The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
David Anointed King of All Israel
2 Samuel 5:1–5 — David Anointed King of All Israel. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
1Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, “Here we are, your own flesh and blood.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kāl- šiḇ·ṭê yiś·rā·’êl way·yā·ḇō·’ū ’el- dā·wiḏ ḥeḇ·rō·w·nāh way·yō·mə·rū lê·mōr hin·nū ’ă·nā·ḥə·nū ū·ḇə·śā·rə·ḵā ‘aṣ·mə·ḵā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-they-came all the-tribes-of Israel to David Hebron-ward, and-they-said, saying: “Behold-us! we [are] thy-bone and-thy-flesh.”
Where the English smooths the original
They assigned three reasons for their coming: (1.) "Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh," i.e., thy blood-relations, inasmuch as all the tribes of Israel were lineal descendants of Jacob
The elders have their mouths full of excellent reasons for recognising David’s kingship,-he is their brother; he was their true leader in war, even in Saul’s time; he has been appointed by God to be king and commander. Unfortunately, it had taken the elders seven and a half years to feel the force of these reasonsMaclaren is the only voice here willing to name the delay as disloyalty; he says elsewhere in the same exposition that “loyalty which has been disloyal as long as it durst, may be suspected.”
for though he was of the tribe of Judah, yet as all the tribes sprung from one man, they were all one bone, flesh, and blood
The exact language of the Divine promise quoted is not found in the record, but is either (as in the case of Abner’s words, 2Samuel 3:18 ) a summary of the communications made to David, or else some unrecorded language of one of the prophetsA rare piece of open admission in a Victorian commentary: the oracle the tribes quote in v. 2 is not on record anywhere in Samuel.
2Even in times past, while Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel out and brought them back. And to you the LORD said, ‘You will shepherd My people Israel, and you will be ruler over them.’”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
gam- ’eṯ·mō·wl gam- šil·šō·wm šā·’ūl bih·yō·wṯ me·leḵ ‘ā·lê·nū ’at·tāh hå̄·yī·ṯå̄h mō·ṣī yiś·rā·’êl wə·ham·mē·ḇī ’eṯ- lə·ḵā Yah·weh way·yō·mer ’at·tāh ṯir·‘eh ’eṯ- ‘am·mî ’eṯ- yiś·rā·’êl wə·’at·tāh tih·yeh lə·nā·ḡîḏ ‘al- yiś·rā·’êl
Literal — word-for-word from the original
Also yesterday, also the-third-day, in-being Saul king over-us, thou wast the-one-bringing-out and-the-one-bringing-in Israel. And-said YHWH to-thee: “Thou shalt-shepherd my-people Israel, and-thou shalt-be for-a-nagid over Israel.”
Where the English smooths the original
The learned Bishop Patrick very justly observes here, that this is the first time we meet with any ruler, or governor of a people, characterized under the idea of a shepherd; and it cannot but be thought remarkable that the first man so characterized was at first in fact a shepherdBenson is quoting Delaney quoting Patrick; the claim of absolute priority is theirs, and Cambridge states it more cautiously with an exception for Genesis 49:24.
But it was especially appropriate in the case of David, who was taken from the sheepfolds of Bethlehem to be the shepherd of Israel
In biblical language the pastoral office is that of the civil and not of the spiritual ruler. Captain; Hebrew, nagid , prince; so the Revised Version (and see note on 1 Samuel 9:16). The word refers not to military matters, but to the civil administration
This expression he useth to admonish David, that he was not made a king to advance his own glory and interest, but for the good and benefit of his people; and that he ought to rule them with all tenderness, and to watch over them with all diligence
3So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, where King David made with them a covenant before the LORD. And they anointed him king over Israel.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kāl- ziq·nê yiś·rā·’êl way·yā·ḇō·’ū ’el- ham·me·leḵ ḥeḇ·rō·w·nāh bə·ḥeḇ·rō·wn ham·me·leḵ dā·wiḏ way·yiḵ·rōṯ lā·hem bə·rîṯ lip̄·nê Yah·weh way·yim·šə·ḥū ’eṯ- dā·wiḏ lə·me·leḵ ‘al- yiś·rā·’êl
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-they-came all the-elders-of Israel to the-king Hebron-ward, and-cut for-them king David a-covenant in-Hebron to-the-face-of YHWH; and-they-anointed David for-king over Israel.
