The Tomb, the Womb, and the Ark

It's incredibly beautiful how Genesis ends by telling us that Joseph was placed "in a coffin (בָּאָר֖וֹן) in Egypt" (Genesis 50:26). The word used for "coffin" is actually the word "Ark," as in "the Ark of the Covenant." This theme gets picked up in the Gospel of John (which is a literary walk through the Tabernacle) when the tomb of Christ is depicted as the Ark of the Covenant, complete with "two angels" overlooking where Jesus' body had been laid (John 20:12), corresponding to the two angelic statues that overlooked the Ark (Exodus 25:18). And unlike Joseph's coffin, Jesus' is empty.

Although more thought needs to be put into this, I also don't think the portrayal of Christ’s tomb as the Ark is unrelated to the blessed virgin Mary's depiction as the Ark in Luke 1. In traditional icons of our Lord's Nativity, His manger is intentionally portrayed as a tomb, and it's usually in a cave (a symbol of death throughout Scripture), where only He and His mother are (Joseph is always outside). This, I think, picks up on the idea that the tomb and the womb are closely related, because they’re both places wherein the dwelling of God with man was accomplished, i.e. they’re both the Ark (cf. Exodus 25:8).