy but in a way of righteousness, or of satisfaction to the law of God, and in a consistence with the honour of it; and the cherubim over the mercy seat making a throne for the majesty of God, in which he sat, and the ark below a kind of footstool for him, shows that Christ, the mercy seat and propitiatory, stands between God and his law, and is the mediator between God, and men the transgressors of that law, and by fulfilling it has covered the sins of his people, which are violations of it; and being above it, and having magnified and made it honourable, is able to suppress its charges and accusations, and secure from its curse and condemnation:
and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee; or “after thou shalt put in the ark”, c. r, as the particle “vau” is sometimes used the sense is, that then the mercy seat should be put above, and upon the ark, as the covering of it, after the law, or the two tables of testimony, were put into it; for then it was covered, and not to be opened any more; see Ex 40:20.
r “postquam in area”, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius. Vid. Nold. Concord Ebr. part. p. 290.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
THE ARK OF THE COVENANT
Exo 25:21.
MY theme today is The Ark of the Covenant. Dr. Joseph Parker calls this Ark of the Covenant the transient symbol of an eternal truth. And, such it is! Our inquiry will have to do with that truth. As we follow this symbol in its suggestions, its creation and its historical source, may the Spirit teach us!
This Ark of the Covenant is the central and supreme institution of the Tabernacle. It is the holy thing in that holiest compartment of Gods temporary house. Worshippers of Nature, aesthetic sentimentalists may protest against the Tabernacle itself, criticise the thought that He, who sitteth upon the circle of the heavens, and filleth all space with His Presence should ever locate Himself in one little world, and limit Himself to one small house. They remind us of the words of Jesus at the well of Sychar, Believe Me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. * * But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
And yet, a little deeper thought will reveal the Divine wisdom in the old Tabernacle. If it is true that God fills all spaceand it is, it is also true that man cannot follow Him there, cannot hold communion with Him in His infinity. He limits Himself for our sakes; He ordained the tabernacle that He might come down to our level. He consents to go into a hollow cube fifteen by fifteen by fifteen, solely for the purpose of coming within the compass of the priests vision, of bringing the people into conscious communion with Him. The great man of earth cannot afford to live in one room; he must walk abroad. His lungs require the outdoor air, his feet hunger for the streets and the fields, his eyes are eager for the landscape, his ear thirsts for the song of birds, his heart for new acquaintances and communions. But that same great man is most happy in his little house, shut into a single roomhis family about him. No study is of such supreme importance to him as the study of his children; no communion so sweet as that which he holds with wife and little ones; no expressions of earth so prized as those which he hears at the hearthstone. That is why God ordered a tabernacle. That is why God ordained the Holy of Holies. That is why God commanded the ark of the covenant. He that sitteth upon the circle of the heavens, and who visits the uttermost star, whose word is a new worldneeds also a house into which He can come to meet His own; and into which His own can come to find the Father there. We are glad for the tabernacle-symbol of Gods sanctuary! We are glad for the Holy of Holiesthe place of private prayerthe priestly intercession! We are glad for the ark of the covenant, with its mercy seat and shekinah glory type of the Divine presencerobbed of its terror because manifested over the Mercy Seat.
Beloved, how poor we would be if God robbed us of specific meeting places! If the spot by your bedside where you kneel was disallowed; if the corner of the room where you sit at family prayers were denied; or the sanctuary into which the larger assembly comes, to which He has made His promise His eyes shall be upon the place and His ear attent unto the prayer made in it! God limits Himself for our sakes!
But concerning the Ark of the Covenant, two or three suggestions.
First:
ITS CONSTRUCTION AND CONTENT.
In its construction, the Ark of the Covenant was significant. We have no disposition to see symbolism where inspiration never purposed it. Just how deep the significance in shittim wood, in the form and size of the Ark, we are not prepared to saythe Scriptures do not elaborate. But in its covering of gold, in its cherubim, and in its Mercy Seat, the appointments are full of suggestion. It may be a singular thing, and yet it is a certain one, that this precious metal which we call gold, God has ever been pleased to employ as a symbol of purity. The Holy City itself, is described in Revelation, in these words, And the City mas pure gold, like unto clear glass.
The Cherubim are only types of the Living Creatures before the throne. Their character and mission Ezekiel has marvelously described in his prophecy (Eze 1:5-26); their honored placein the very presence of Godis presented in Rev 4:6. They seem to be the highest creations of Heaven; Creatures of an order above angels or men; executors of the Divine will and leaders of the whole heavenly host. It is a marvelous thing that their eyes were upon the Mercy Seat. Many men have felt that the Mercy Seat itself was interpreted by their steadfast gaze. So wonderful is it that the God of justice should meet men in mercy, that even these elders of the angels desire to look into this mystery of the Gospel (1Pe 1:12). The Mercy Seat is evidently the transcendent feature of the Ark of the Covenant. However august the Cherubim may appear, the Mercy Seat is the place of true majestythere God manifests Himself. But we reserve to a later time a description of its fuller significance.
