1 Chronicles 13

1 Chronicles 13 (NIV)✞: Bringing Back the Ark

Passage

Over the next few chapters Chronicles is going to tell the story of David bringing the Ark of the LORD to Jerusalem, but out of order from the original events. I’ll talk more about that in the Thoughts below, but for the next few posts I’ll follow the flow of the Chronicles’ author(s)’ approach.

The NIV title for this particular passage is misleading, however, because it’s not telling about bringing the Ark back, it’s telling about trying to bring the Ark back and failing.

It starts out well, though:

¹ David conferred with each of his officers, the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds. ² He then said to the whole assembly of Israel, “If it seems good to you and if it is the will of the LORD our God, let us send word far and wide to the rest of our people throughout the territories of Israel, and also to the priests and Levites who are with them in their towns and pasturelands, to come and join us. ³ Let us bring the ark of our God back to us, for we did not inquire of it during the reign of Saul.” ⁴ The whole assembly agreed to do this, because it seemed right to all the people.

1 Chronicles 13:1–4 (NIV)✞

So far so good! So David gathers all of Israel, puts the Ark on a new cart, and they celebrate with all their might as they begin their journey to Jerusalem with it on that cart. Two men, Uzzah and Ahio, are guiding the cart.

We all know what happens next: the oxen pulling the cart stumble, the Ark is about to fall, Uzzah reaches out to steady it, and God’s anger burns against him for touching the Ark so God strikes Uzzah dead. David then gets angry with God, but is also afraid, so he decides not to bring the Ark to Jerusalem after all, he’ll bring it to the house of some foreigners – let them deal with God’s anger breaking out against them! Except that doesn’t happen; instead, God blesses that family for as long as the Ark stays there.

Thoughts

The events leading up to this go back a few years; in 1 Samuel 4—5✞ the Ark had been captured by the Philistines and then wreaked havoc with them when plagues broke out, so in 1 Samuel 6✞ they’d returned it to the Israelites. And how had they returned it? By putting it on a cart, hooking that cart up to a couple of cows, and letting the LORD guide those cows. (They still weren’t fully convinced that it was the LORD and/or the Ark that had caused the plagues, so they were testing Him by letting Him control the animals – which He did, by bringing them straight home to His people!)

So when David decides to put the Ark on a cart to bring it to Jerusalem he’s actually following a precedent, just not God’s precedent. As we know, those were strange circumstances, while the prescribed way of moving the Ark was to use the special poles that had been created for it and have it carried by Levites. That was the rule; David should have known it, and even if he didn’t the Levites should have.

Quick side point on that note: there may be times when a Christian leader wants to do something wrong and others know that it’s wrong but they’re the type of leader who’s “getting results,” and whose heart seems to be in the right place, so it’s hard to go against their wishes. That’s when things get hard, as a Christian: when you’re going against all of your fellow Christians, who also all want to do the right thing, but are willing to do something wrong “for the greater good.” Sometimes things aren’t so cut and dried. So who knows, perhaps there were some Levites who were thinking to themselves that this was the wrong way to do it but were afraid to raise what felt like a minor objection in the face of King David, who was obviously trying to do what he felt was the right thing!

I talked about this when I blogged about the events in 2 Samuel 6, but this story presents a man (David) whose heart is mostly in the right place; he’s celebrating before the LORD with all his might—and the entire nation along with him!—and there’s not even an inkling of him making a conscious decision to “take a shortcut” in moving the Ark. One thing that occurred to me when reading the passage here in Chronicles, however, is whether his heart is completely in the right place when he gets angry at God. I wonder if part of the reason David is angry is that God is that God’s anger against Uzzah is ruining his (David’s) event. Frankly, he might be having the same response many modern readers have when we read about this event: isn’t killing a man a bit overkill?!? Sure, we get that God is holy, and yes, nobody is supposed to touch the Ark, but is that worth striking a man dead? Now, of all times?

And obviously the answer is yes because it was done by God, but it’s the reaction many have in the modern world and may have been the reaction David was having too. The Israelites were trying so hard to please God and He “ruined” it! But the message that they, and David, and we, have to learn is that we can’t pick and choose which aspects of God’s character we want to pay attention to and which aspects we want to downplay.

