The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Uzzah Touches the Ark
2 Samuel 6:5–11 — Uzzah Touches the Ark. 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.
5David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the LORD with all kinds of wood instruments, harps, stringed instruments, tambourines, sistrums, and cymbals.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ḏā·wiḏ wə·ḵāl bêṯ yiś·rā·’êl mə·śa·ḥă·qîm lip̄·nê Yah·weh bə·ḵōl ‘ă·ṣê ḇə·rō·wō·šîm ū·ḇə·ḵin·nō·rō·wṯ ū·ḇin·ḇā·lîm ū·ḇə·ṯup·pîm ū·ḇim·na·‘an·‘îm ū·ḇə·ṣel·ṣe·lîm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-David and-all house-of Israel were-making-sport before-the-face-of YHWH with-all woods-of-cypresses, and-with-harps and-with-skin-bags and-with-timbrels and-with-shaken-things and-with-clatterers.
Where the English smooths the original
The word denotes a dance accompanied by music, such as frequently formed part of a religious festival.
This could only mean, with all kinds of instruments made of cypress wood; but this mode of expression would be a very strange one even if the reading were correct.K&D argues the Chronicles reading is original and this one derivative. The FSSB prints the Hebrew as transmitted and records the dispute rather than settling it.
Played . The word does not mean "played on a musical instrument," but "danced and rejoiced."
Now it was that David penned the sixty eighth psalm, which begins, "let God arise", &c. Psalm 68:1 , words used by Moses when the ark set forwardGill's attachment of Psalm 68 to this procession is a rabbinic and traditional association, not a claim the text makes.
6When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen had stumbled.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yā·ḇō·’ū ‘aḏ- gō·ren nā·ḵō·wn ‘uz·zā way·yiš·laḥ ’el- way·yō·ḥez bōw ’ă·rō·wn hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm kî hab·bā·qār šā·mə·ṭū
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-they-came as-far-as threshing-floor-of Nakon, and-sent-forth Uzzah toward the-ark-of the-God and-seized it, for let-go the-oxen.
Where the English smooths the original
its true meaning is to let go, or let lie ( Exodus 23:11 ; Deuteronomy 15:2-3 ), hence to slip or stumble.
There is perhaps no word about the signification of which commentators are more divided, than the word שׁמשׂו , shametu, here rendered shook it. Bochart and Waterland interpret it, The oxen stuck in the mire, or stumbled.
The turning aside of the oxen to snatch the scattered grain of the threshingfioor may have caused the trouble.A conjecture, offered as one. The text says only that the oxen shamat.
Nothing is said of the ark being in danger. Uzzah's act was one of precaution.
7And the anger of the LORD burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down on the spot for his irreverence, and he died there beside the ark of God.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’ap̄ Yah·weh way·yi·ḥar- bə·‘uz·zāh hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm way·yak·kê·hū šām ‘al- haš·šal way·yā·māṯ šām ‘im ’ă·rō·wn hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-burned the-nostril-of YHWH against-Uzzah, and-struck-him there the-God upon the-hash-shal, and-he-died there with the-ark-of the-God.
Where the English smooths the original
The Hebrew word occurs nowhere else, but if genuine, may best be rendered thus, or as in the margin, for his rashness
Here we see the danger it is to follow good intentions, or to do anything in God's service without his express word.The Reformers' regulative principle, stated at its sharpest. It is a doctrinal conclusion drawn from the narrative, not a gloss on the Hebrew.
Uzzah was a type of all who, with good intentions, humanly speaking, yet with unsanctified minds, interfere in the affairs of the kingdom of God, from the notion that they are in danger, and with the hope of saving themEllicott is quoting O. von Gerlach; K&D quotes the same sentence independently, so two nineteenth-century commentaries carry it.
That God is justly most severe in those things which immediately concern his worship and service
8Then David became angry because the LORD had burst forth against Uzzah. So he named that place Perez-uzzah, as it is called to this day.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
lə·ḏā·wiḏ way·yi·ḥar ‘al ’ă·šer Yah·weh pā·raṣ pe·reṣ bə·‘uz·zāh way·yiq·rā ha·hū lam·mā·qō·wm pe·reṣ ‘uz·zāh ‘aḏ haz·zeh hay·yō·wm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-it-burned to-David because YHWH had-burst a-bursting against-Uzzah; and-he-called that place Perets-Uzzah until this day.
