1 Chronicles13:1–7

The same journey told twice: Samuel's account of the cart structural / thematic: confirmed

From 13:6 onward, Ellicott observes, “our narrative coincides with that of 2 Samuel 6:2-11,” and holds that “the original text was plainly the same,” the differences being “abridgments, paraphrases, and corrections.” The Verifier confirms a shared lexeme link at 2 Samuel 6:3, where the ark (אֲר֤וֹן, H727) is likewise set on a new cart and brought out of Abinadab's house. Ellicott notes that 2 Samuel 6:4 is “wholly omitted by the Chronicles,” and Pulpit that where Samuel says “they set,” Chronicles says they caused it to ride. The links are real and the wording is not identical: two tellings of one journey, not a quotation.

2 Samuel 6:3 · 2 Samuel 6:4

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H727 ʼârôwn (in 174 vv), a common noun, so the overlap alone is weak evidence; the tier rests on the narrative parallelism Ellicott, Pulpit and K&D all record between 1 Chronicles 13 and 2 Samuel 6, not on the lexeme count

Baalah of Judah: the ark kept in a town named for Baal verbal / quotation: confirmed

The Chronicler gives the place two names in one breath, בַּעֲלָ֔תָה (H1173) and Kiriath-jearim (H7157), and Joshua 15:9-11 uses the same pair on the boundary line of Judah. K&D explains the doubling: Kirjath-jearim, “the Canaanitish Baalah,” was called Baale Jehudah or Kirjath-baal “as distinguished from other cities named after Baal.” Cambridge points to Joshua 15:9 and to Kiriath-baal in Joshua 15:60. Baalah is a genuinely rare toponym, five verses in the whole Hebrew Bible, which makes the shared name a hard lexical tie rather than a thematic resemblance.

Joshua 15:9 · Joshua 15:10 · Joshua 15:11

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H1173 Baʻălâh (in 5 vv, rare) and H7157 Qiryath Yᵉʻârîym (in 19 vv) at Joshua 15:9, with H5437 çâbab and H1173 again at Joshua 15:10. The rare shared toponym is the recorded verbal basis; it is a lexical identity, not a quotation of Joshua by the Chronicler

Shihor: the one rare word the commentators cannot agree on verbal / quotation: confirmed

שִׁיח֥וֹר (H7883) stands in only four verses of the canon, and all three of the others are named in this chapter's commentary. Cambridge sends the reader to Joshua 13:3 and Jeremiah 2:18 for the border brook; Pulpit cites Joshua 13:3, Isaiah 23:3 and Jeremiah 2:18 and concludes for the Nile; K&D grants that the Nile “also is called” by the name at Isaiah 23:3 and Jeremiah 2:18, and still argues that the Shihor of a frontier list must be the brook of Egypt. The link is as verbal as a link can be, the identical rare lexeme; what it refers to is exactly what is disputed.

Joshua 13:3 · Isaiah 23:3 · Jeremiah 2:18

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H7883 Shîychôwr (in 4 vv) at each of Joshua 13:3, Isaiah 23:3 and Jeremiah 2:18. A rare lexeme shared across all four of its canonical occurrences; the identification of the stream is contested (Pulpit and Gill: the Nile; Cambridge, JFB and K&D: the brook of Egypt) and this badge certifies the word, not the geography

Twenty years in a private house structural / thematic: confirmed

1 Samuel 7:1-2 is where the ark had been left when the Philistines sent it back, “in the house of Abinadab,” with Eleazar sanctified to keep it. Cambridge notes the ark was there “for at least twenty years under the charge of a man sanctified to keep it.” Pulpit reads 1 Samuel 7:2 to mean it “abode” unmoved, and judges that the interval in fact exceeded twenty years; K&D reckons roughly seventy. The Verifier finds the shared lexemes; the arithmetic is the commentators' own and they do not agree.

1 Samuel 7:1 · 1 Samuel 7:2 · 1 Samuel 6:21

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H727 ʼârôwn (in 174 vv) and H7157 Qiryath Yᵉʻârîym (in 19 vv) at 1 Samuel 7:1, 1 Samuel 7:2 and 1 Samuel 6:21. Same ark, same town; the connection is narrative continuity, and the length of the stay is disputed between Cambridge, Pulpit and K&D

New for holy things: the cart, the colt, the tomb typological

Cambridge sets the new cart of v. 7 beside two other unused vessels: the new ropes “wherewith no work hath been done” used on Samson, and the colt “whereon no man ever yet sat” on which the Lord rode into Jerusalem. Pulpit makes the same move, saying the stress on the cart's newness “may justly remind of Mark 11:2; Matthew 27:60.” ⚙ The pattern is real and both commentators record it: what bears the holy must be unused. Our own caution is that this passage reverses the lesson, since here the unused vessel is the very thing that proves insufficient, and the New Testament instances are approvals while this one is not.

