Or HaChaim on Exodus 26:33/אור החיים על שמות כ״ו:ל״ג

1 ונתתה את הפרכת…והבאת שמה מבית לפרכת, "You shall hang up the curtain…and bring it within the curtain, etc." This appears to teach that the dividing curtain was to be hung prior to the Holy Ark being brought inside the Holy of Holies. In 40,3 G'd said to Moses: "You shall place the ark of testimony there and you shall cover the ark with the curtain." This appears to mean that the ark was already inside the Holy of Holies when the curtain would separate it from the Sanctuary proper. Moses also appears to have acted in accordance with the instructions in chapter 40 seeing that we read in 40,20: "And he took and put the testimony in the ark and set the staves on the ark and put the ark cover above, upon the ark."

2Apparently we must resolve this contradiction by understanding our verse here as meaning that the curtain should be completed before the ark was to be placed inside the Holy of Holies. The curtain was not to be hung, however, before Moses had placed the ark of testimony inside the square provided for the Holy of Holies. In our verse no mention is made at all of the ark being introduced into the Holy of Holies. Our verse deals only with the eventual function of the dividing curtain, namely to separate the Sanctuary from the Holy of Holies. This is why there was no need to speak about the order in which these furnishings were arranged inside the Tabernacle.