Where the English smooths the original
It would be an anachronism to understand this of the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, but the “league” may have had reference to certain special matters, such as leading them against their enemies, not destroying the remnant of the house of Saul or its late adherents, and not showing partiality (as Saul had done) to the members of his own tribeEllicott's caution is the necessary check on the Whiggish reading that Cambridge, Pulpit and Maclaren all lean toward; the text says a league was cut and never says what was in it.
This ‘league’ was probably a solemn contract in which the king on the one hand engaged to rule according to the laws, and the people on the other hand promised him their allegiance
That is, taking the Lord to witness: for the ark was still in Abinadab's houseThe Geneva annotator's parenthetical is doing textual work: he has noticed the ark is elsewhere and is refusing to let “before the LORD” imply it was present.
This formal declaration of the constitution was chiefly made at the commencement of a new dynasty, or at the restoration of the royal family after a usurpation
4David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
dā·wiḏ šə·lō·šîm ben- šā·nāh bə·mā·lə·ḵōw mā·lāḵ ’ar·bā·‘îm šā·nāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
A-son-of-thirty year [was] David in-his-being-king; forty year he-reigned.
Where the English smooths the original
The prime of life: the age at which the Levites entered upon their duties ( Numbers 4:3 ): at which young men commenced to take part in public business in Greece: at which Joseph was made ruler over Egypt ( Genesis 41:46 ): at which Jesus Christ was “anointed with the Holy Ghost” in His Baptism, and began His public ministry
If David was 20 years old at the time he killed Goliath, four years in Saul's service, four years of wandering from place to place, one year and four months in the country of the Philistines, and a few months after Saul's death, would make up the 10 years necessary to bring him to the age of 30Barnes is reconstructing, not reporting: his ten-year ledger for 1 Samuel 13 to 31 is an inference from this verse's “thirty,” and Pulpit's parallel estimate makes David eighteen or nineteen at Goliath, which does not agree with Barnes's twenty.
and he reigned forty years; and six months, as appears by 2 Samuel 5:5 ; but the months are not mentioned, only the round number of years given
5In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty-three years over all Israel and Judah.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
bə·ḥeḇ·rō·wn mā·laḵ ‘al- yə·hū·ḏāh še·ḇa‘ šā·nîm wə·šiš·šāh ḥo·ḏā·šîm ū·ḇî·rū·šā·lim mā·laḵ šə·lō·šîm wə·šā·lōš šā·nāh ‘al kāl- yiś·rā·’êl wî·hū·ḏāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
In-Hebron he-reigned over Judah seven years and-six new-moons; and-in-Jerusalem he-reigned thirty and-three year over all Israel and-Judah.
Where the English smooths the original
It was the habit of the sacred historians either to omit such fractions or else to count them as whole years, thus introducing a certain element of indefiniteness into the chronology
upon his being made king over all the tribes, as soon as he had taken the strong hold of Zion, which he immediately attacked, as follows, he removed the seat of his kingdom from Hebron to Jerusalem
His advances were gradual, that his faith might be tried, and that he might gain experience. Thus his kingdom typified that of the Messiah, which was to come to its height by degreesHenry's single note covers vv. 1-5 as a block; the typological reading is his whole comment on the passage, offered without argument.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
K&D counts the speech and finds it argued in three parts: kinship, record, and oracle. Ellicott and Cambridge count the same three and both note that the first and third answer the royal law of Deuteronomy 17:15 (a king from among thy brethren, whom the LORD thy God shall choose), while the second, military competence, is the tribes' own addition. Cambridge says the three stand “in the order of their importance,” which means the weakest argument comes first and the word of God comes last.
⚙ The order is worth pressing, because the Hebrew of the first claim is stronger than the English. They do not say “flesh and blood”; they say עַצְמְךָ וּבְשָׂרְךָ, “thy bone and thy flesh,” the formula Laban used of Jacob (Genesis 29:14) and Abimelech's kin used of him (Judges 9:2). Gill grounds the claim in descent rather than affection: all the tribes sprang from one man. And the second claim is carried by two Hifil participles, מוֹצִיא and וְהַמֵּבִי, the going-out and coming-in of Numbers 27:17, a merism for total command in the field. K&D records that both words are defectively written in the received text and supplies the expected forms.