Where the English smooths the original
The burning of David's anger was not directed against God, but referred to the calamity which had befallen Uzzah, or speaking more correctly, to the cause of this calamity, which David attributed to himself or to his undertaking.
his heart was ready to rise up against God, and murmur at him for striking him dead in such an awful mannerGill reads David's anger as culpable; K&D reads it as directed at the calamity, not at God. The Hebrew leaves the object unstated, so both are inferences.
Displeased - Grief allied to anger seems to be intended.
He had prepared a great religious festival, and Jehovah had broken in upon them as an enemy.
9That day David feared the LORD and asked, “How can the ark of the LORD ever come to me?”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ha·hū bay·yō·wm ḏā·wiḏ ’eṯ- way·yi·rā Yah·weh way·yō·mer ’êḵ ’ă·rō·wn Yah·weh yā·ḇō·w ’ê·lay
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-feared David YHWH in-that day, and-said: How shall-come to-me the-ark-of YHWH?
Where the English smooths the original
The immediate effect of the judgment was to produce in David, and doubtless in all the people, that awe of the majesty of God in which they had shown themselves deficient.
An earlier consultation by Urim would have led him right at the first, whereas in this perplexity and distress, he was reaping the fruits of inconsideration and neglect.
In both his anger and his dread David manifests himself to us as one whose ideas about God were somewhat childish.Pulpit's verdict on David is unusually severe and out of step with Ellicott, K&D and Benson on the same verse; it is printed here as one nineteenth-century judgment, not as the unit's reading.
10So he was unwilling to move the ark of the LORD to the City of David; instead, he took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḏā·wiḏ wə·lō- ’ā·ḇāh lə·hā·sîr ’ê·lāw ’eṯ- ’ă·rō·wn Yah·weh ‘al- ‘îr dā·wiḏ ḏā·wiḏ way·yaṭ·ṭê·hū bêṯ ‘ō·ḇêḏ- ’ĕ·ḏō·wm hag·git·tî
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-was-not-willing David to-cause-to-turn-aside unto-himself the-ark-of YHWH into city-of David; and-David made-it-swerve to house-of Obed-Edom the-Gittite.
Where the English smooths the original
Obed-edom opened his doors without fear, knowing the ark was a savour of death unto death to those only who treated it wrong.
Thus there was an appropriateness in his being chosen to take charge of the Ark, since he belonged to the family which was originally appointed to carry it from place to place
Obed-edom was a Levite of the family of Merari, being 1 Chronicles 15:18-24 ; 1 Chronicles 16:38 a son of Jeduthun, who was a Merarite.Barnes makes him a Merarite; Cambridge and K&D make him a Korahite descended from Kohath; Ellicott weighs both and leans Kohathite. The sources genuinely disagree, and the FSSB does not resolve it.
Nothing can make God otherwise than amiable to him; even his justice is lovely.Benson is quoting Bishop Hall.
11Thus the ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite for three months, and the LORD blessed him and all his household.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’ă·rō·wn Yah·weh way·yê·šeḇ bêṯ ‘ō·ḇêḏ ’ĕ·ḏōm hag·git·tî šə·lō·šāh ḥo·ḏā·šîm Yah·weh ’eṯ- way·ḇā·reḵ ‘ō·ḇêḏ ’ĕ·ḏōm wə·’eṯ- kāl- bê·ṯōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-sat the-ark-of YHWH in-house-of Obed-Edom the-Gittite three months; and-blessed YHWH Obed-Edom and-all his-house.
Where the English smooths the original
He feared and served the God of the ark, and so the Presence, which had been a source of disaster to the unworthy, was a source of unbroken blessing to him and to his household.
None ever had, or ever shall have, reason to say that it is in vain to serve God. Piety is the best friend to prosperity.Benson's maxim is drawn from this narrative, but the FSSB notes that the book of Job exists to complicate it.
Josephus (o) says, that Obededom was very poor before, and in a low condition, out of which he soon emergedJosephus is extrabiblical; the text of 2 Samuel says only that YHWH blessed him and all his house.
With happy success in all their affairs and actions.
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.
