The Virgin Mary and the Ark of the Tabernacle

A small Sinai icon attributed to the fourteenth or fifteenth century depicts the All-holy Theotokos and the Ark of the Tabernacle.

In the eighth century, Saint John of Damascus gave a homily on the Nativity of the All-holy Theotokos in which he said,

Summit more holy than Sinai, which is covered not by smoke, nor shadow, nor tempest, nor fearful fire, but by the shining illumination of the All-holy Spirit! For there the Word of God wrote a law on tablets of stone, using the Spirit as a finger; but in this Virgin, the Word himself has been made flesh by the action of the Holy Spirit and by her blood, and he has given himself to our nature as the most efficacious medicine of salvation. There it was manna, here the One who gave the sweetness of manna is contained in her. Let the celebrated tabernacle which Moses constructed in a desert with all manner of very precious materials, and the tabernacle of the patriarch Abraham before that, give way to the living and rational tabernacle of God. For she was the receptacle not just of the activity of God, but essentially of the hypostasis of the Son of God. Let a tabernacle that was entirely covered with gold recognize that it cannot compare with her, along with a golden jar which contained manna, a lampstand, a table, and all the other objects from long ago. For they have been honored as her types, as shadows of a true archetype.

This hymn is chanted in the service to Moses the God-seer,

Στάμνον σε χρυσῆν, καὶ πλάκα καὶ τράπεζαν, προδιεγράψατο, Μωϋσῆς Πανάμωμε, καὶ βάτον Κόρη ὅλην πυράφλεκτον· ὧν νῦν ἡμεῖς τὴν ἔκβασιν πιστῶς θεώμενοι, Θεοτόκον εὐσεβῶς δοξάζομεν, ὡς Θεὸν τῶν ἁπάντων γεννήσασα.

Moses wrote of thee beforehand as the golden vessel and the tablets and the table, O All-blameless one, and as the bush wholly unconsumed by fire, O Maiden; wherefore now, beholding the fulfilment with faith, we piously glorify the Theotokos who gave birth to the God of all.