Maria Metzler is a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University and is writing her dissertation on the ark of the covenant. She is interested in the complex relationship between gods and objects in the ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible. She has previously explored the topic of divine and royal furniture in her article “King Og’s Iron Bed” (Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2011). Metzler draws on many types of literature to illuminate biblical texts, from Babylonian incantations and ancient Greek tragedy to modern American poetry.