The unit opens on a verb of laughter. מְשַׂחֲקִים (sâchaq, H7832) is the Piel participle of laughing or sporting, and Cambridge defines it as a dance accompanied by music, such as frequently formed part of a religious festival; Pulpit is blunter, insisting the word does not mean playing an instrument but dancing and rejoicing. Nothing in the Hebrew of v. 5 is wrong. The joy is real, the king is at the head of it, and all the house of Israel is with him.
The verse's difficulty is textual, not moral. בְּכֹל עֲצֵי בְרוֹשִׁים says only “with all woods of cypresses.” K&D calls this a very strange mode of expression even if the reading were correct, and prefers the parallel at 1 Chronicles 13:8, “with all their might and with songs”; Cambridge, Ellicott and Pulpit record the same proposal, and Ellicott notes that the Septuagint visibly carries both readings at once, which means the variation is ancient. Gesenius, as Pulpit reports, called the Chronicles reading a mere guess at a misunderstood text, and Maurer ridiculed it; Thenius defended it. ⚙ The FSSB prints the Hebrew we actually have and records that the oldest witnesses were already divided. What is not in doubt is that nobody at this point in the story is doing anything but rejoicing.
⚙ The hinge of the unit is a contrast of hands. The oxen שָׁמְטוּ (shâmaṭ, H8058, 8 verses in the canon), a rare verb K&D says does not mean to kick but to let go or let lie, the same verb used of releasing land and debts in the seventh year (Exodus 23:11; Deuteronomy 15:2-3). Uzzah, in the same breath, וַיֹּאחֶז (ʼâchaz, H270), a verb Strong's glosses as to seize, often with the accessory idea of holding in possession. Something lets go; a man grips. That is the whole event, told in two verbs.
The commentators are strikingly careful not to make Uzzah a villain. Pulpit: nothing is said of the ark being in danger, and Uzzah's act was one of precaution. Benson reports that there is perhaps no word about which commentators are more divided than shametu, citing Bochart and Waterland for “stuck in the mire.” Ellicott ventures only that the oxen may have turned aside to snatch the scattered grain. Ellicott, quoting O. von Gerlach (and K&D quotes the same sentence), states the typology the Church has drawn from it: Uzzah was a type of all who, with good intentions, humanly speaking, yet with unsanctified minds, interfere in the affairs of the kingdom of God from the notion that they are in danger.
Then the stated ground of the sentence: הַשַּׁל (H7944), a hapax. Cambridge says the word occurs nowhere else and may best be rendered “for his rashness”; Pulpit calls “error,” “rashness” and Ewald's “unexpectedly” alike mere guesses; K&D derives it from shâlâh, to err; Chronicles replaces it altogether with “because he put his hand to the ark,” which Cambridge suspects is a substitution for an expression already obscure. ⚙ The honest shape of verse 7 is therefore this: the act is clear, the death is clear, and the one word naming the offense is the one word nobody can read.
The narrator uses one verb, חָרָה (chârâh, H2734, to glow or grow warm), for the nostril of YHWH in v. 7 and for David in v. 8, and supplies no object for the second. So the commentators divide. Pulpit says David was angry and that the punishment seemed to him unjust; Gill goes furthest, that his heart was ready to rise up against God and murmur at him; Benson and Poole soften it to grief for the sin and for the judgment; K&D denies the sense “he troubled himself” on grammatical grounds and holds the anger was not directed against God but at the calamity, which David traced to his own plan. ⚙ Four readings of one intransitive verb: the FSSB records the spread rather than choosing.
What David does is name the place פֶּרֶץ עֻזָּה, Breach of Uzzah, from the cognate accusative פָּרַץ פֶּרֶץ (H6555 + H6556), “burst a bursting.” Cambridge notes the same verb at 2 Samuel 5:20 and in exactly this sense of sudden divine judgment at Exodus 19:22; Ellicott makes the Exodus comparison too. Three chapters earlier the same king minted Baal-perazim from the same root, for a bursting that went his way. Then the heat cools into וַיִּרָא (yârêʼ, H3372): David feared YHWH, with the direct object marker fixing the fear on God himself. Ellicott calls this the judgment's intended effect, awe of the majesty of God in which they had shown themselves deficient, excessive at first and soon moderated; JFB notes the omission that caused the whole disaster, that an earlier consultation by Urim would have led him right at the first.
