Whatever happened to the Ark of the Covenant?  In this episode of Religion Today hear the dimensions of the Ark of the Covenant, its construction and purposes.  The primary purpose of the Ark was to be the place where God YHWH physically appeared to Moses, Joshua and other prophets.  "Mercy seat" should be translated in English as the "place where merciful God appears."  There are many ideas about what happened to the Ark.  Martin Tanner describes those found in the Bible, the Apocrypha, and in rabbinic tradition.