Maclaren is the only commentator here who lets the timing indict the speakers: the reasons are excellent, and “it had taken the elders seven and a half years to feel the force of these reasons, and probably their perceptions would still have remained dull if Abner and Ishbosheth had lived.” Barnes, Pulpit and Cambridge describe the same delay without moral comment, as the working of providence and of self-interest (the Philistine threat, the collapse of Saul's house, the advantage of union). Both readings are in the text. What the text does not supply is the oracle the tribes quote; Ellicott says so outright, that “the exact language of the Divine promise quoted is not found in the record,” and K&D refers the difficulty back to Abner's identical appeal at 2 Samuel 3:18. The tribes are citing a word of God that Samuel never wrote down.
The verb in v. 3 is וַיִּכְרֹת, “he cut.” The noun is bᵉrîyth, which Strong's derives from passing between pieces of flesh. ⚙ Whatever the terms were, the form was a self-maledictory oath, and the narrator locates it לִפְנֵי יְהוָה, “to the face of YHWH,” while saying nothing about the ark.
The commentators divide precisely there. Geneva's annotator cuts through it with a textual observation: the phrase means “taking the Lord to witness: for the ark was still in Abinadab's house.” Barnes allows the tabernacle and altar may have been at Hebron with Zadok and Abiathar even though the ark was at Kirjath-jearim. Poole offers three possibilities and prefers the third, the assembly of magistrates where God is present (Psalm 82:1). Gill cites Kimchi, that wherever Israel or the greater part of them is gathered the divine Majesty dwells. Maclaren makes the largest claim, that the phrase “is at once a testimony to the religious character of the ‘league’ and to the consciousness of God's presence, apart from the symbol of His presence,” and turns it against the developmental theories of his day.
On the content of the league, Ellicott restrains everyone: “It would be an anachronism to understand this of the establishment of a constitutional monarchy,” though he allows specific stipulations. Cambridge, Poole, Pulpit and JFB all read a two-sided contract, king bound to the law and people to obedience, citing 1 Samuel 10:25 (Samuel wrote the manner of the kingdom in the book) and 1 Kings 12:4 (the later demand for relief), with 2 Kings 11:17 as the pattern renewed. Benson admits the honest position: “It is not said what the contents of this league or covenant were.” ⚙ We should hold Benson's sentence and Ellicott's caution together and stop there. Then they anoint him, וַיִּמְשְׁחוּ, and the plural verb has no stated subject. Maclaren asks the right question and leaves it open: “Who anointed David for this third time? Apparently the elders, for priests are not mentioned.” Benson and Poole supply the high priest by inference. Chronicles supplies what Samuel omits, “according to the word of the Lord by Samuel,” which K&D reads as the completion of 1 Samuel 16:1.
Two verses of numbers, and every commentator here treats them as evidence rather than filler. Ellicott runs the sum backward and concludes David was about twenty when he faced Goliath and seventy at his death, and therefore that “the greater part of Saul's reign is treated very briefly in 1 Samuel.” Barnes builds the same ledger in detail: twenty at Goliath, four years in Saul's service, four wandering, sixteen months among the Philistines, and a few months after Saul's death. Pulpit estimates eighteen or nineteen at Goliath instead. ⚙ Their disagreement is the honest result: the chapter gives one fixed point (thirty at accession) and everything else is reconstruction.
The other pressure is internal. v. 4 says forty years; v. 5 says seven years six חֳדָשִׁים plus thirty-three, which is forty years and six months. Gill states the discrepancy and passes on two rabbinic explanations without endorsing either. Ellicott generalizes it into a rule of the historians' habit with fractions, and warns that the same habit makes the synchronisms of Kings indefinite. K&D simply notes that Chronicles keeps these figures but places them at the end of David's life (1 Chronicles 29:27), where a summary belongs.