David twice turns the ark aside with causative verbs of his own choosing, לְהָסִיר (çûwr, H5493) and וַיַּטֵּהוּ (nâṭâh, H5186), and lodges it with a man whose title reads Philistine. Ellicott, Poole, Barnes, JFB, Cambridge, K&D and Maclaren all stop to say he is not: Obed-Edom is a Levite of Gath-rimmon, a Levitical city (Joshua 21:24). They disagree about his clan (Barnes: Merarite, a son of Jeduthun; Cambridge and K&D: Korahite from Kohath; Ellicott weighs both), and the FSSB leaves that open. Cambridge draws the point that matters: there was an appropriateness in his being chosen, since he belonged to the family originally appointed to carry the ark from place to place.
Then the verb that changes everything: וַיֵּשֶׁב (yâshab, H3427), not “remained” but sat down, dwelt, took its seat. And וַיְבָרֶךְ (bârak, H1288, root sense to kneel), with YHWH as subject, the same subject who burst out in v. 8. Henry states the symmetry: the same hand that punished Uzzah's proud presumption rewarded Obed-Edom's humble boldness. Benson, quoting Bishop Hall, adds that nothing can make God otherwise than amiable to an honest heart, even his justice is lovely. Maclaren, who reads the whole seventy-year history of the ark as one lesson, concludes that the Presence which had been a source of disaster to the unworthy was a source of unbroken blessing to Obed-Edom and his household. ⚙ Note what the text does not say: it never calls Obed-Edom braver or holier than Uzzah. It says only that the ark sat, and that YHWH blessed.
⚙ Offered to be tested, not to be believed on our authority. The narrative is built on two rare verbs set face to face. The oxen shâmaṭ, they let go; Uzzah ʼâchaz, he seized and held in possession. Between those two words is everything this chapter knows about the difference between creatures and God. Uzzah's hand was not malicious, and no commentator in this apparatus says it was. It was helpful. That is the offense the text is hardest on: the assumption that the throne of the Almighty needs steadying by a man who has already decided, in advance, how it should travel.
The deeper fault is upstream of the hand. K&D and JFB both trace it to the cart, which Israel copied from the Philistines (1 Samuel 6:7) instead of from Numbers 4, where the ark is carried on Levites' shoulders and touched by no one. Once you have chosen the Philistine method, a hand on the ark becomes inevitable, and the man who put it there is the one who pays. David's anger in v. 8 and his fear in v. 9 are, on this reading, the two halves of one discovery: that he had been sincerely, joyfully, musically wrong, and that sincerity did not carry the ark one step further than the threshing floor.
And then the counter-witness that keeps the chapter from becoming a doctrine of divine caprice. The ark that killed a Levite goes into a Levite's house and, in three new moons, does nothing but bless. The narrator will not let us conclude that the ark is dangerous. He forces the conclusion that the ark is alive, and that the one thing it will not survive is being managed. Not a verse, but the line we would set beside this unit: reverence is not the fear that God will fall; it is the fear that we will handle him as though he could.
Reverence is not the fear that God will fall; it is the fear that we will handle him as though he could.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
1 Chronicles 13:7-13 narrates the same events, and the Verifier's overlap is dense and specific. Most decisive is שָׁמְטוּ (shâmaṭ, H8058), a verb occurring in only eight verses in the whole Hebrew Bible, present in both 2 Samuel 6:6 and 1 Chronicles 13:9 of the same oxen, alongside bâqâr (H1241) and the proper name ʻUzzâʼ (H5798, 14 verses). 1 Chronicles 13:11 shares ʻUzzâʼ with chârâh (H2734), the same burning; 13:10 shares ʻUzzâʼ, ʼârôwn and chârâh. Where the two accounts part is telling: Chronicles has Chidon for Nakon, “with all their might and with songs” for “woods of cypresses,” and “because he put his hand to the ark” for the hapax hash-shal. Cambridge reads the last as a substitution for an expression that had already become obscure; K&D warns against emending Samuel to match, against Thenius and Bertheau.