The content of the Ark of the Covenant was symbolical. It contained the two tables of stone, with their commandments (Exo 25:21), the pot of manna (Exo 16:33), and Aarons rod that budded (Num 17:10). If one would understand this part of the Old Testament he must give himself to a reading of the Epistle to the Hebrews where Paul is comparing Christianity with Judaism, and showing, that while one grew out of the other, Christianity is the greater. In the ninth chapter of that Epistle he says,
The first covenant had also ordinances of Divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.
Tor there was a tabernacle made; the first wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread; which is called the sanctuary.
And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all;
Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aarons rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant;
And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercy seat (Exo 9:1-5).
How marvelous that these should be the contents of this curious, yet incomparable chest, Aarons rodsymbol of Gods power of bringing life out of the dead; the pot of mannatoken of His pledge to provide for His own; and the Tables of Stone suggesting His eternal right to regulate in all human affairs.
But ones interest increases as he passes from the construction of the Ark of the Covenant to
ITS GREATER SCRIPTURAL SUGGESTIONS.
See, here, the careful preservation of the Divine will. The two Tables of Stone were not only in the Ark, but they were underneath the Mercy Seat, overshadowed by the wings of the Cherubim, and were guarded by the shekinah glory.
From the day when God began to deal with man, He has spared no pains in preserving His every revelation to him. Moses, in anger, broke to pieces the first revelation that God gave, and destroyed it. And from that hour the natural man has been attempting to repeat the experience of wiping out of existence Gods last inspired word. But this human disposition has been met and over-matched by the Divine determination not only to give to the world a revelation but to guard that which is given. Wherever you find the revealed will of God, there you find the Infinite Father Himself sitting as its guardian. To some it may seem a strange fact of history, but to believers it ought to seem a natural one, that the Bible itself is indestructible. Fire may be kindled against it; flood may be employed for its drowning: the fury of man may express itself with penknife, but Jesus declared not one jot or tittle of all the Law of God shall fail. God has not only preserved His every word of revelation, but preserved it intact.
Mr. Geo. E. Merrill, in his volume, The Parchments of the Faith, assigns as one reason for the scarcity of Hebrew manuscripts the fact that three errors of a scribe upon a single sheet, the blurring of letters brought about by the reverent kissing of the opening and closing words of the portion to be read, any mutilation of the text by ordinary wear, and many other causes, condemned a document. And yet, underneath all this it is simply God at work to keep undefiled His revealed will. Notwithstanding all that Criticism has said concerning the Old Testament, it must be conceded that the volume we now have is almost word for word identical with that which Ezra and his successors collated into our Sacred Canon nearly twenty-five hundred years ago. We have no fear, therefore, that the Divine revelation can ever be destroyed. He was more than a poet, he was a prophet who wrote:
One day I paused beside a blacksmiths door
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
Then looking in I saw upon the floor
Old hammers worn with beating years of time.
How many anvils have you had, said I,
To wear and batter all these hammers so?
Just one, he answered; then with twinkling eye,
The anvil wears these hammers out, you know.
And so, I thought, the anvil of Gods Word
For ages skeptic blows have beat upon;
Yet though the voice of infidels was heard,
The anvil is unwornthe hammers gone.
But again, the Ark of the Covenant suggests Gods presence in the midst of His people. His word was, Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. Later He adds, And I will dwell among the Children of Israel and will be their God. There is scarce one Divine desire more often or more definitely expressed than this one of dwelling with His people. If it was enjoyed in type in the Old Testament, it was known in fact to the New, for the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And even now that Jesus sits at the right hand of God His communion with us is not broken, but, by His Holy Spirit, the promise is fulfilled, Ye are the Temple of the Living God. As God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Did you ever think that there is something more in Gods presence with His people than an accommodation of human needs? Has it never occurred to you that the Divine heart hungers for this communion with man? What else is the meaning of Christs conduct in Gethsemane as He says to His disciples, Sit ye here while I go and pray yonder, than that He wanted them near Him in His hour of agony? What other interpretation can we give to His words to the chosen threePeter, James and Johnwhom He took with Him, and to whom He said, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Tarry ye here and watch with Me. Why His reproof when He finds them asleep, What, could ye not watch with Me one hour? if He were not in need of their communion; if He did not long for their sympathy and love? To me it is a beautiful thought that this purpose of God to be in the midst of His people is destined a full and final consummation, for in that volumethe Revelationas a part of the plan of the ages, you will find that when the last battle is fought, the Adversary is defeated, the enemies are judged, and the new heaven and the new earth appears, a great voice is heard out of Heaven, saying: Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men; and He will dwell with them; and they shall be His people. And God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.
