For the cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and overshadowed the ark and its poles.
The temple, though richly beautified, yet while it was without the ark was like a body without a soul, or a candlestick without a candle, or (to speak more properly) a house without an inhabitant. All the cost and pains bestowed on this stately structure are lost if God do not accept them; and, unless he please to own it as the place where he...
Commenting on 1 Kings 8:1-11
For the cherubim spread forth their two wings over the place of the ark,.... The most holy place where the ark stood, even from wall to wall: and the cherubim covered the ark, and the staves thereof above; so that neither could be seen.
1Ki 8:6-7 After this sacrificing was ended, the priests carried the ark to its place, into the back-room of the house, into the Most Holy under the wings of the cherubim (already described in 1Ki 6:23.). The latter statement is explained in 1Ki 8:7.
Commenting on 1 Kings 8:6-7