There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the LORD had made a covenant with the Israelites after they had come out of the land of Egypt.
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
There was nothing in the ark, save the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb,.... That is, there were no other writings; or, as Ben Gersom says, no other part of the law, but the decalogue otherwise he observes there were in it Aaron's rod and the pot of manna, according to Heb 9:4 though the particle there may be rendered "at"...
There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone--Nothing else was ever in the ark, the articles mentioned (Heb 9:4) being not in, but by it, being laid in the most holy place before the testimony (Exo 16:33; Num 17:10).