Ark of the Covenant

From 1st Kings chapter 8, our Old Testament lesson for Sunday, August 26 completes our summer Bible Story of the Adventures of Samuel, Saul, David and Solomon. In this episode, about 960 BC, Solomon’s Temple has been completed and King Solomon has the Ark of the Covenant moved to the Temple, into the Holy of Holies. There it will remain until the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple in 586 BC. 

In Sunday’s chapter, once the Ark is placed in the Holy of Holies, the space fills with a cloud, dazzling bright with the presence of God, so thick and bright that the priests cannot remain in there to do their work. Solomon then offers his great prayer praising God who is too great to be confined to one space. Solomon’s prayer concludes asking that God hear the prayers of the people when they face the Temple and pray.

In our liturgical tradition, the psalm that follows the first reading, the Old Testament lesson, is meant to respond to the reading in some way. The connection is often a bit far fetched, and in our Summer Liturgy we have not been reading the appointed psalm, which is optional in any event. This Sunday, though, Psalm 84 is appointed, and it fits beautifully. We will be singing a paraphrase of Psalm 84, “How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts, to me.” The tune is the very lovely and singable Brother James’ Air. As we will already be on our feet singing the hymn, it will serve as both our Gradual Psalm responding to the O.T. story and our Sequence Hymn anticipating the Gospel.  

Our Old Testament adventure ends here, and starting on Sunday, September 2nd the Lectionary takes us wandering off elsewhere. As for the Ark of the Covenant, what happened to it in 586 BC and after is a mystery that has long been the subject of great speculation, inquiry, discussion, and searching. Lost, it has never been found.

TW+