As I pointed out in the post for 2 Samuel 6, by the time Uzzah had to reach out to save the Ark from falling, the sin had already been committed. David (and the Levites) had decided to disregard God’s rules about transporting the Ark, so they set up circumstances such that Uzzah’s only choice was to give his life in order to save the Ark from falling. In the 2 Samuel 6 version of this passage it says that “The LORD’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act,” (2 Samuel 6:7✞, emphasis added), and I’m arguing here that Uzzah actually did the right thing by reaching out for the Ark. His act wasn’t “irreverent” because of his attitude, it was irreverent because it was irreverent – intent isn’t part of the conversation, in this case.

But let’s bring this back to the modern-day Christian, because the exact situation faced by Uzzah is not one any of us will ever face. Not in any sense – any sin I commit is already covered by the work of Jesus on the cross, so I won’t be struck down in this life nor will I face the consequences of my sin in eternity. However, Christians in the West are guilty of de-emphasizing certain aspects of God’s character; we love to talk about His love and His Grace¹ and His forgiveness, but we don’t like talking about His holiness. We know that He’s holy, we even sing songs where that word is used, but it’s not something we think deeply about. Because we’ve been saved from the consequences of dealing with an absolutely holy God we downplay how holy He actually is. The reality is that He’s no less holy now than He was in Old Testament times; we need to understand that in order to understand the work Jesus actually did! By downplaying God’s holiness we end up downplaying exactly what was required of Jesus in order to save us!

Reading a passage like this should be an opportunity to remind us of God’s holiness, which should help us appreciate what Jesus accomplished on our behalf. And let’s not disregard something I said earlier: by definition it was not overkill for God to strike Uzzah down, because it was done by God Himself! I have a lot of sympathy for anyone who reads this passage and has to struggle with something that feels like overkill, but if it was done by God it is not, by definition, wrong or sinful or “overkill” or in any way “bad.” We have to come into passages like this in the Bible reminding ourselves that God is holy, loving, forgiving, vengeful, and many other things, but that anything He does is, by definition, good and right. So as we deal with a hard passage, and something that feels extreme, we also have to remember that it’s not extreme, and so try to come to terms with it. On His terms (instead of our own).

What is God teaching us in this passage? What should we learn about Him – and about ourselves? If Jesus hadn’t come and died on the cross, the God of 1 Chronicles 13 / 2 Samuel 6 is the God that I would have had to deal with, and I would have been destroyed in the process.

The Order Things are Presented

Let’s look at the order in which the events are presented. The book of Samuel presents the events in chronological order, which is:

#	2 Sam	Event
1	5:6–12	David builds his palace in Jerusalem
2	5:13–16	He has more children
3	5:17–25	He defeats the Philistines
4	6:1–11	He attempts to bring the ark to Jerusalem but does so improperly and Uzzah dies
5	6:12–23	He properly brings the Ark to Jerusalem

As we know, however, the author(s) of Chronicles tend to stress things differently, and feel they’d bring out their point better with a different order:

#	1 Chron	Event
1	13	David attempts to bring the Ark to Jerusalem but does so improperly and Uzzah dies
2	14:1–2	He builds his palace in Jerusalem
3	14:3–7	He has more children
4	14:8–17	He defeats the Philistines
5	15:14	He makes spiritual preparations for bringing the Ark to Jerusalem the right way (this part isn’t called out in Samuel)
6	15:15–29	He does so

The extra content added definitely shows David’s concern, the second time, to do things right in transporting the Ark. My usual favourite Study Bible say that “The point of this repositioning of material is to show where David’s true priorities lie,” though I’m not sure how this order actually does that.

I’ll stress once again that the author(s) of Chronicles are expecting their readers to be familiar with Samuel/Kings, so it’s not that they’re trying to change history; they are expecting their audiences to know that they’re presenting things out of order to make a point. I’m just not able to get my head around what that specific point is, and how this order helps make it.

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Footnotes

• I sometimes overthink what should be capitalised and what shouldn’t; God’s “Grace” I capitalise out of habit, but about about God’s holiness/Holiness? His love/Love? ↩