⚙ The placement here is the more interesting fact. The compiler interrupts a coronation scene to tell us how long the reign will last, and the second half of v. 5 assumes Jerusalem before the narrative has taken it. The effect is to read the whole forty years off the single moment when the shepherd was finally given the flock, which is what Cambridge's “prime of life” note and Gill's comparison with Luke 3:23 are both reaching for.
⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested. The tribes come with a perfect argument and a disgraceful record. Every word of their speech is true: he is their bone, he did lead them out and bring them in, the LORD did say he would shepherd Israel. And they have known all three things for seven and a half years while they propped up a phantom king, and they come now only because Abner and Ishbosheth are dead and the Philistines are stirring. Maclaren is right to say so. What the passage then shows is that God does not wait for pure motives before He gives what He promised. He lets late, self-interested, half-frightened obedience stand, and He calls the result a kingdom. The covenant is cut before His face with no ark in the room, which means Israel is learning that His presence was never contained in the box; the oracle the tribes quote is nowhere written down in Samuel, which means the word that finally moved them was one they had received and carried and not recorded. And the office they hand him is not melek, which is what they called Saul, but רֹעֶה and נָגִיד, shepherd and one-who-stands-in-front, both of them God's words and neither of them theirs. A crown given by men to a man God had already chosen, in a town God had not chosen, to be moved within the chapter to a city taken by force. Our line, not Scripture's: the throne was never at stake; only the day they would admit it.
The throne was never at stake; only the day they would admit it.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The tribes date their knowledge with גַּם־אֶתְמוֹל גַּם־שִׁלְשׁוֹם, “both yesterday and the day before.” ʼethmôwl (H865) appears in only eight verses in the whole Hebrew Bible, and the Verifier finds three of its neighbours clustered inside the Saul narrative, each of them also sharing H7586 Shâʼûwl: the astonishment of those who had known Saul before (1 Samuel 10:11), Jonathan's brief restoration of David to Saul's presence “as in times past” (1 Samuel 19:7), and the wavering Hebrews of 1 Samuel 14:21. ⚙ The idiom is the Samuel narrator's marker for “what things used to be like,” and the tribes use it to admit they are late.
1 Samuel 10:11 · 1 Samuel 19:7 · 1 Samuel 14:21 · 1 Samuel 4:7
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H865 ʼethmôwl (RARE, in 8 vv) with H8032 shilshôwm (in 25 vv); 1 Samuel 10:11, 19:7 and 14:21 additionally share H7586 Shâʼûwl (in 335 vv). No quotation is claimed, only a rare fixed idiom shared within one narrative corpus.
Maclaren states the relationship flatly: “The account in I Chronicles is a verbatim copy of this one,” with the addition of the feasting. Cambridge, Barnes, K&D and Ellicott all cite the parallel. The Verifier confirms it lexeme by lexeme: 1 Chronicles 11:1 shares bâsâr (H1320) and ʻetsem (H6106) with our v. 1, 11:2 shares nâgîyd (H5057) and shilshôwm (H8032) with our v. 2, and 11:3 shares mâshach (H4886) and bᵉrîyth (H1285) with our v. 3. Chronicles adds the clause Samuel omits: the anointing was “according to the word of the Lord by Samuel,” which K&D reads as the fulfilment of 1 Samuel 16:1.
1 Chronicles 11:1 · 1 Chronicles 11:2 · 1 Chronicles 11:3
basis: Verifier: three verse-by-verse lexeme matches (H1320 bâsâr 241 vv + H6106 ʻetsem 108 vv; H5057 nâgîyd 44 vv + H8032 shilshôwm 25 vv; H4886 mâshach 66 vv + H1285 bᵉrîyth 264 vv), plus Maclaren's statement that the Chronicles account is a verbatim copy. Relatively rare H5057 and H8032 carry the verbal weight.
The seven-and-a-half-year Hebron reign and the forty-year total are repeated across the historical books, and the Verifier records the shared vocabulary each time: 2 Samuel 2:11 (Hebron three times over), 1 Chronicles 3:4, 1 Kings 2:11 and 1 Chronicles 29:27, the last two pairing Hebron with ʼarbâʻîym, forty. ⚙ These are not allusions; they are the same bookkeeping surfacing in four places, and the six months that v. 5 preserves is precisely what v. 4 and 1 Chronicles 29:27 drop. Ellicott makes the habit explicit.