1 Chronicles 13:9 · 1 Chronicles 13:10 · 1 Chronicles 13:11 · 1 Chronicles 13:7
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H8058 shâmaṭ (rare, in 8 vv) with H1241 bâqâr and H5798 ʻUzzâʼ (in 14 vv) at 1 Chr 13:9; H5798 + H2734 chârâh (in 88 vv) at 1 Chr 13:11; H5798 + H727 ʼârôwn + H2734 at 1 Chr 13:10. A rare verb shared in an identical narrative clause: a genuine literary dependence between parallel accounts, not a citation formula.
The place name David mints here is built on the cognate accusative פָּרַץ פֶּרֶץ (pârats, H6555, with perets, H6556), “burst a bursting.” Cambridge records that this is the same verb as 2 Samuel 5:20, where David named Baal-perazim because YHWH had burst through his enemies like a bursting of water, and that it carries precisely this sense of a sudden divine judgment at Exodus 19:22 and 19:24, where the danger is the people breaking through to gaze on God at Sinai. Ellicott makes the Exodus 19:22 comparison independently. ⚙ Three chapters apart, the same king names two places from one root: one for a bursting that went through his enemies, one for a bursting that went through his procession. The Sinai text is the closest conceptual parallel, since there too the fatal danger is proximity mishandled.
2 Samuel 5:20 · Exodus 19:22
basis: Recorded basis is human, not machine: Cambridge (on 6:8) states the verb is the same as 2 Sam 5:20 and is used in a precisely similar sense at Exod 19:22, 24; Ellicott states the same for Exod 19:22. The Verifier did not return these pairs among its computed candidates, so no shared-lexeme frequency is claimed here and the link is deliberately tiered structural rather than verbal.
⚙ The fault this unit punishes begins two verses before it. K&D states that instead of following Numbers 4, which requires the ark to be moved by Levites, carried on the shoulders, and touched by none of them on pain of death (Numbers 4:15), Israel followed the example of the Philistines when they sent back the ark (1 Samuel 6:7) and placed it on a new cart. JFB calls the procedure hasty and inconsiderate, in violation of an express statute, citing Numbers 4:15, 7:9 and 18:3. Gill, Poole, Benson and Cambridge all make the same connection. 2 Samuel 6:3, which shares ʻUzzâʼ and ʼârôwn with our unit by the Verifier's count, is where the cart is introduced. K&D notes that by 6:12-15 David had discovered the mistake and given up the idea of a carriage.
Numbers 4:15 · 1 Samuel 6:7 · 2 Samuel 6:3
basis: Verifier confirms the internal link only: 2 Sam 6:3 shares H5798 ʻUzzâʼ (in 14 vv) and H727 ʼârôwn (in 174 vv) with this unit. The Numbers 4:15 and 1 Samuel 6:7 connections are not Verifier-computed lexeme matches but the explicit, converging judgment of K&D, JFB, Gill, Poole, Benson and Cambridge; tiered structural, and no quotation is claimed.
Cambridge reads verse 7 against 1 Samuel 6:19: as before at Beth-shemesh, an act of irreverence towards the ark was punished with death. JFB sets the whole sequence out as a graded scale, that it is of importance to observe the proportionate severity of the punishments attending the profanation of the ark, since the Philistines suffered disease and were relieved by their offerings because the law had not been given to them, the Bethshemites suffered from ignorance or inadvertency, but Uzzah, a Levite and well instructed, suffered death for his breach of the law. Maclaren traces the same arc across seventy years from Aphek to Kirjath-jearim. ⚙ The unit is therefore the last panel of a long sequence, not an isolated shock.
1 Samuel 6:19 · 1 Samuel 5:8
basis: No Verifier lexeme overlap was computed for these pairs. The basis is the explicit cross-reference recorded by Cambridge (on 6:7) and the graded sequence set out by JFB (on 6:6-11), plus Maclaren's narrative survey; a shared motif of contact with the ark, not a verbal link.
Cambridge closes its note on verse 7 with a question the FSSB will not sharpen beyond what the source says: if such reverence was due to the symbol, with how much greater reverence should the realities of the Christian Covenant be regarded, and it points the reader to Hebrews 10:28-29, where the one who set aside Moses' law died without mercy and the writer asks how much worse a punishment is deserved by one who has trampled the Son of God. ⚙ The argument is a fortiori and structural, not verbal: Hebrews nowhere cites 2 Samuel 6, and because this pair crosses from Greek into Hebrew, no shared Strong's number can exist and none is claimed.
