Deeper Commentary

1Ch 13:1 David consulted with the captains of thousands and of hundreds, even with every leader-
2 Sam. 6:1 says thirty thousand attended. "Thousand" may refer to families or squadrons. They were "chosen" or 'shown as tested / approved'. It was a reunion gathering of all those who had been faithful to David over the years. This was a huge number of people to gather together, given the problem of providing food and lodging for them. This was why battles were fought swiftly in those days, for the men were needed on their farms, and the supply of food was difficult to arrange over longer periods. So this huge effort reflects the importance David attached to bringing up the ark.

1Ch 13:2 David said to all the assembly of Israel, If it seems good to you, and if it is of Yahweh our God, let us send abroad everywhere to our brothers who are left in all the land of Israel, with whom the priests and Levites are in their cities that have suburbs, that they may gather themselves to us-
It seems the invitation was particularly to the Levites and priests wherever they were. We note that there had been obedience to the idea of the Levites not having inheritance but living in allotments from the other tribes. This was really an appeal for all the priests and Levites to assemble.


1Ch 13:3 Let us bring again the ark of our God to us; for we didn’t seek it in the days of Saul-
This was hardly David's fault, as he had spent the majority of the "days of Saul" on the run from in exile. But he graciously speaks of "we" being at fault. We wonder at the unspirituality of the priesthood in Saul's time, and wonder why Samuel had not emphasized the need to have the ark in worship. Perhaps it had been kept somewhere out of sight, at Saul's command. It may even have become badly thought of, or feared.  

 

I have discussed on 1 Sam. 4:3 how there was always a tendency to use the ark as a talisman; and God was against that. The religious eclipsed the spiritual as regards the ark, several times in Israel's history. And I suggest David was not immune to this. He brings the ark to Zion without any Divine command to do so and without consultation with Him [David earlier asks God for guidance about his decisions in 2 Sam. 5, but not in the context of the ark];  and there was the disaster with Uzzah the first time he attempted it. This is to be compared to Israel's defeat when they took the ark with them into battle against the Philistines in the time of Eli. David clearly also veered towards seeing the ark as a talisman. It was almost as if he wanted to underwrite his own enthronement in Jerusalem by having Yahweh enthroned there also over the ark. Likewise David's desire to permanently locate the ark in a physical temple in Jerusalem can be seen as a desire to legitimate the enthronement of his dynasty in that city. But on the other hand, David often 'gets it' about the lack of need for the ark's physical presence. His psalms speak of how he lived permanently beneath the shadow of the cherubic wings, as if he lived on the mercy seat, on the sprinkled blood. In 2 Sam. 15:24-29 he flees from Absalom, and refuses the suggestion he take the ark with him. But, so true to real spiritual life, he also had tendencies towards needing the physical and religious when it came to the ark. Just as we pine for the religious at times, whilst also rejoicing in God's presence in our hearts quite regardless of religious context.

David wrote at least two Psalms about bringing the ark to Zion, Ps. 68 and Ps. 132. Ps. 68 clearly expects God to bring victory to Israel because of the ark's presence in Zion, and Ps. 132 seems to reason that once the ark is in Zion it will be there forever. This wasn't to be the case. But we see in David's reasoning that he still considered the ark as some kind of physical guarantee of God's presence, and the legitimization of his own enthronement in Jerusalem- and that of his dynasty after him, as he imagined. He was proven wrong- the ark disappeared, his dynasty was cut off, Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed. But God's spiritual presence in human hearts continued and became the stronger after these things. We marvel at how God works through human weakness to achieve His wider purposes. The Chronicles record hints at political reasons for David's wanting the ark when we read David saying "let us lead the ark of our God back to us" (1 Chron. 13:3). David wanted it firmly under his control and his motive for bringing the ark to Zion was clearly to centralize religious as well as political power in his chosen capital city.

1Ch 13:4 All the assembly said that they would do so; for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people-
We sense as discussed on 1 Chron. 12:38 that the people were of one mind with David, sharing his spirit and he theirs.

1Ch 13:5 So David assembled all Israel together, from Shihor the brook of Egypt even to the entrance of Hamath, to bring the ark of God from Kiriath Jearim-
This widespread support continues the impression we get from 1 Chron. 12:39,40, where people from even the far north sent large numbers of men and much food to be consumed at the feast which celebrated a declaration of loyalty to David. The entering in of Hamath is a technical term for the Orontes river. The definition of the land between two rivers would be an appeal to the promises to Abraham, of a land with rivers as boundaries.

