Numbers 10:33

Ark of the covenant. That is, of the Ten Commandments (Num. 14:44; Deut. 10:8; 31:9, 25; Joshua 4:7, 18; 6:8). A covenant is an argument. The covenant between God and Israel was the agreement into which both entered, by which they were to be His people, to obey Him and to become His representatives before the world, and by which He on His part would bless them and be their God (see on Ex. 19:5 and 24:7). It was upon the basis of their voluntary choice to accept the role of being God’s chosen people that He gave them the Ten Commandments, which they promised to obey as their part of the agreement (Ex. 19:8; 24:3, 7). Appropriately, the Ten Commandments, written by the hand of God upon two tables of stone, came to be called the “covenant” (Deut. 4:13), for they constituted a written copy of the conditions on which the covenant was based. The ark itself, containing the Ten Commandments, therefore, became known as the “ark of the covenant” (see on Ex. 25:16 and Num. 1:50).