by
William
K. Bissey
In the Royal Arch degree, the
candidates undertake a symbolic journey from Babylon to Jerusalem. After they prove themselves to be Most
Excellent Masters, the candidates are handed the working tools of the
degree. They are then informed that the
rubbish of the old temple must be cleared to prepare for the building of the
new temple. The candidates are also
instructed to bring up for inspection anything that might be of importance in
building the new temple. Thus, the scene
is established for the discovery of the imitation of the Ark of the Covenant
with its precious treasures.
Upon opening the Ark, it is
discovered that that it contains among the three treasures an imitation of
Aaron’s rod. In the ritual, Joshua
describes the unique characteristics of this precious relic. Shortly thereafter the candidates are read an
incomplete verse from the Volume of Sacred Law (Numbers 17:10).
After the reading of the passage
from the book of Numbers, the candidates may wonder why was Aaron’s rod in the
Ark of the Covenant. For that matter, if
the candidates have listened closely, they may even wonder if Aaron’s rod was
placed in the Ark of the Covenant.
However, the candidates, especially if they have forgotten their Sunday
school lessons, may have several more questions. Questions such as, who was Aaron and what was
his importance to the children of Israel?
What happened to the Ark of the Covenant and its precious relics?
If the newly exalted Companion elects to be greeted as a Select Master
in Cryptic Masonry, the new Royal Arch Mason will discover he knows no more
about Aaron’s rod than before he became a Select Mason.
As Companion Ray V. Denslow wrote, “The candidate is given no
instruction as to the symbolism of the rod, and apparently it is used only as a
means of identification and proof.”
To answer the questions posed
earlier, it is first useful to examine the complete, relevant verse from the
Volume of Sacred Law. As quoted by the Indiana Monitor and Royal Arch Masons Guide,
the relevant verses are from Numbers 17:23-26.
And it came to
pass, that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness; and behold,
the rod of Aaron of the house of Levi was budded, and brought for buds, and
bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds.
And Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord unto all the
children of Israel; and they looked, and every man took his rod. And the Lord said unto Moses, “Bring Aaron’s
rod again before the testimony, to be kept for a token against the rebels; and
thou shalt quite take away their murmurings from me, that they die not.” And Moses did so; as the Lord commanded him,
so did he.
First, what is the testimony? To
answer that question we must investigate who wrote the first five books of the
Hebrew Bible or Torah whose
authorship has traditionally been attributed to Moses.
Richard Elliott Friedman of the University of California at San Diego
summarizes scholarly research as to who wrote the Torah in his book Who Wrote
the Bible?
Dr. Friedman wrote, “There was evidence that the Five Books of Moses had
been composed by combining four different source documents into one continuous
history. For working purposes, the four
documents were identified by alphabetic symbols. The document that was associated with the
divine name Yahweh/Jehovah was called J.
The document that was identified as referring to the deity as God (in
Hebrew Elohim) was called E. The third document, by far the largest,
included most of the legal sections and concentrated a great deal on matters on
matters having to do with priests, so it was called P. And the source that was found only in the
book of Deuteronomy was called D.”
According to G. Henton Davies, there are at least twenty-two
designations for the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament. “These designations include … the D group of
titles – e.g., ‘ark of the covenant.’ … and P’s special title, ‘ark of
testimony.’ ” Thus, the Ark of the
Covenant and the testimony are just different name from different sources for
the same sacred object.
The first seven verses of the seventeenth chapter of Numbers is the
telling of the story of how Aaron’s rod became such a favored religious
relic. The story is as follows. The Lord tells each tribe of Israel to place a
rod in the tabernacle. The Lord will
cause the rod that He chooses to blossom (verse 5). And as our ritual states, Aaron’s rod budded,
blossomed, and bore fruit in a single night.
Thus, the importance of Aaron’s rod was that it symbolically and firmly
established Aaron as the High Priest of the Children of Israel. This was so important that the rod was place
before the testimony of Ark of the Covenant, but not in the Ark.
So why did the writers of our ritual place the imitation of Aaron’s rod
in the Ark of the Covenant? The answer
to that question lies not in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, but in the New
Testament of the Christian Bible.
In chapter nine, verse four of the Epistle to the Hebrews, whose
authorship is attributed to Saint Paul, there is a discussion and description
of the Ark of the Covenant. The relevant
portion of verse four is as follows, “… and the ark of the covenant overlaid
round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s
rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant.” As Fred B. Craddock notes in his commentary
on the Letter to the Hebrews in The New Interpreter’s Bible, “Among all references,
only Hebrews places them (meaning the pot of manna and Aaron’s rod), inside the
Ark with the stone tablets.”
So then what happened to the Ark of the Covenant and its precious
relics? Most likely the Ark was stripped
of its gold and the contents simply tossed aside as trash when the first Temple
as destroyed. But there are some
interesting myths about what happened to the Ark. Rabbi Harry Freedman writes, “Opinions differ
as to its subsequent fate. Some hold
that it was taken to Babylon when the Temple was destroyed; others, that it was
hidden in the Second Temple beneath the pavement in the wood storehouse. According to another tradition, Josiah hid
it, together with the other sacred utensils, to ensure it would not be taken to
Babylon.”
(Adapted from an article from The Royal Arch Mason, Volume 19, Number 11,
Fall 1999, pages 331 -332 )
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