 

1Ch 13:6 David went up, and all Israel, to Baalah, that is, to Kiriath Jearim, which belonged to Judah, to bring up from there the ark of Yahweh God who dwells between the cherubim, that is called by the Name-
Baalah, or Kirjath-Baal, "the city of Baal" was the old Canaanite name of Kirjath-jearim (Josh. 15:9,60). David's bringing up / going up / ascending of the ark (2 Sam. 6:2) recalls how the ark did not go up into Canaan in Num. 14:44 (s.w.); for the land was not to be given to Israel. But when the time came, the ark was brought up into Canaan (Josh. 4:16,18 s.w.). And so now, the land was being given to them again. David felt as if he was as Joshua reconquering Canaan in fulfilment of the promises. This may explain why Paul in Acts 13:21 parallels the 40 years wandering of Israel with the 40 year reign of Saul; and he may speak of Saul reigning 40 years because of this, even if it was not literally true. It creates big chronological problems if we read that 40 year reign of Saul literally. Solomon imitated David's bringing up of the ark to Zion in 1 Kings 8:1,4. He lived out his father's faith and devotion, but only on an external level. He in due course was to turn away from Yahweh to idols, and descend into the nihilism of Ecclesiastes. 

"David went up…  to bring thence the ark of God the LORD that dwelleth between the cherubims, whose name is called on it" (AV). The unusual phrase 'God the LORD' may imply 'the Angel the Yahweh', as if recognizing that the Angel had God's Name, as we know the Angel which lead Israel was given by God. Thus in this context David goes on to say about the ark of the Lord "whose Name is called on it". When Uzzah died it is stated "there he died before God" (:10), as if he died in the presence of an Angel- i. e. the Angel present inside the ark which he touched. See on Ps. 78:60

1Ch 13:7 They carried the ark of God on a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab: and Uzza and Ahio drove the cart-
There were very specific laws about the transportation of the ark. It was to be carried on poles on the shoulders of not just Levites but specifically the sons of Kohath (Num. 4:15); and Abinadab's family were not the right people to carry it. David claims in Ps. 119 to have studied God's law all the day whilst on the run from Saul, reciting it to himself. Perhaps he forgot these details. But I suggest because he came to see that God wanted the spirit and not the letter of the law to be followed, he came to totally place himself above Divine law. We face the same temptation. And it was this which led David into his sin with Bathsheba. Shaving off bits and pieces of God's laws and principles, on the basis that we are above His law, leads to the final catastrophe of David's sin with Bathsheba. Instead of following God's laws about the transportation of the ark, it seems David instead followed the pattern of the Philistines, who also transported the captured ark on a cart (s.w. 1 Sam. 6:10,11). And considered that having built a new cart, never used before, he was in his own way showing respect to it. Uzzah walked at the side, whilst Ahio went before the oxen to guide them. The Divine cameraman is zoomed in close upon the scene.

David was influenced by others' behaviour and treatment of the ark rather than God's word; he failed to learn from history. He surely reasoned that the Philistines had transported the ark on a cart, so why shouldn't he. David here reflects his religious approach to the ark rather than a spiritual one. During the wilderness years, he felt that he was as it were dwelling on the mercy seat, between the cherubim, covered by the blood of atonement. But he has slipped down from that spiritual peak, now hankering for the physical ark, sliding back from the spiritual to the merely religious. In Saul's time, the ark was not enquired of ("let us bring again the ark of our God to us: for we enquired not at it in the days of Saul", 1 Chron. 13:3).  Ps. 132:6 likewise hints at its obscurity: "Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah: we found it in the fields of the wood" (Baale-Judah, the woods of Judah). David is now looking to be religious, when he had been driven to personal spirituality by his exclusion from formal religion whilst on the run from Saul.

1Ch 13:8 David and all Israel played before God with all their might, even with songs, harps, stringed instruments, tambourines, cymbals and trumpets-
The actual fact of making music and praise to God doesn't necessarily mean our acceptability before Him; the very experience of music and its effect can lead us to think that our participation means our acceptability before God. But all this praise was made whilst God was extremely angry with them for how they were treating the ark.

Many of the brief Psalms exhorting all kinds of music to be used in praising Yahweh were probably composed at this time. This description is very similar to those of how holy objects / idols were brought on beds by the state treasurer to Sargon II of Assyria. Offerings and music were made in front of the objects in order to placate and please the god thought to be in the object. But of course the ark was not a god in itself; David and his people have veered towards the religious rather than the spiritual. Just as most kings once established built a temple to their patron deity, and David also wants to do this to Yahweh. Perhaps the huge punishment on Uzzah reflected God's anger at the religious dominating the spiritual, as if the ark as a box was being worshipped rather than Him. The scene is also similar to that of Assurbanipal’s return of Marduk’s statue from Assur to Babylon: “Just as Assurbanipal’s army participated in the return of Marduk to his new sanctuary, so David’s army participated in the return of the ark of Yahweh. Just as Marduk’s journey was accompanied by music and rejoicing, so was the ark’s. Moreover, just as the Assyrians offered sacrifices every double mile from the quay of Assur to the quay of Babylon, so David offered an ox and a fatling after every six steps” (Miller & Roberts, The Hand of the Lord: A Reassessment of the “Ark Narrative” of 1 Samuel, JHNES (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977)).

