If you were going to build a dwelling place for the majesty of heaven would you pattern it after something that was repeatedly abandoned and turned into rubble? It is illustrative of human mediocrity and the preference for mingling minor and major matters.

And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more.

Jeremiah 3:16

Not a few people have adopted a gold-plated box of Sinai as the symbol of their mental integrity. Was there no golden box available? We know there was not. When God arranges for the gold-plated box to be forgotten, and the rebellious and undisciplined choose it for the symbol of their reasoning capacity, they are clearly at home in the fireplace of lies.