One of the things that the individual Christian should learn; one of the thoughts that ought to have large place with the Church of Christ, is not alone the fact of 1st John, God is love, but the more personal thought by which that assertion is prefaced, namely, that we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. There is consolation in such a thought; there is courage in it; aye, there is conquest in itGod with us! It is the interpretation of the grand old word Immanuel. This shekinah glory in the midst of the ancient people was spelling out the glorious thought in that good name; and Ward Beecher was thinking upon it when he said: What cares the child when the mother rocks it, though all storms be without; so we, if God doth shield and tend us shall be heedless of the tempests and blasts of life, blow they ever so rudely.
Again, there is manifested here the exercise of justice in the spirit of mercy. In the Ark of the Covenant are the two Tables of Stonethat is the voice of the Law; but just over it is the Mercy Seat. When the Law speaks it must express itself through the symbol of mercy. That is doubtless the thought that the Psalmist had in mind when he wrote: Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel. * *. Thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth. Turn us again, O God, and cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. If we conceive of God as sitting over these tables of stone, we give Him a throne of judgment; but when we remember that He is on the Mercy Seat, we adopt the language of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and call it The throne of Grace. It is the one point in Old Testament economy, where mercy and truth were met together; where righteousness and peace kissed each other.
Henry Van Dyke, in the Gospel for a World of Sin, says: The atonement is undoubtedly a manifestation of Gods mercy in harmony with His justice. On the great day of atonement, the High priest, you remember, sprinkled this mercy seat with the blood, thereby making it possible for God to be just, and yet the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Somehow the same Spirit which convicts us of sin, and makes us to feel its exceeding sinfulness, starts in us also a hope, born indeed it may be of an agony of need and a conviction of helplessness, and yet laying hold upon the very mercy seat of Christ, by saying, with the publican, God be merciful to me a sinner. The Psalmist wrote the sentiment of the soul striving after the meaning of this mercy-seat, when he said: Have mercy upon me, O Lord, according to Thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.
One wishes he had a more novel illustration with which to point this thought, but better an old one that is apt, than a new one which lacks inspiration. You will remember, how in the days of Napoleon first consul of Francea young girl of fourteen years persuaded the kind-hearted porter to allow her to enter the palace. Passing from room to room until she came to Napoleon, she cast herself at his feet and cried, Pardon, Sire, pardon for my father. And who is your father? asked Napoleon, and who are you? My name is Lajolia, she said. And my father is doomed to die. Ah, young lady, replied Napoleon, I can do nothing for you. It is the second time your father has been found guilty of treason against the state. Alas, exclaimed the poor girl, I know it, Sire, but I do not ask for justice, I implore mercy! Wicked men often take heart from Isaiahs words, Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. This Gospel, the most evangelical of all Old Testament Prophets, is identical with the Gospel of the Ark of the Covenant.
In conclusion let me speak to you concerning
SERVICE AND SUCCESSES
of the Ark of the Covenant. There are several respects in which this Ark of the Covenant played conspicuous part in the life of Israel.
In their march through the wilderness it preceded the people. By referring to Joshua (Jos 3:4) we find that a space of about two thousand cubits was to be put between the Ark and the hosts of Israel, that they might know the way by which they must go. We may believe that this same leadership of the Ark was accorded them before they crossed the Jordan, for you remember that while they were yet in the wilderness they departed from the Mount of the Lord three days journey and the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them in the three days journey to search out a resting place for them. It is a good point Dr. Dixon once made, when, concerning Abels offering, he said: By faith Abel offered. He did not prevail upon God to offer; but, by faith, he did it himself. By faith Enoch walked with God; he did not induce God to walk with him, an attempt all too-common. It is not our business to be leaders; it is our business to be followers.
I do not know what Jesus may want me to do today; I may not know what He desires of me for tomorrow. But this is certain that His message to the disciples after that He was risen from the dead is his encouragement for every modern believerBehold, He goeth before you.
Phillips Brooks has a sermon on The Leadership of Christ from the text, In My Fathers house are many mansions; I go to prepare a place for you. His theme is a good one; but there would have been a better harmony between theme and text had he taken the latter from Num 10:33.
