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Egyptian Origins of the Ark of the Covenant

I remember when I started studying ancient near-eastern linguistics about a decade ago. One of my primary interests at the time I started studying was the Egyptian influence on the Jewish religion, and more specifically on the text of the Torah. My rationale was that if a people and a religion claimed to have its origin in Egypt, we should expect to see Egyptian influence in the text. As I learned more about the Hebrew and Egyptian languages, I began to develop the following premise as a model: if for some reason the Greek source texts we have for the New Testament were lost, and all we had were English translations, we could use some of the technical religious language to deduce what the source language of the New Testament was.  For example, if we came to the word Baptize, a Greek word, we’d know that this was a technical religious word with Greek origins, and that in Greek it simply means Dip. What happens frequently when religious texts are translated is that the technical language of the religion and its practices tend to stick in the original language. This is due to the ritualistic practices cementing the term in its original form. So at some point the word ceases to be translated and is simply transliterated.

However, I quickly found that almost all of the lexical material for classical Hebrew tends to reference eastern Semitic languages instead of western Semitic languages, such as Egyptian. And from an academic perspective this makes sense since the Torah really wasn’t solidified until after the return from the Jewish exile in Babylon under Nehemiah and Ezra. So from this perspective, we would expect to see eastern Babylonian influence on the text. But I was continually haunted by the fact that the Jewish people had a story claiming that they spent hundreds of years in Egypt and were led out by an Egyptian, Moses, who was educated and raised by Egyptian priests, who eventually wrote the Torah according to tradition. Under such circumstances, how could there not be Egyptian influence?

Naturally, I learned Egyptian after learning classical Hebrew. But as soon as I gained some proficiency in Egyptian, I began to notice that there were indeed Egyptian influences on etymology and religious themes (see my article on the origin of Yahweh as a prime example of this); and to my dismay these influences were frequently overlooked in the monumental Hebrew lexicons, such as Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon.

So with a little background on my interest in this topic, one of the easiest places we see this Egyptian influence is in one of the most revered objects in Jewish history, and possibly even Christian history: The Ark of the Covenant. And ironically, to notice the influence you really don’t even need a knowledge of the languages, even though there are some linguistic hooks that solidifies this theory.

Now, I want to make it clear that I have a bias in that I’m a skeptic and a rationalist, so whenever I see an article about the Ark, or see any reference to it in pop-culture, I generally roll my eyes and think its just another kooky exploitation of a mystical religious icon. The movie Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, for example, has done much to solidify our modern notion of what the ark looked like and what it was used for.

Now the theme of the Ark of the Covenant is: two winged heavenly beings called Cherubim, a box, and two poles that were used to carry the box. Now more specifically, even though the image above of the Ark doesn’t show anything between the angels or Cherubim, the text of Exodus says that God appeared between the Cherubim and the technical name for the space between the wings was called the Kippur, which is frequently translated as “mercy seat” or “place of propitiation”, but in Hebrew it’s simply Kippur. So the theme, to reiterate is:

1. Two angels or Cherubim
2. God between the wings of the Cherubim in a place called Kippur
3. The Cherubim and God on top of a box
4. Poles mounted to the side of the box by which priests carried the Ark

Now, let’s take a look at some images from ancient Egyptian art that predates Moses and the exodus from Egypt. The image below shows two winged heavenly beings with wings outstretched on both sides of a god, on top of a box, with poles on the side, being carried by Egyptian priests:

This theme is found on Egyptian wall reliefs as well as smaller art objects such as the following where Amun, an Egyptian god, is fixed between two winged heavenly beings on top of a boat. This was to symbolize a real event in which the priests would parade a larger boat, mounted on poles, with Amun seated between two winged beings:

The examples of this theme are frequent and there isn’t much use in posting more examples here. Instead, I’d like to move onto a more specific form of this theme in which a Khepera beetle, or scarab, is shown seated between two winged beings, or sometimes with the two beings holding wings up to the side of the Khepera beetle:

The Khepera beetle, or scarab, is one of the most ubiquitous symbols found throughout the ancient middle east. The word for scarab in ancient Egyptian was pronounced something like “khepera” and had a number of meanings such as: revolve, renew, regenerate, resurrect. The theme of the Khepera beetle between divine beings, sometimes winged, is extremely frequent in Egypt as illustrated by this relief in an 18th dynasty tomb:

Why is this important to The Ark of the Covenant? The reason is because the space between the angels in Hebrew, as we noted above was Kippur. In Hebrew, which doesn’t have vowels written out, only has the consonants: KPR. I find it highly coincidental that the Hebrew Torah describes the space between the two Cherubim as KPR and that there is a frequent theme in Egyptian art in which a KPR, or Khepera, has two divine beings usually with outstretched wings. In fact, the very word Cherubim is probably derived from the Egyptian word Cheriu, or Heriu, which meant “those from above” or “heavenly beings”.

As a result, we should suspect that the real Ark of the Covenant would have looked more Egyptian in nature, most likely with a Khepera beetle, or scarab, between the two Cherubim. This makes additional sense in that the High Priest only accessed the Ark of the Covenant one time per year, and that time was at the “revolution” of the year, or the beginning of the new year. Recall, the Egyptian word Khepera means “revolution” or “renewal”. So, at the beginning of the new year, the High Priest would go in and ceremonially perform a ritual act to signify the end of the old and the beginning, or renewal, of a new year.

Below are some additional images showing the theme in Egyptian art, some original, some artistic replications:

There are numerous other examples proving that the Ark of the Covenant’s design was a borrowed theme. Again, as I’ve said in other posts, this evidence of Egyptian themes in the religious icons of the Hebrew faith adds credibility that the Hebrew religion does in fact have some roots in Egypt.

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