I Chronicles Chapter 13

Please read:  I Chronicles 13 –

The people of Israel had been oppressed for many years by the Philistines.  Finally, now that David has led them in victorious battles over the Philistines, the people could feel their freedom once again.  David gathered the people together.  He knew it was important to have God in the center of their kingdom which meant recovering the Ark of God (or the Ark of the Covenant) from where it had rested for the past 70 years.  The Philistines had captured the Ark and then got rid of it by putting it on a cart and sending it wherever the cattle went that pulled the cart.  Here we are met with the first dilemma in that the Philistines had used a cart to transport the Ark, but the instructions for the people of Israel had been clearly written in Exodus 25 how the Ark was to be carried.  These instructions had not been written for the heathen Philistines but for the people who followed after God.

Exodus 25:12-15 You shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them on its four feet, two rings on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it.  You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold.  And you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark by them.  The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it.

We learn in the book of Numbers that the Ark of the Covenant was to be carried by Levites and more specifically by the family of Kohath of the Levites.  While building a new cart seemed like the right thing to do, it was not of the clear instructions given by the LORD God.

Let's Reflect

1.  In verse 1 who does it say that David consulted with regarding the plan to bring back the Ark of the Covenant to their midst?

2.  They meant well.  David and the leaders of Israel had very good intentions.  But they went about it in the wrong way.  What does verse 4 tell us about the decisions they made?

3.  Feeling that they were doing the right thing, David gathered all of Israel to be a part of this procession of bringing the Ark back to the people of God.  What was the mood of the people in this procession?

4.  Uzzah and Ahio were in charge of driving the animals that pulled the cart.  What happened to Uzzah?

5.  Here we are met with our second dilemma in that what Uzzah did, seemed like the right thing to do.  How did David feel about what happened to Uzzah?

“He (Uzzah) saw no difference between the ark and any other valuable article. His intention to help was right enough; but there was a profound insensibility to the awful sacredness of the ark, on which even its Levitical bearers were forbidden to lay hands.” [Maclaren]

6. The Bible says that David was then afraid of God.  There was no reason for David to be afraid, he simply needed to consult with Him for His ways.  Now consider this, when they built the new cart for the Ark to be placed on, they must have lifted it from where it was onto the cart by use of the poles.  So, at this point no one had touched the Ark.  And when they took it to the house of Obed-edom, they most likely took it off the cart because it says that it was in the home of this man.  They must have lifted it off the cart by the poles.  The point is that they probably knew that it was not to be touched, that it was sacred.  What does the Bible say happened to Obed-edom?