Hebrews 10:28-29
basis: Cross-Testament (Greek NT ↔ Hebrew OT), so shared Strong's lexemes are impossible by definition and no verbal tier is available. Recorded basis: Cambridge on 2 Sam 6:7 explicitly directs the reader to Hebrews 10:28-29 for the a fortiori argument about reverence. Hebrews does not quote this narrative.
⚙ The Verifier's candidate list returns 2 Kings 21:18 and 21:26 (the garden of Uzza, where Manasseh and Amon are buried), Ezra 2:49 and Nehemiah 7:51 (the sons of Uzza among the temple servants), 1 Chronicles 8:7 (a Benjaminite) and 1 Chronicles 6:29 (a Merarite in a genealogy), each scoring on the proper name ʻUzzâʼ (H5798) alone. Strong's itself says the name belongs to five different Israelites. These are almost certainly different people and, in 2 Kings, a place. We print the cluster to show the reader exactly what a proper-name match is worth: the lexeme is genuinely rare, the connection is genuinely nothing. Only 1 Chronicles 6:29 has any claim on attention, and only because Barnes makes Obed-Edom a Merarite, which Cambridge and K&D dispute.
2 Kings 21:18 · Ezra 2:49 · Nehemiah 7:51 · 1 Chronicles 6:29
basis: Verifier: the only shared lexeme is H5798 ʻUzzâʼ (in 14 vv), a proper name Strong's assigns to five distinct Israelites plus a place. Rarity here is an artifact of onomastics, not of vocabulary; flagged so the tier is never mistaken for a verbal link.
The cymbals of verse 5, צֶלְצְלִים (tsᵉlâtsal, H6767, glossed by Strong's as “a clatter”), share a root with the word at Deuteronomy 28:42, where in the covenant curses the tselatsal possesses every tree of the land. ⚙ The lexeme is rare (5 verses) and the Verifier pairs the verses, but the sense is not the same: there the word names a whirring, swarming creature, here a clashing pair of metal plates, both from the onomatopoeia of rattling. Cambridge describes the instrument as plates of metal held in each hand and clashed together. We record the shared root and refuse the temptation to build a judgment motif on it.
Deuteronomy 28:42
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H6767 tsᵉlâtsal (rare, in 5 vv) and H6086 ʻêts (in 288 vv). Rarity would permit a verbal tier, but the two occurrences carry different referents (rattling instrument vs rattling insect) from a shared onomatopoeic root, so the link is deliberately flagged rather than claimed as verbal, and no thematic argument is built on it.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
Matthew Henry states it directly on this passage: the ark especially typified Christ and his mediation, in which the name of Jehovah and all his glories are displayed, and Christ is our Ark, in and by him God manifests his favour and accepts our prayers and praises; he reads the ark as being to Israel what the ordinances are to the Church, the tokens of God's presence, and cites Matthew 28:20. ⚙ The apostolic ground for this is the mercy seat: Paul says God put Christ forward as a hilastērion (Romans 3:25), the Greek word the Septuagint uses for the ark's cover, the very lid Uzzah's hand approached. Hebrews 9:4-5 names the ark and the cherubim of glory overshadowing that same mercy seat, and then argues that the Holy Place was not accessible while the first tent stood. This is the long-standing reading of the Church, not a novelty of ours.
Romans 3:25 · Hebrews 9:4-5 · Matthew 28:20
Henry gives this unit's controlling image when he writes that Obed-Edom opened his doors without fear, knowing the ark was a savour of death unto death to those only who treated it wrong, borrowing Paul's phrase from 2 Corinthians 2:15-16, where the apostle says we are to God the aroma of Christ, to one a fragrance from death to death and to the other from life to life. Maclaren builds his entire exposition of 6:11 on this principle, that the effects of the ark's presence ran opposite ways according to the manner of its reception, and says it is most especially manifested in the message and mission of Jesus Christ. Peter makes the same double effect a matter of the stone: precious to those who believe, and to those who disobey a stone of stumbling (1 Peter 2:7-8), and Simeon is told at the beginning that this child is set for the falling and rising of many in Israel (Luke 2:34). ⚙ One presence, two outcomes, determined not by the presence but by the posture of the one who meets it. That is the argument of the whole unit in a sentence.
