Arca da aliança
A Arca da Aliança era o símbolo mais sagrado de Israel — representava a presença de Deus no meio do seu povo. Sobre ela brilhava a glória do Senhor entre os querubins.
"Make a Box out of acacia wood, 45 inches long, 27 inches wide, and 27 inches high. Cover it with pure gold inside and out and put a gold border all around it. Make four carrying rings of gold for it and attach them to its four legs, with two rings on each side. Make carrying poles of acacia wood and cover them with gold and put them through the rings on each side of the Box. The poles are to be left in the rings and must not be taken out. Then put in the Box the two stone tablets that I will give you, on which the commandments are written.
"Make a lid of pure gold, 45 inches long and 27 inches wide. Make two winged creatures of hammered gold, one for each end of the lid. Make them so that they form one piece with the lid. The winged creatures are to face each other across the lid, and their outspread wings are to cover it. Put the two stone tablets inside the Box and put the lid on top of it.
I will meet you there, and from above the lid between the two winged creatures I will give you all my laws for the people of Israel.
Bezalel made the Covenant Box out of acacia wood, 45 inches long, 27 inches wide, and 27 inches high.
The Lord said to Moses, "On the first day of the first month set up the Tent of the Lord's presence. Place in it the Covenant Box containing the Ten Commandments and put the curtain in front of it.
Then he took the two stone tablets and put them in the Covenant Box. He put the poles in the rings of the Box and put the lid on it. Then he put the Box in the Tent and hung up the curtain. In this way he screened off the Covenant Box, just as the Lord had commanded.
When Moses went into the Tent to talk with the Lord, he heard the Lord speaking to him from above the lid on the Covenant Box, between the two winged creatures.
When the people left Sinai, the holy mountain, they traveled three days. The Lord's Covenant Box always went ahead of them to find a place for them to camp. As they moved on from each camp, the cloud of the Lord was over them by day.
Whenever the Covenant Box started out, Moses would say, "Arise, Lord; scatter your enemies and put to flight those who hate you!" And whenever it stopped, he would say, "Return, Lord, to the thousands of families of Israel."
The Lord said to Moses, "Tell the people of Israel to give you twelve walking sticks, one from the leader of each tribe. Write each man’s name on his stick and then write Aaron’s name on the stick representing Levi. There will be one stick for each tribal leader. Take them to the Tent of my presence and put them in front of the Covenant Box, where I meet you. Then the stick of the man I have chosen will sprout. In this way I will put a stop to the constant complaining of these Israelites against you."
So Moses spoke to the Israelites, and each of their leaders gave him a stick, one for each tribe, twelve in all, and Aaron’s stick was put with them. Moses then put all the sticks in the Tent in front of the Lord's Covenant Box.
The next day, when Moses went into the Tent, he saw that Aaron’s stick, representing the tribe of Levi, had sprouted. It had budded, blossomed, and produced ripe almonds! Moses took all the sticks and showed them to the Israelites. They saw what had happened, and each leader took his own stick back. The Lord said to Moses, "Put Aaron’s stick back in front of the Covenant Box. It is to be kept as a warning to the rebel Israelites that they will die unless their complaining stops." Moses did as the Lord commanded.
It was harvest time, and the river was in flood.
When the people left the camp to cross the Jordan, the priests went ahead of them, carrying the Covenant Box. As soon as the priests stepped into the river, the water stopped flowing and piled up, far upstream at Adam, the city beside Zarethan. The flow downstream to the Dead Sea was completely cut off, and the people were able to cross over near Jericho. While the people walked across on dry ground, the priests carrying the Lord's Covenant Box stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan until all the people had crossed over.
and when the priests reached the riverbank, the river began flowing once more and flooded its banks again.
The gates of Jericho were kept shut and guarded to keep the Israelites out. No one could enter or leave the city. The Lord said to Joshua, "I am putting into your hands Jericho, with its king and all its brave soldiers. You and your soldiers are to march around the city once a day for six days. Seven priests, each carrying a trumpet, are to go in front of the Covenant Box. On the seventh day you and your soldiers are to march around the city seven times while the priests blow the trumpets. Then they are to sound one long note. As soon as you hear it, all the people are to give a loud shout, and the city walls will collapse. Then the whole army will go straight into the city."
Joshua called the priests and told them, "Take the Covenant Box, and seven of you go in front of it, carrying trumpets." Then he ordered the people to start marching around the city, with an advance guard going on ahead of the Lord's Covenant Box.
So the priests blew the trumpets. As soon as the people heard it, they gave a loud shout, and the walls collapsed. Then all the army went straight up the hill into the city and captured it.
The Philistines attacked, and after fierce fighting they defeated the Israelites and killed about four thousand men on the battlefield. When the survivors came back to camp, the leaders of Israel said, "Why did the Lord let the Philistines defeat us today? Let’s go and bring the Lord's Covenant Box from Shiloh, so that he will go with us and save us from our enemies." So they sent messengers to Shiloh and got the Covenant Box of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned above the winged creatures. And Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, came along with the Covenant Box.
When the Covenant Box arrived, the Israelites gave such a loud shout of joy that the earth shook. The Philistines heard the shouting and said, "Listen to all that shouting in the Hebrew camp! What does it mean?" When they found out that the Lord's Covenant Box had arrived in the Hebrew camp, they were afraid, and said, "A god has come into their camp! We’re lost! Nothing like this has ever happened to us before! Who can save us from those powerful gods? They are the gods who slaughtered the Egyptians in the desert! Be brave, Philistines! Fight like men, or we will become slaves to the Hebrews, just as they were our slaves. So fight like men!"
