What was inside the ark of the covenant?

The two passages describe the ark at different times. Hebrews 9 describes the tabernacle of Moses’ day, the sanctuary of the first covenant as it was first set up: “For there was a tabernacle made” (9:2). In the wilderness the pot of manna and Aaron’s rod were laid up ‘before the Testimony’ (Exodus 16:34; Numbers 17:10), that is, with the tablets of the law, and Hebrews says that they were in the ark. 1 Kings 8:9 describes the ark nearly five centuries later, when Solomon brought it into the temple.

Much had happened to the ark in between. It was carried into battle and captured by the Philistines, sent back on a cart, looked into by the men of Beth-shemesh (1 Samuel 4–6), and left for many years in a private house at Kirjath-jearim (7:1–2). It is no surprise that the pot and the rod were no longer in it. The wording of Kings, “There was nothing in the ark save” the tablets, may itself hint that other things had once been there. J. W. Haley gave this answer in 1874: Hebrews probably refers to the original arrangement, and the pot and the rod were later removed.

Beside the ark, not inside it

Exodus and Numbers say only that the pot and the rod were put ‘before’ the Testimony, that is, before the tablets. Gill notes that some take the word in Hebrews in a wider sense, ‘at’ or ‘with’, so that the pot and the rod were kept by the ark in the Most Holy Place, perhaps at its side, as the book of the law was (Deuteronomy 31:26). Gill seems to lean to this view, observing that Jewish writers always mention them together with the ark. If it is right, Kings and Hebrews do not differ at all.

When and how the pot and the rod were lost is not recorded. Later Jewish tradition, reported by Gill, held that they were hidden away with the ark itself before the Babylonian conquest.