2 Samuel 2:11 · 1 Kings 2:11 · 1 Chronicles 3:4 · 1 Chronicles 29:27
basis: Verifier: shared H2275 Chebrôwn (in 66 vv) with H4427 mâlak (in 284 vv) or H705 ʼarbâʻîym (in 123 vv). None of these lexemes is rare and no verse quotes another, so this is recorded as a shared regnal-summary pattern, not a verbal citation.
⚙ The Verifier pairs this unit with 2 Samuel 15:10 on Hebron (H2275) and shêbeṭ (H7626), the two nouns that carry v. 1. There “all the tribes of Israel” will hear a trumpet and be told “Absalom reigns in Hebron,” using the town where they had cut the covenant and the word for the very staves they laid down here. The narrator does not comment. ⚙ We tier this structural rather than verbal: the shared lexemes are common, and the force of the link is the repetition of a scene, not a quotation.
2 Samuel 15:10
basis: Verifier: shared H2275 Chebrôwn (in 66 vv) and H7626 shêbeṭ (in 178 vv). Both are common lexemes; the link is the reuse of the same place and the same collective noun in a counter-coronation, deliberately downgraded from verbal.
⚙ The closing clause of the shepherd-oracle here, אַתָּה תִרְעֶה אֶת־עַמִּי אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵל, “thou shalt shepherd my people Israel,” is nearly word for word the clause with which Matthew 2:6 ends its citation of Micah 5:2, a clause that Micah's own text does not supply in that form. Many modern commentators therefore treat Matthew's quotation as a composite drawing its last line from this verse or from its twin at 1 Chronicles 11:2. ⚙ We flag it rather than assert it. None of the twelve commentators in this brief makes the connection; the link is cross-Testament, so no shared Strong's number can exist between a Greek clause and a Hebrew one; and the attribution of Matthew's final clause is genuinely disputed.
Matthew 2:6 · Micah 5:2 · 1 Chronicles 11:2
basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew), so shared Strong's lexemes are impossible by definition and no verbal tier is available. The basis is a disputed source-critical claim about the composite quotation in Matthew 2:6; it is unsupported by any voice in this brief and is offered for verification, not as a finding.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The oracle gives David two titles and no crown: תִרְעֶה, thou shalt shepherd, and לְנָגִיד, for a commander who stands in front. Benson, following Bishop Patrick, calls this the first time a ruler is characterized as a shepherd, and finds it remarkable that the first man so named had actually been one; Cambridge adds that the metaphor does not appear in the Old Testament before David's time (with the possible exception of Genesis 49:24) and sets it beside the calling of fishermen to be fishers of men (Matthew 4:19). Gill says the title made David “an eminent type of Christ,” citing Psalm 78:71, where God took him from following the ewes to shepherd Jacob His people. Poole draws the ethic out: the shepherd king exists “for the good and benefit of his people,” and Pulpit insists the office is civil government and not merely command in war.
⚙ From that root the prophets grow the whole indictment of false shepherds and the promise of one true shepherd (Ezekiel 34:23, Jeremiah 23:4-6), and the Lord takes the title for Himself in John 10:11. Maclaren heads his exposition of this very passage “ONE FOLD AND ONE SHEPHERD.” The line runs: a boy from the sheepfolds, a nagid appointed before he was elected, and at the end a Shepherd who lays down His life for the flock that is not His by purchase of men's votes but by His own blood.
Psalm 78:70-72 · Ezekiel 34:23 · John 10:11 · Matthew 2:6
The tribes' first argument is a legal one under Deuteronomy 17:15, which JFB, Cambridge and Benson all cite: Israel may set over itself only a king from among its brothers. The qualification is kinship, עַצְמְךָ וּבְשָׂרְךָ, and Gill grounds it in common descent from one man.
Matthew Henry reads the whole paragraph this way and states the type without hedging: “Thus Jesus became our Brother, took upon him our nature, dwelt in it that he might become our Prince and Saviour: thus the humbled sinner takes encouragement from the endearing relation, applies for his salvation, submits to his authority, and craves his protection.” ⚙ Hebrews 2:14-17 argues the identical point in the identical order: because the children share in flesh and blood He likewise shared in the same, so that He might be a merciful high priest, being made like His brothers in every way. The kinship is not sentiment; it is the qualification for the office. (⚙ Honest note: the reading of Ephesians 5:30 that adds “of his flesh and of his bones” is a disputed textual variant and we do not build on it.)