Mark 11:2 · Matthew 27:60 · Judges 16:11

basis: No shared lexeme is possible: Mark and Matthew are Greek, this verse Hebrew, so no Strong's identity can be claimed across the Testaments. The basis is the figural pattern of the unused vessel for holy use, recorded independently by Cambridge and Pulpit; widely held rather than novel

“Our brothers”: Gill's leap to Hebrews 2:11 flagged: verify source

On David's word אַחֵ֣ינוּ (H251) in v. 2, Gill writes that David, “though king, owns as his brethren” the common people, and adds at once: “nor is his antitype ashamed to own this relation between him and his people, Hebrews 2:11.” Cambridge independently notes that in 1 Chronicles 28:2 the Chronicler has the king address the elders as “My brethren,” and suspects Deuteronomy 17:20 behind the habit. ⚙ We record Gill's reading and decline to certify it. The Old Testament text Hebrews appeals to at that point is Psalm 22:22, quoted in the very next verse, not 1 Chronicles 13:2, and nothing links Gill's two verses but a common noun in two different languages.

Hebrews 2:11 · Deuteronomy 17:20 · 1 Chronicles 28:2

basis: Not a Verifier candidate. Cross-Testament and therefore not verbal under any circumstance. The Deuteronomy 17:20 link is Cambridge's conjecture about the Chronicler's motive, and the Hebrews 2:11 link is Gill's homiletic typology; both are named and neither is independently attested here

The Name enthroned on a box that had to be carried ancient/widely-held

⚙ Verse 6 gives the ark its longest title in the chapter: the ark of God, YHWH, the One sitting enthroned on the cherubim, which is called by the Name. Ellicott and Cambridge both correct “between the cherubims” to upon the cherubim, and Cambridge draws the distinction that matters, that this God “is here distinguished from the gods of the nations as the God who bears the ineffable Name.” Ellicott records that later Israel would say simply hashshēm, the Name, rather than pronounce it. K&D refuses a textual emendation precisely because “no one could venture to approach the ark.” Hold those three facts together: the Name is really present, the Name is really unapproachable, and the Name is on a container that men must move. The apostolic writers read the mercy seat over which those cherubim stretched as the pattern of what God set forth in Christ (Hebrews 9:5 names them the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat), and John says the Word became flesh and pitched His tent among us. This is the ancient and widely held reading, not a novelty: the throne that could not be approached came to a house.

Hebrews 9:5 · John 1:14 · Exodus 25:22

The new vessel that was not enough, and the one that was ancient/widely-held

✦ Cambridge and Pulpit both hear the New Testament in the cart's newness: the colt no man had ridden (Mark 11:2), the tomb in which no one had yet lain (Matthew 27:60). ⚙ Read forward, the resemblance turns into a contrast that preaches itself. David's new cart was clean, costly and useless, because the LORD had appointed shoulders and not wheels. The colt and the tomb are not chosen by men trying to honour God with their best available equipment; they are prepared for the King who appointed them. Israel's failure here was not irreverence but improvisation, and the gospel's answer is not a better cart. It is a Bearer. We mark the typology of the unused vessel as widely held, and the contrast we have drawn from it as our own.

Mark 11:2 · Matthew 27:60 · Numbers 7:9

The King who calls the people His brothers ancient/widely-held

✦ Gill, on v. 2: David, “though king, owns as his brethren” the scattered remnant, “nor is his antitype ashamed to own this relation between him and his people, Hebrews 2:11.” Cambridge notes the Chronicler does the same thing again in 1 Chronicles 28:2, where the king addresses the elders as “My brethren,” and suspects the law of the king in Deuteronomy 17:20 lies behind it. ⚙ We keep this reading and keep it honest: the scripture Hebrews cites there is Psalm 22:22, quoted in the following verse, not this one, and the tie between Gill's two texts is thematic. What the Chronicler shows is a newly crowned king whose first use of the crown is to refuse distance from the people and to submit his plan to their judgment and to God's. That shape, authority exercised as fraternity and under counsel, is one the New Testament fills out rather than invents.

Hebrews 2:11 · Psalm 22:22 · 1 Chronicles 28:2