However, it was not always to be a traveler. "The afflictions of David," as well as the wars of Israel, were to have an end. The prayer was yet to be breathed and answered, "Arise, O Lord, into _Thy rest_: Thou and _the ark of Thy strength_." (Ps. cxxxii. 8.) This most sublime petition had its partial accomplishment in the palmy days of Solomon, when "the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto his place, into the oracle of the house, to the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubim. For the cherubim spread forth their two wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim covered the ark and the staves thereof above. And _they drew out the staves_, that the ends of the staves were seen out in the holy place before the oracle, and they were not seen without: and there they are unto this day." (1 Kings viii. 6-8.) The sand of the desert was to be exchanged for the golden floor of the temple. (1 Kings vi. 30.) The wanderings of the ark were to have an end: there was "neither enemy nor evil occurrent," and therefore "the staves were drawn out." Nor was this the only difference between the ark in the tabernacle and in the temple. The apostle, speaking of the ark in its wilderness habitation, describes it as "the ark of the covenant, overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant." (Heb. ix. 4.) Such were the contents of the ark in its wilderness journeyings--the pot of manna, the record of Jehovah's faithfulness in providing for His redeemed in the desert, and Aaron's rod, "a token against the rebels," to "take away their murmurings." (Compare Exod. xvi. 32-34, and Numb. xvii. 10.) But when the moment arrived in which "the staves" were to be "drawn out," when the wanderings and wars of Israel were over, when the "exceeding magnificial" house was completed, when the sun of Israel's glory had reached, in type, its meridian, as marked by the wealth and splendor of Solomon's reign, then the records of wilderness need and wilderness failure were unnoticed, and nothing remained save that which constituted the eternal foundation of the throne of the God of Israel, and of all the earth. "_There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone_, which Moses put there at Horeb." (1 Kings viii. 9.)