2 Corinthians 2:15-16 · 1 Peter 2:7-8 · Luke 2:34
⚙ Under the old covenant a hand laid on the holy thing killed the man who laid it (Numbers 4:15; 2 Samuel 6:7). In the Gospels the movement reverses and the contact runs the other way: a woman who had been unclean for twelve years touches the fringe of Jesus' garment and is healed instead of executed, and power goes out from him toward her (Mark 5:27-30); he stretches out his hand and touches a leper, and the leper is cleansed rather than the toucher defiled (Mark 1:41). The holiness that once burst out to protect itself now goes out to repair what touches it. We offer this as a reading that the two Testaments invite, not as one the apparatus in front of us states: none of Ellicott, Henry, Barnes, JFB, Poole, Gill, Geneva, Cambridge, Pulpit, K&D, Benson or Maclaren draws the Mark comparison on this passage, and it is marked novel for that reason. It also does not cancel Cambridge's warning from Hebrews 10:28-29 that greater nearness raises, not lowers, the stakes of contempt.
Mark 5:27-30 · Mark 1:41 · Numbers 4:15
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. This is one of the more textually disturbed units in Samuel. Three separate points are unstable. (1) בְּכֹל עֲצֵי בְרוֹשִׁים in v. 5: K&D, Cambridge, Ellicott and Pulpit all prefer the 1 Chronicles 13:8 reading “with all their might and with songs”; Ellicott notes the Septuagint here combines both, so the divergence is ancient. Gesenius called the Chronicles form a mere guess and Maurer ridiculed it, while Thenius defended it, so the scholarship of the period was itself split. The FSSB prints the transmitted Hebrew. (2) נָכוֹן in v. 6: BSB takes it as a personal name, Nacon; K&D derives it from nâkâh, “threshing-floor of the stroke”; Chronicles reads Chidon; Ellicott doubts it is a proper name at all; Pulpit thinks it is one. Unresolved. (3) הַשַּׁל in v. 7 is a hapax legomenon, and every rendering in circulation (“error,” “rashness,” “irreverence,” Ewald's “unexpectedly”) is a conjecture; Pulpit says so in as many words. The BSB's “for his irreverence” is an interpretive choice and should not be treated as the text's own verdict on Uzzah's motive.
Sources. Twelve public-domain commentators are quoted verbatim in this unit: Ellicott, Henry, Barnes, JFB, Poole, Gill, Geneva, Cambridge, Pulpit, K&D, Benson and Maclaren. Poole supplied no note on v. 5. Maclaren's exposition of v. 11 is capped in the brief, and the excerpt used here is drawn from the portion supplied. Two quotations inside quotations are flagged in place: Ellicott's “Uzzah was a type” sentence is O. von Gerlach's (K&D quotes it too), and Benson's “even his justice is lovely” is Bishop Hall's. Gill's report that Obed-Edom had been poor comes from Josephus, Antiquities 7.4.2, and is extrabiblical.
What the sources disagree about. Obed-Edom's clan: Barnes makes him a Merarite son of Jeduthun; Cambridge and K&D make him a Korahite from Kohath; Ellicott weighs both and leans Kohathite; all agree he is a Levite of Gath-rimmon and not a Philistine. David's state in v. 8: Gill reads rebellion against God, K&D expressly denies it, Poole and Benson read grief, Pulpit reads a sense of injustice. Uzzah's Levitical standing: JFB and Benson assume it and build on it, Poole and Gill note it is not actually established by the text.
What this unit does not claim. No thread here is tiered verbal on a cross-Testament pair, since Greek and Hebrew share no Strong's numbers. The Perez-uzzah / Baal-perazim / Exodus 19 link and the Beth-shemesh link rest on the commentators' recorded observations, not on Verifier-computed lexeme overlap, and are tiered structural for that reason. The Uzza name-cluster and the Deuteronomy 28:42 tselatsal pair are both flagged: the first because a rare proper name shared between unrelated persons is not a verbal link, the second because the same rare root carries two different referents. The Mark comparison in the christ section is marked novel because no commentator in this apparatus draws it. ⚙ All synthesis in this unit is fallible and offered for testing.
✦ = 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)