The Philistines fought hard and defeated the Israelites, who went running to their homes. There was a great slaughter: thirty thousand Israelite soldiers were killed. God’s Covenant Box was captured, and Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were both killed.
The Lord punished the people of Ashdod severely and terrified them. He punished them and the people in the surrounding territory by causing them to have tumors.When they saw what was happening, they said, "The God of Israel is punishing us and our god Dagon. We can’t let the Covenant Box stay here any longer." So they sent messengers and called together all five of the Philistine kings and asked them, "What shall we do with the Covenant Box of the God of Israel?"
"Take it over to Gath," they answered; so they took it to Gath, another Philistine city. But after it arrived there, the Lord punished that city too and caused a great panic. He punished them with tumors which developed in all the people of the city, young and old alike. So they sent the Covenant Box to Ekron, another Philistine city; but when it arrived there, the people cried out, "They have brought the Covenant Box of the God of Israel here, in order to kill us all!" So again they sent for all the Philistine kings and said, "Send the Covenant Box of Israel back to its own place, so that it won’t kill us and our families." There was panic throughout the city because God was punishing them so severely.
After the Lord's Covenant Box had been in Philistia for seven months, the people called the priests and the magicians and asked, "What shall we do with the Covenant Box of the Lord? If we send it back where it belongs, what shall we send with it?"
They answered, "If you return the Covenant Box of the God of Israel, you must, of course, send with it a gift to him to pay for your sin. The Covenant Box must not go back without a gift. In this way you will be healed, and you will find out why he has kept on punishing you."
They did what they were told: they took two cows and hitched them to the wagon, and shut the calves in the barn. They put the Covenant Box in the wagon, together with the box containing the gold models of the mice and of the tumors. The cows started off on the road to Beth Shemesh and headed straight toward it, without turning off the road. They were mooing as they went. The five Philistine kings followed them as far as the border of Beth Shemesh.
The people of Beth Shemesh were reaping wheat in the valley, when suddenly they looked up and saw the Covenant Box. They were overjoyed at the sight. The wagon came to a field belonging to a man named Joshua, who lived in Beth Shemesh, and it stopped there near a large rock. The people chopped up the wooden wagon and killed the cows and burned them as a burnt sacrifice to the Lord. The Levites lifted off the Covenant Box of the Lord and the box with the gold models in it, and placed them on the large rock. Then the people of Beth Shemesh offered burnt sacrifices and other sacrifices to the Lord.
So the people of Kiriath Jearim got the Lord's Covenant Box and took it to the house of a man named Abinadab, who lived on a hill. They consecrated his son Eleazar to be in charge of it.
The Covenant Box of the Lord stayed in Kiriath Jearim a long time, some twenty years. During this time all the Israelites cried to the Lord for help.
King David heard that because of the Covenant Box the Lord had blessed Obed Edom’s family and all that he had; so he got the Covenant Box from Obed’s house to take it to Jerusalem with a great celebration. After the men carrying the Covenant Box had gone six steps, David had them stop while he offered the Lord a sacrifice of a bull and a fattened calf. David, wearing only a linen cloth around his waist, danced with all his might to honor the Lord. And so he and all the Israelites took the Covenant Box up to Jerusalem with shouts of joy and the sound of trumpets.
Then King Solomon summoned all the leaders of the tribes and clans of Israel to come to him in Jerusalem in order to take the Lord's Covenant Box from Zion, David’s City, to the Temple. They all assembled during the Festival of Shelters in the seventh month, in the month of Ethanim. When all the leaders had gathered, the priests lifted the Covenant Box and carried it to the Temple. The Levites and the priests also moved the Tent of the Lord's presence and all its equipment to the Temple. King Solomon and all the people of Israel assembled in front of the Covenant Box and sacrificed a large number of sheep and cattle—too many to count. Then the priests carried the Covenant Box into the Temple and put it in the Most Holy Place, beneath the winged creatures. Their outstretched wings covered the box and the poles it was carried by. The ends of the poles could be seen by anyone standing directly in front of the Most Holy Place, but from nowhere else. (The poles are still there today.) There was nothing inside the Covenant Box except the two stone tablets which Moses had placed there at Mount Sinai, when the Lord made a covenant with the people of Israel as they were coming from Egypt.
As the priests were leaving the Temple, it was suddenly filled with a cloud shining with the dazzling light of the Lord's presence, and they could not go back in to perform their duties.
"Unfaithful people, come back; you belong to me. I will take one of you from each town and two from each clan, and I will bring you back to Mount Zion. I will give you rulers who obey me, and they will rule you with wisdom and understanding. Then when you have become numerous in that land, people will no longer talk about my Covenant Box. They will no longer think about it or remember it; they will not even need it, nor will they make another one.
The first covenant had rules for worship and a place made for worship as well. A tent was put up, the outer one, which was called the Holy Place. In it were the lampstand and the table with the bread offered to God. Behind the second curtain was the tent called the Most Holy Place. In it were the gold altar for the burning of incense and the Covenant Box all covered with gold and containing the gold jar with the manna in it, Aaron’s stick that had sprouted leaves, and the two stone tablets with the commandments written on them. Above the Box were the winged creatures representing God’s presence, with their wings spread over the place where sins were forgiven. But now is not the time to explain everything in detail.
God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the Covenant Box was seen there. Then there were flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.