Hebrews 2:14-17 · Deuteronomy 17:15 · Genesis 29:14
Gill says it directly of v. 4: David began to reign at thirty, “which was the age of his antitype Christ, when he entered upon his public ministry, Luke 3:23.” Cambridge gathers the same age from the Levites' entry into service (Numbers 4:3), from Joseph set over Egypt (Genesis 41:46), and from the Baptism, when Jesus was “anointed with the Holy Ghost” and began His public ministry. Benson makes the same two observations independently.
Henry takes the structure rather than the number: “His advances were gradual, that his faith might be tried, and that he might gain experience. Thus his kingdom typified that of the Messiah, which was to come to its height by degrees.” ⚙ Three anointings, one private and two public, separated by years of exile and by seven and a half years of reigning over one tribe while the nation served another house. The pattern is anointing first, recognition long after, and it holds at the Jordan, at the cross, and at the still-future day when every tribe comes and says what the elders of Israel said at Hebron.
Luke 3:23 · Numbers 4:3 · Philippians 2:9-11
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
Text. K&D records two scribal defects in v. 2: “מוציא הייתה is an error in writing for המּוציא היית, and מבי for מביא, with the א dropped,” comparing 1 Kings 21:21 and citing Olshausen. The Berean interlinear prints the received consonants, and the parse line for word 10 reads Article + Hifil participle, which reflects the corrected form rather than the written one. K&D also flags the Piska (the paragraph break marked פ at the end of v. 3), referring the reader to his note at Joshua 4:1.
An unrecorded word of God. The oracle quoted in v. 2 is not found in this form anywhere in Samuel. Ellicott says it is “either a summary of the communications made to David, or else some unrecorded language of one of the prophets”; K&D refers to the same problem at Abner's speech (2 Samuel 3:18). Poole, Gill and JFB simply assign it to Samuel's anointing at 1 Samuel 16:11-13, and Gill concedes “though what follows is not recorded in so many words, yet the sense of it is expressed in the anointing him.” ⚙ We have not resolved this, and the reader should know the tribes are quoting something the narrator never wrote down.
Numbers. v. 4's “forty years” and v. 5's seven years six months plus thirty-three do not agree; the difference is six months. Gill reports two rabbinic explanations (flight from Absalom; illness at Hebron) and endorses neither. Ellicott treats the rounding as a settled habit of the sacred historians. The reconstructions of David's age at Goliath differ among our own voices: Barnes says twenty, Pulpit says eighteen or nineteen. The enormous muster figures cited by Pulpit (a total computed at 348,222, from the Speaker's Commentary on 1 Chronicles 12:23-40) come from Chronicles, not from this chapter, and Pulpit himself notes that many think the numbers corrupt.
Where the ark was. “Before the LORD” in v. 3 is not explained by the text. Geneva says the ark was still in Abinadab's house; Barnes allows the tabernacle and altar may have been at Hebron; Gill cites Abarbinel for Kirjath-jearim and Kimchi for the presence-with-the-assembly view; Poole lists three options; Maclaren argues for presence apart from symbol. These are incompatible reconstructions of an unstated fact, and we have not chosen among them.
Sources. Scripture text BSB (CC0); lexical data Strong's via the Berean interlinear; commentary verbatim and public domain: Ellicott, Maclaren, Benson, Henry, Barnes, JFB, Gill, Geneva, Cambridge, Pulpit, Keil & Delitzsch, Poole. The Maclaren and Pulpit entries for 5:1 are capped in this brief (7,617 and 2,494 further characters respectively); quotations from them are taken from the portion supplied. Cross-reference bases are Verifier-computed shared Strong's lexemes with frequencies, except the Matthew 2:6 thread, which is cross-Testament, machine-proposed, unsupported by any voice here, and flagged for verification. Everything marked ⚙ is this tool's fallible synthesis and carries no authority.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)