Faber wrote as Scripturally, as sweetly, when he said:
He leads us on,
By paths we did not know,
Upward he leads us, though our steps be slow,
Though oft we faint and falter on the way,
Though storms and darkness oft obscure the day,
Yet when the clouds are gone
We know He leads us on.
He leads us on
Through all the unquiet years;
Past all our dreamland hopes, and doubts, and fears
He guides our steps.
Through all the tangled maze
Of sin, of sorrow, and oerclouded days
We know His will is done;
And still He leads us on.
And He, at last,
After the weary strike
After the restless fever we call life
After the dreariness, the aching pain,
The wayward struggles which have proved in vain,
After our toils are past
Will give us rest at last.
In battle this Ark of the Covenant was possessed of Divine power. That shekinah glory, then, was a symbol of the presence that meant victory to Israel and defeat to the armies of the aliens. When the Philistines carried this Ark of the Covenant away and deposited it in their temple, the image of their god Dagon was destroyed, and they were so distressed by its evident judgment against them, that they were glad to dispatch it from their presence. But, when the priests of God bore it, according to Divine appointment, it not only led the people, but led them to victory. Before it the waters of Jordan parted. Before it the walls of Jericho fell. Before it the Philistines perished, the hand of the Lord being heavy upon them. This all has a meaning for the modern believer. If God be for us, who can be against us? Wendell Phillips, speaking of the Revolutionary War, said, of Boston, It was a pretty town of some twenty thousand inhabitants; but the rays of royal indignation collected upon it served only to illuminate and not to consume. Almost every one of its houses had a legend. Every public building hid what was treasonable debate, or bore bullet-marks or bloodshedevidence of royal displeasure. It takes a stout heart to step out of a crowd and risk the chances of support, when failure is death. The strongest, proudest, most obstinate race and kingdom on one side; a petty town the assailant; its weapons, ideas; its trust, God and the right.
James Russell Lowell was thinking of this same truth, when he wrote:
Careless seems the great Avenger, histories pages but the record
One death-grapple in the darkness twixt false systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch over His own
Finally, let us learn from the Ark of the Covenant, that when Gods people parted from it they perished. Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and pitched beside Ebenezer; and the Philistines pitched in Aphek. And Israel was smitten before the Philistines, and they slew the army in the field about four thousand men. The secret of this slaughter was due to the circumstances that the Ark of the Covenant was away in Shiloh. And they were compelled to say, Let us send for it. When it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies.
Beloved, how may we be sufficiently impressed with the fact that the man who is waging lifes battles without God is foredoomed; and that the church which is depending upon organization, upon human leadership, and popular appointments, is set for failure ! If there were time I would like to talk further with those who are trying to go on without God;
I would like to show you as one has said, that as the child drawn away from its home into a gypsy camp, cries for its father and mother; and if it be soothed to sleep sobs in its slumbers, so mans soul cries out, and can never be content until it feels round about it the arms of the Everlasting Father.
If there were opportunity I would like to plead with Christian brethren to beware lest our trust be misplaced, and given to other than the Divine Presence. There is a strange legend which tells us that on the night before Jerusalem fell the guard of the temple heard through the darkness, a voice mighty and sad, saying, Let us depart, and he caught the rustle of wings fluttering out from the Holy Place, and on the morrow the iron heel of the Roman legions trod the marble pavement of the innermost shrine, and heathen eyes gazed on the empty place where the glory of God had been wont to dwell, and a torch flung by an unknown hand burned the beautiful house where He had promised to put his name forever. Let us learn the lesson, and hold fast to the Lord whose Blood has purchased and whose Presence preserves, through all the unworthiness and lapses of men, that against the Church, the gates of hell shall not prevail.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
Sweet promise! and evidently referring to gospel days. Joh 14:16-23 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 25:21 And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee.
Ver. 21. Above upon the ark. ] The ark covering the law within it, the mercy seat upon it, and over them two cherubims covering one another, did typify Christ covering the curses of the law, in whom is the ground of all mercy; “which things the angels desire to pry into,” 1Pe 1:12 as into the pattern of God’s deep wisdoms. Eph 3:10
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
mercy seat: Exo 25:17, Exo 26:34, Rom 10:4
in: Exo 25:16
Reciprocal: Exo 16:34 – General Exo 27:21 – testimony Exo 30:6 – before the mercy seat that is over the testimony Exo 40:34 – a cloud Lev 16:13 – the cloud 1Ki 6:16 – built them 1Ki 8:9 – nothing Psa 26:8 – where Psa 78:5 – testimony Hos 5:15 – return Heb 9:4 – and the Rev 11:19 – the ark Rev 15:5 – General