There was naught in the ark but the two tablets which Mosheh put there at Ḥorĕḇ, when יהוה made a covenant with the children of Yisra’ĕl, when they came out of Mitsrayim.
‘And now, if you diligently obey My voice, and shall guard My covenant, then you shall be My treasured possession above all the peoples – for all the earth is Mine –
And when He had ended speaking with him on Mount Sinai, He gave Mosheh two tablets of the Witness, tablets of stone, written with the finger of Elohim.
And it came to be, as soon as he came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing. And Mosheh’s displeasure burned, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.
And יהוה said to Mosheh, “Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I shall write on these tablets the Words that were on the first tablets which you broke.
These are the words of the covenant which יהוה commanded Mosheh to make with the children of Yisra’ĕl in the land of Mo’aḇ, besides the covenant which He made with them in Ḥorĕḇ.
to which belonged the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that held the manna, and the rod of Aharon that budded, and the tablets of the covenant,