FINAL WARNING: The Shining Star
allowed the Ark to be taken away. Between the time of his death, and
Josiah’s reign, there were two other rulers, Manasseh (687-642 BC)
and Amon (642-640 BC). Amon discovered that Manasseh had been
involved in a form of Baal worship, and had erected an image of
Astarte (Asherah) in the Temple (2 Kings 21:4-7, 2 Chronicles 33:7),
and it is believed that he would have ordered the Levites to remove the
Ark. The Ark reappeared in 622 BC (2 Kings 22:1-7, 2 Chronicles 34:8-
33, 2 Chronicles 35:3), during the reign of Manasseh’s grandson, King
Josiah, who vanquished idolatry, repaired and purified the Temple.However, idolatry took root again, and the actions of Rehoboam,
Solomon’s son, caused the kingdom to be divided, with Judah (Judea)
in the south, and Israel to the north. Judgment came upon the
Northern Kingdom in 721 BC when the Assyrians attacked them; and
the Southern Kingdom paid the price for they idolatry when the armies
of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, swept through the land in
606 BC, and then again in 597 BC. During the second invasion, 2 Kings
24:13 says that “all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the
treasure of the king’s house” were taken, and “all the vessels of gold
which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord” had
been cut in pieces. The original Temple was destroyed in 586 BC by
the Babylonian commander, Nebuzaradan (2 Kings 25:8-9), and the
rest of the treasures were plundered and taken to a Babylonian temple
at Shinar (Daniel 1:2), which has led some to theorize that what was
taken previously came from the Temple treasury, since
Nubuchadnezzar’s initial action against Judah was in response to
them not paying tribute to him.Through all of this, the Ark was not mentioned. Lists of Temple items
(2 Kings 25:13-17, Jeremiah 52:17-23) do not refer to any Temple
treasures from the Holy of Holies, and it is this silence that could
indicate that it wasn’t captured, since there is a Biblical record of the
time when the Philistines captured the Ark. In addition, Ezra 1:7-11
states that all the captured items were later returned by the Persians,
but the Ark was not discussed. So, either the Ark was destroyed along
with the Temple (possibly indicated by the destruction of the “goodly
vessels” in 2 Chronicles 36:19), or the Ark was hidden before it could
be found.When Rome invaded Judea in 63 BC, and the Roman General Pompey