How Shall the Ark of the Lord Come to Me? The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of the Lord
Old Testament: 2 Kings 6:2, 9, 11, 16
And David arose and went, with all the people that were with him of the men of Juda to fetch the ark of God ... And David was afraid of the Lord that day, saying: How shall the ark of the Lord come to me? ... And the ark of the Lord abode in the house of Obededom the Gethite three months: and the Lord blessed Obededom, and all his household. ... And when the ark of the Lord was come into the city of David, Michol the daughter of Saul, looking out through a window, saw king David leaping and dancing before the Lord: and she despised him in her heart.
Old Testament, also: Psalms 131:8
Arise, O Lord, into thy resting place: thou and the ark, which thou hast sanctified.
New Testament: Luke 1:39, 41-43, 56; Apocalypse 11:19; Apocalypse 12:1
And Mary rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste into a city of Juda. ... And it came to pass, that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And she cried out with a loud voice, and said: Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? ... And Mary abode with her about three months; and she returned to her own house. ... And the temple of God was opened in heaven: and the ark of his testament was seen in his temple ... And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
The connection
The ark was a box of wood overlaid "with the purest gold within and without" (Exodus 25:11), and on it rested the presence of God. When David brought it toward Jerusalem he was afraid and asked, "How shall the ark of the Lord come to me?" It stayed three months in the house of Obededom, and the Lord blessed his whole household; then it came into the city of David, and David leapt and danced before it (2 Kings 6:9, 11, 16). Luke tells the Visitation with the same elements. Mary "rising up" goes into the hill country of Juda, as David "arose and went" with the men of Juda to fetch the ark; in the Greek David aneste kai eporeuthe and Mary anastasa eporeuthe. Elizabeth asks David's question in her own words: "whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" The child leaps in the womb as David leapt before the ark, Elizabeth "cried out with a loud voice", and Mary stays "about three months" before she returns (Luke 1:39-56). The Word that rested on the ark now rests in her. The Fathers call her the ark outright. A homily on the Annunciation handed down under the name of Gregory Thaumaturgus sings Psalm 131, "Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest; Thou, and the ark of Thy sanctuary," and explains: "For the holy Virgin is in truth an ark, wrought with gold both within and without, that has received the whole treasury of the sanctuary." Hippolytus says Christ was born "of the Virgin, who was the 'ark overlaid with pure gold,' with the Word within and the Holy Spirit without" (On Daniel 6). The Catechism gathers it into one line: Mary "is the daughter of Zion in person, the ark of the covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells" (CCC 2676).
Moral sense
David was afraid before he was glad. The holiness of the ark had just struck down a man who handled it carelessly, and his first question was not how to use the presence of God but how he could be fit to receive it. That fear is where devotion starts, and Elizabeth's question keeps it: whence is this to me? A soul that knows it has not earned the visit is the one that can receive it. The ark stayed three months and blessed the whole house; so Mary's visit fills Elizabeth with the Holy Ghost, and whoever takes the Mother of the Lord into his house is blessed by the One she carries. And one person watched David from a window and despised his dancing. Michol saw only a king losing his dignity. The joy of a heart that sees God come near always looks foolish to the one watching from outside, and the remedy is to come down from the window and go out to meet the ark.
Anagogical sense
The ark vanished from history when Jerusalem fell, and the Apocalypse shows where it went: "the temple of God was opened in heaven: and the ark of his testament was seen in his temple" (Apocalypse 11:19). The next line, with no break in the vision, is "a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (Apocalypse 12:1). The psalm had asked that the Lord arise into His resting place, "thou and the ark, which thou hast sanctified" (Psalms 131:8), and the Church sings it of her who was taken up with her Son: she "was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things" (CCC 966). The ark that once came to a hill town of Juda is seen at last in the temple of heaven.
The Fathers
A homily on the Annunciation attributed to St Gregory Thaumaturgus (Homily I): "For the holy Virgin is in truth an ark, wrought with gold both within and without, that has received the whole treasury of the sanctuary." St Hippolytus, On Daniel 6: "the Saviour appeared and showed His own body to the world, (born) of the Virgin, who was the 'ark overlaid with pure gold,' with the Word within and the Holy Spirit without."
Warrant
Patristic because Luke never names the ark; the Fathers do, a homily on the Annunciation attributed to Gregory Thaumaturgus (its authorship is doubted) and Hippolytus On Daniel, and the Catechism says it outright (CCC 2676). The verbal parallels between 2 Kings 6 and Luke 1 are real but were drawn out by later commentators, not by the Fathers quoted here: the Greek of 2 Kings 6:2 has aneste kai eporeuthe and Luke 1:39 anastasa eporeuthe, both going to Juda; David's question and Elizabeth's are built alike, pos eiseleusetai pros me and hina elthe pros eme; and both stays last three months. Luke's word for Elizabeth's cry, anephonesen (Luke 1:42), is found nowhere else in the New Testament, and in the Septuagint text the site holds it occurs five times, four of them for the music before the ark and the fifth (16:42) for the music at the tabernacle in Gabaon (1 Paralipomenon 15:28; 16:4, 5, 42; 2 Paralipomenon 5:13). The Assumption reading of Apocalypse 11:19 and 12:1 is the Church's, not the text's own claim.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2676.
The verses
2 Kings 6:2 · 2 Kings 6:9 · 2 Kings 6:11 · 2 Kings 6:16 · Psalms 131:8 · Luke 1:39 · Luke 1:41 · Luke 1:42 · Luke 1:43 · Luke 1:56 · Apocalypse 11:19 · Apocalypse 12:1
