The ark of the covenant would be quite heavy. It would be a wooden box, 4½ feet long by 1½ feet by 1½ feet: a hefty chest, all by itself (Exodus 37:1). But then the wooden chest would be plated with gold inside and out, strengthened with a gold molding (37:2), and then covered with a lid of pure solid gold (37:6): that would add a lot of weight.
Plus there were two gold statues of angels with wings, one at each end, with their wings spread upward to meet across the middle of the cover (37:7-9). These could not be overly large, or the weight would surely have been too much for transport; yet to be to scale with the rest of the ark, these could not be just small statuettes, either. Even at midsize, they would add considerably to the weight that needed to be carried. The carrying shafts would have to be quite stout, to support all this weight; and then those shafts were themselves plated with gold (37:4), adding even more heft to the whole assembly.
Once fully put together, the ark would be carried by four Levites, but even with four it would not be an easy burden. Could four strong men carry that weight on their shoulders for as much as an hour of each day’s march before they had to trade off with others to continue the journey?
The text does not give us details as to how the roster was organized, to carry the ark from one day’s camp to the next: but surely it would have taken many men on transport duty. When we tell the story of the Exodus, everyone knows about Moses, Aaron, and Miriam; and perhaps we will also take notice of skilled craftworkers like Bezalel and Oholiab, who get the credit as the chief builders in charge of all the furnishings of the tabernacle (36:1). But there were a lot of ordinary men whose names were not recorded, and they were the ones who did the heavy lifting involved from day to day as the people moved toward the promised land.
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So much of your purpose gets accomplished by everyday people, Lord: hard workers, putting in the steady labor and scarcely getting recognized for it. Help us to do the job you have assigned to us, content that you see our steadfastness, even if nobody else notices.
james-ayers.com 
2 responses to “Ordinary Men Doing the Heavy Lifting (Exodus 36-38)”
Researching the weight of the ark shows me that nobody agrees on even an approximate weight. The ones I found range from 200lb to half a ton.
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Thanks for looking at that, Dave. Based on that range, each of the four bearers would be hefting 50 to 250 pounds. Carrying 50 pounds on one shoulder while hiking for an hour would be doable but uncomfortable for an average sized man today; for an average man in Bible times, perhaps 5’4″ and 130 pounds, it would be a significant challenge. On the other hand, if the ark weighed 1000 pounds, 250 pounds per bearer: in my athletic twenties, could I have lifted that weight to my shoulder? Could I carry it for two miles along a flat road? Or through hilly terrain? That certainly stretches the limits of credibility.
So I guess I’m content to say that the ark was “heavy” without knowing exactly how heavy. I’m sure that taking one fourth of the weight of the ark, and marching for an hour in the desert sun counts as heavy lifting. I admire the unnamed men who did it, and try to apply their example of steady hard work in my own life.
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