“AND thou shalt cast four rings of gold for it (the ark), and put them in the four corners thereof;... and thou shalt make staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold. And thou shalt put the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark, that the ark may be borne with them... they shall not be taken from it.”
Four rings were fixed in the four corners of the ark, and two staves of shittim wood, overlaid with gold, with which the ark was borne, were put into them, and never taken out until the ark rested in Solomon’s temple (2 Chron. 5:99And they drew out the staves of the ark, that the ends of the staves were seen from the ark before the oracle; but they were not seen without. And there it is unto this day. (2 Chronicles 5:9)). They were made of the same material as the ark itself, and so again they speak to us of Christ. The ring is the symbol of love, and the number of the rings (four) is in some way connected both with that which represents life, as well as most of the types of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is “the life” (John 11:25; 125Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: (John 11:25)
25And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet? (John 1:25)4N6). The river that went out of Eden before death came in “became parted into four heads.” This river was a figure of the “river of water of life” (Rev. 22:11And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. (Revelation 22:1)). Then the gospels, which set forth Him who is “the life", are four, and so on.
Now, as the ark was borne by means of the four rings, so the Lord Jesus is ever with His people in all the energy and power of that divine love and life to the end. “There remaineth a rest to the people of God” (Heb. 4:99There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. (Hebrews 4:9), and not until they enter into rest will He “rest in His love.” When Israel was in the wilderness, the ark “went before them to search out a resting-place for them” (Num. 10:3333And they departed from the mount of the Lord three days' journey: and the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them in the three days' journey, to search out a resting place for them. (Numbers 10:33)). In the passage of Jordan the ark led the way, and the waters were cut off before it “until all the people were passed clean over Jordan” (Josh. 3). In all this, we have a precious picture of that love of Christ which knows no hindrance, which is strong as death, which loves us “to the end” (John 13:11Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. (John 13:1)), and waits until all His own are with Him in the glory.
Those staves were not to be taken from the rings of the ark along the wilderness journey. Perhaps sometimes we should like to take the staves out now, as it were, find a resting place here and settle down in this world. But no, this cannot be! “Our rest is in heaven, our rest is not here,” in this world which cast-out our Saviour, and from which He has gone. Dear young believer, may we through grace be able to say,
We ask not our portion,
we seek not a rest,
Till we find them forever,
where Jesus is blest.
After Israel had entered the land, when Solomon’s temple was built and the ark placed in its resting-place, then the staves were drawn out and left in the “holy of holies,” so that they were not seen from without. Rest came at last, but the remembrance of the wilderness joey, as seen in those staves, was ever before God and His people.
And so it will be with us, His heavenly people. When the desert is forever past, when we are all gathered safe home in the glory with Christ, there will be remembrance of His love and care all along the wilderness way.
Taken up in resurrection,
Desert ways rehearsed above
Tell the power of God’s salvation
And His never-failing love.
ML-05/10/1970