The death of Uzzah is one of a number of incidents studded throughout the Biblical record which remind us that sin is serious and a felt offence by God, and provokes His wrath and the necessary death penalty. We think of Eve taking the fruit having been deceived; the prophet of 1 Kings 13 who ate something; Ananias and Sapphira. Whilst otherwise God appears to tolerate sin, this doesn't mean that every sin isn't felt by Him. His feelings are those of Hosea regarding Gomer's continued unfaithfulness.

 

1Ch 13:9 When they came to the threshing floor of Chidon-
1 Chron. 13:9 has "the threshing floor of Chidon" and 2 Sam. 6:6 has "of Nacon". I suggest Nacon was the name of the owner, and Chidon was the location. A threshing floor has associations with Divine judgment, and this is what happened.

Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark-
We wonder if Paul has this in mind when he praises the Lord Jesus for not trying to grasp hold of equality with God (Phil. 2:6). In this case, Uzzah is being accused of playing God by what he did. And yet this appears to be a very harsh reading of motives into a quite simple and natural, well meaning reaction. But this is the point; we cannot judge or know human motivations or thoughts. Who knows what was really in Uzzah's mind. For all we know he was cussing the ark as it wobbled on the cart. Only God knows, and we should respect His judgment and our own inability to judge. The other possible issue which arises from this is that we are to accept that there are huge implications to our apparently harmless, surface level sins. Only God can judge them. But He does extrapolate the implications of human thoughts and actions. The whole incident is a test of our humility before God, a test David initially failed.

For the oxen stumbled-
"Stumbled" is s.w. "threw down" (2 Kings 9:33; Ps. 141:6). It seems the ark itself was thrown down onto the ground, despite Uzzah trying to stop it.

He did what was instinctive to do- but doing what is naturally instinctive can lead to Divine condemnation. Here we see for all time that human action is not OK just because it seems and feels right, instinctive, obvious and logical to the human mind at the time.

1Ch 13:10 The anger of Yahweh was kindled against Uzza, and He struck him, because he put forth his hand to the ark; and there he died before God-
Yahweh had likewise struck down (s.w.) those who had earlier failed to respect the ark (1 Sam. 5:6,9; 6:19). And they had imitated the transport of the ark upon a new cart. The failure of man to learn from Biblical history is one of the greatest tragedies. We may consider this incident as parallel with the sin of Adam and Eve in Eden, whereby an apparently small failure lead to huge consequences. But these incidents are placed in Biblical history to help us humble ourselves before God, and not to fall into the assumption that God is not serious about His principles. Yahweh's anger being kindled is a phrase used multiple times about His anger with Israel for breaking the covenant. The sin of Uzzah personified all that was wrong with Israel. They had assumed that they could serve Yahweh on their terms and not His, and that this was just a mere surface level failure which He should overlook. All this is so challenging for us, who are tempted to think in just the same way.

Samuel appears to have slept next to the ark, and in 1 Sam. 5:1 the Philistines manhandled it on a long journey of 60 km. Uzzah was slain but they weren't. Again we see how boundaries of holiness are relative, and God looks at the heart; something clearly was very wrong in Uzzah's heart, in a way it was not wrong in the hearts of the child Samuel or these Philistines. Attitude and heart are paramount in God's judgment of men.  

Uzzah was a son or grandson of Abinadab (:3), in whose house the ark had been kept for some years (perhaps from 1 Sam. 7:1, where the ark is taken to the house of Abinadab, to 2 Sam. 6:3, where the ark is taken from Abinadab's house). Perhaps he felt he knew the ark well and had probably touched it before. But he was slain for the sin of familiarity with God leading to contempt. Perhaps he cursed the ark box as it fell. Or perhaps "he reached out his hand to the ark" [Heb.] or as in 1 Chron. 13:10 "he put his hand to the ark" was in fact part of a prearranged plan to grab the ark and make a sanctuary for it there at the threshing floor. Clearly there was far more going on that a simple breaking of Divine law.

 

1Ch 13:11 David was displeased, because Yahweh had broken forth on Uzza; and he called that place Perez Uzza, to this day-
David was “displeased” with God because He had slain a man who was trying to assist David’s pet project of bringing the ark to Zion (2 Sam. 6:8,9). Do we not again see the anger and irrational emotion of David flaring up? For the Hebrew for "displeased" really means "anger", and is the same word used of Yahweh's anger in :7. God was fiercely angry, and David was likewise fiercely angry with God for being angry. Whilst on one level this is a terrible example of human pride, David's response could be argued to reflect a closeness with God which enabled him to feel like this. The exiles were warned that all who are "incensed" against God must be humbled and ashamed before the ark could, as it were, come to Zion and Israel be restored (s.w. Is. 41:11; 45:24). The exiles, who were also angry with God for His anger with them, were to go through the humbling process David went through over the next three months.

