The Holy and the Most Holy
What begins as a simple and uncomplicated concept — a box containing the Commandments as ‘a place for meeting with God‘ — doesn’t stay that way for long. Most translations of 26:1 give us ‘Tabernacle’ (Hebrew mishkan, ‘dwelling place’) rather than ‘Ark’ (Hebrew aron, Latin arca, ‘box or chest’). In earlier sources meetings with God were more surprising, almost casual. Eden had no tabernacle. Adam met God unexpectedly in the Garden (Gen 3:8). So too Jacob at Bethel (28:16) and Peniel (32:30), and Moses by a Burning Bush, but over the years people seemed to feel either that an encounter with God called for something to identify his presence or they wanted to know where he was when they needed him.
New emphases and interpretations are not unusual with the passage of time and following the return from Babylon (after which ‘the Ark’ no longer features) we have a generation seeking renewal.
The change of word, with a consequential change in meaning, however, is not without significance. This result is not simply a place to meet God but the place where God lives, and where God lives must have ‘curtains’ and ‘a framework’ leading inevitably to a distinction between ‘the holy’ and ‘the most holy’ (v 33). Positively this is a recognition of the transcendent with the need for a place and a time but one wonders if, and when, they became aware of unintended consequences, such as forgetting that God is never confined to his dwelling place and may well continue to appear, meet and speak with them on many other occasions as much of the rest of Old Testament testifies; nor the possibility that such encounters may be overlooked or dismissed as ‘not quite the real thing’, questionable or difficult to authenticate. Identifying degrees of holiness also opens the door to imagining that some meetings with God are more genuine than others, or that some people (priests, for example) have privileged access, not to mention the hazard of encouraging the idea that a meeting with with God can be arranged and possibly even ‘stage-managed’.
Having a Focal Point is one thing. Having a Focal Point to the exclusion of all other points is something very different.