Hebrew אֲרוֹן. Literally "a chest". Also called Aron, Ark of the testimony, God's ark.
A chest of acacia wood overlaid with gold, a little over a metre long and carried on poles: the first thing Moses is told to make for the tabernacle.
Length
1.11–1.14 m (3.65–3.75 ft).
Defined as 2½ cubits.
Inherits the disagreement over the cubit.
Width
66.7–68.6 cm (26.3–27 in).
Defined as 1½ cubits.
Inherits the disagreement over the cubit.
Height
66.7–68.6 cm (26.3–27 in).
Defined as 1½ cubits.
Inherits the disagreement over the cubit.
The ark is a box, and the Hebrew word for it is the ordinary word for a chest. It holds the covenant, and by Solomon's day, the text says, nothing but the two stone tablets. Its gold cover, the mercy seat, carries two cherubim whose wings spread over it, and it is from there that God says he will speak. It is carried on poles through gold rings, and the Levites who carry the holy things are warned not to touch them, which is why Uzzah's steadying hand is fatal. It goes ahead of Israel into the Jordan, is captured by the Philistines and sent back, and ends under the cherubim in the inner sanctuary of Solomon's temple. Then it drops out of the story. Nothing says what became of it when Babylon burned the temple, and Jeremiah looks ahead to a time when no one will miss it or make another.
Drawn with an 18-inch cubit. Acacia wood overlaid with pure gold inside and out, with a gold molding around it (Exodus 25:11). It comes to below the hip of a 6-ft man, about the size of a blanket chest. The rings are in its four feet (25:12); the drawing shows the two on the near side.