The Old Testament body of Christ was based around Israel, and thus when the Lord made a breach upon Uzzah, David could say that the Lord “made a breach upon us” (1 Chron. 13:11; 15:13). Just as Saul's persecution of the body of Christ was persecuting the Lord Jesus personally.

However we could read this another way. David was angry, but he was afraid of Yahweh (:12). Possibly his anger was therefore with himself.

We note David's surprise at judgment for touching the ark, as with the men of Bethshemesh earlier when they opened the ark. Perhaps this was because the ark had been regularly touched earlier. For example, surely they manhandled the ark onto the wagon without incident; and how did Obededom handle it without being struck down? And now, it seemed, God was suddenly deciding to apply an applicable law which usually He seemed to disregard. David presents as the child who is shocked and hurt when for once, he isn't allowed to get away with regularly breaking a requirement or law. The law in Num. 4:15-20 was clear; the Kohathites were to deal with the ark and even they must handle it properly "that they may live, and not die, when they approach to the most holy things". The Chronicles record labours how the second attempt to bring the ark to Zion 'worked' because David was careful to follow the Mosaic precepts about handling the ark. And this perhaps is the point: All sin merits death and Divine wrath, but only occasionally is this truth revealed by God in practice. His grace operates in shielding man from His wrath, but this doesn't mean His wrath and sense of sin and infringement of His holiness isn't there. God's feelings about sin were reflected in Hosea's raging anger against Gomer, mellowed by his amazing love and grace for her. Or it could be that Uzzah cursed the ark as it fell, or had some hidden heart position about it which led to God's wrath. And the lesson in that case would be that the innermost private thoughts of man are seen and judged by God and provoke His wrath as well as His pleasure.

 

1Ch 13:12 David was afraid of God that day saying, How shall I bring the ark of God home to me?-
There is a similarity, surely intentional, with the situation in 1 Sam. 6:20: "The men of Beth Shemesh said, Who is able to stand before Yahweh, this holy God?". These were now David's feelings when Uzzah was slain for also not being respectful to the ark. Circumstances repeated, and David failed to learn the lesson. We wonder if indeed David consciously repeated the words of the men of Beth Shemesh. I suspect he didn't, but rather his words are recorded in a similar way, to show to us readers the similarity. We are intended to learn from history, even though so few do. This is why so much of the Bible is history. 

"How can I bring the ark to me?" surely reflects poor motivation. David wanted the ark to come to himself. He has no concept of going up to Yahweh at the ark. It was starting to get all about him. He clearly saw the ark as something he personally could possess ("to me... to us") and which centralized political power in him.

1Ch 13:13 So David didn’t move the ark to him into the city of David, but carried it aside into the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite-
This was a huge showdown, for David had assembled a huge number of people to this ceremony; see on :1-5. And now he was revealed as a man who had not paid due attention to the requirements of the God whom he had invited all Israel to come to worship. It was very humbling for him. We note he "carried it aside", having it carried on poles as the law required and not on a cart.

1Ch 13:14 The ark of God remained with the family of Obed-Edom in his house three months; and Yahweh blessed the house of Obed-Edom, and all that he had-
As it took David some months to realize his sin with Bathsheba, so here it took David three months to humble himself before God, and to perceive that His blessing is related to obedience and respect of Him, and not assuming we can serve Him on our terms and ride roughshod over His principles. David and his house had also been promised blessings, but he was being taught that these blessings were related to obedience and respect of God. And the fact a Philistine from Gath, perhaps an Edomite, indeed an Edomite servant [for so his name means] received these blessings... was to teach him that his pedigree counted for nothing compared to humble respect of Israel's God.

The care of the ark was given over to the Levites. But Obed-Edom wasn't a Levite nor was he a Hebrew, he was a Philistine or Edomite servant from Gath. And he was blessed for caring for the ark. This contrasts sharply with the striking of Uzzah. It serves to point up the fact that Uzzah was not necessarily slain because he wasn't a Levite, nor specifically one of the sons of Kohath who were to carry the ark. That breach of Divine law wasn't the issue; likewise David acts as a priest with an ephod when he too wasn't a Levite. Rather it was a matter of the heart and attitude, which is a persistent theme in the record. For David and Saul sinned in parallel ways, but David's heart attitude was different. 1 Chron. 15:18,24 lists Obededom amongst the Levites who were porters and "doorkeepers for the ark". But he wasn't a Levite. Just as David wasn't. But they could act as Levites because of their attitude of heart.