<P> During the construction of Solomon's Temple, a special inner room, named Kodesh Hakodashim (Eng . Holy of Holies), was prepared to receive and house the Ark; and when the Temple was dedicated, the Ark--containing the original tablets of the Ten Commandments--was placed therein . When the priests emerged from the holy place after placing the Ark there, the Temple was filled with a cloud, "for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord". </P> <P> When Solomon married Pharaoh's daughter, he caused her to dwell in a house outside Zion, as Zion was consecrated because of its containing the Ark . King Josiah also had the Ark returned to the Temple, from which it appears to have been removed by one of his predecessors (cf. 2 Chron. 33 - 34 and 2 Kings 21 - 23). </P> <P> In 587 BC, the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple . There is no record of what became of the Ark in the Books of Kings and Chronicles . An ancient Greek version of the biblical third Book of Ezra, 1 Esdras, suggests that Babylonians took away the vessels of the ark of God, but does not mention taking away the Ark: </P> <P> And they took all the holy vessels of the Lord, both great and small, with the vessels of the ark of God, and the king's treasures, and carried them away into Babylon </P>

When was the ark of the covenant lost