The Ark Moves on Shoulders, and the Music Returns

“Prepared” is kun, a verb Chronicles keeps attaching to David, who later “prepared abundantly” for a temple he would not build (22:5). The tent is new; Moses’ tabernacle and its altar stayed at Gibeon (16:39), and 2 Chronicles 1:3–4 notes that the ark and the tabernacle were in two different places.

David is close to quoting Deuteronomy 10:8: “the LORD separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister unto him.” “None ought to carry” is literally “it is not for anyone to carry”, a flat exclusion.

2 Samuel 6:12 says David went to fetch the ark after hearing that the LORD had blessed Obed-edom’s household. Chronicles leaves that report out; here the second attempt follows from David’s own conclusion about the Levites. This is the third time all Israel has been gathered since chapter 11.

The priests and the Levites are summoned as two separate bodies, and the lists that follow keep them apart. The six Levite companies in verses 5–10 add up to eight hundred and sixty two men, a working force large enough to carry the ark in relays.

Kohath comes first because in Numbers 4:4–15 his family carried “the most holy things”, the ark among them, covered by the priests so the bearers never saw or touched them. Uriel’s hundred and twenty are the house that had the duty in the wilderness.

Merari’s company, two hundred and twenty, is almost twice Kohath’s, though Merari’s old task was the tabernacle’s boards and pillars. Asaiah the chief is the last man named in Merari’s line in 6:30, which places that genealogy in David’s own day.

A Joel of the Gershonites is later put over the treasures of the house of the LORD (26:22), probably the same man. Gershom’s hundred and thirty make the smallest of the three main Levite families in this muster.

Elizaphan was a son of Uzziel and prince of the Kohathites in the wilderness (Numbers 3:30). He and his cousin carried the bodies of Nadab and Abihu out of the camp (Leviticus 10:4). His descendants had become a family large enough to be counted separately, two hundred men.

Hebron was Kohath’s third son (6:2). Eliel’s eighty is the smallest company in the list. The Hebronites later had charge of the tribes east of the Jordan “for every matter pertaining to God, and affairs of the king” (26:30–32).

Uzziel was Kohath’s fourth son, and this Amminadab is a Levite, not the Amminadab of Judah whose daughter married Aaron (Exodus 6:23). Counting Elizaphan, Hebron and Uzziel, four of the six companies are Kohathite, the family that had always carried the ark.

Two chief priests stand side by side. Zadok descends from Eleazar (6:8), and Abiathar was the one priest who escaped Saul’s massacre at Nob and fled to David with the ephod (1 Samuel 22:20 and 23:6). The six Levite chiefs are named again, as if on a roll call.

To sanctify oneself meant washing, laundering one’s clothes and keeping from anything that caused impurity, as Israel did for three days before Sinai (Exodus 19:10–15). “The LORD God of Israel” gives the full title, used twice in three verses at this point.

The Hebrew is clipped: “because at the first it was not you”. The Levites had not been the bearers, and that is the fault David names. “Made a breach upon us” repeats the verb of Perez-uzza, but now the breach is “upon us”, not upon Uzza alone.

The same verb from verse 12, carried out word for word, and by both groups. At Hezekiah’s great Passover the book would note the opposite, that “the Levites were more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests” (2 Chronicles 29:34).

“Staves” here is motot, carrying poles or yoke bars, the word for the staff on which the spies bore the grapes of Eshcol between two men (Numbers 13:23). Exodus 25:13–15 calls the ark’s gilded poles badim, and ordered that they never be taken from the rings.

“Sounding” is mashmi’im, “making heard”, sound meant to carry. The psaltery is the nevel, a large harp or lyre; the harp is the kinnor, the lyre David played for Saul; the cymbals are bronze. This is the moment Chronicles gives as the origin of the temple choirs.

David tells the chiefs to appoint, and the Levites choose the leaders themselves. The three are the same men as in 6:33–44, one from each family: Heman of Kohath, Asaph of Gershom, Ethan of Merari. Kushaiah is the Kishi of 6:44.

“The second degree” is mishnim, the second rank. “Ben” simply means “son”, a name that has lost its partner, and in verse 20 Aziel appears in its place. Obed-edom, in whose house the ark had stayed, is now on the list of those who serve it.

The three leaders play the cymbals, the instruments that carry furthest and mark the beat, so the chief musicians set the time for everyone behind them. In 16:5 Asaph is again the one who “made a sound with cymbals”.

Eight players with psalteries. The same term, Alamoth, heads Psalm 46, a psalm “for the sons of Korah”. Aziel here is Jaaziel of verse 18; even within one chapter a name can be spelled two ways.

“To excel” is lenatseach, “to lead”, from the same root as “To the chief Musician”, lamenatseach, the heading of fifty five psalms. Sheminith appears in the titles of Psalms 6 and 12. Azaziah is a name not in the list of verse 18.

Chenaniah turns up again in 26:29, where he and his sons are put over “the outward business over Israel, for officers and judges”. A man known for skill in this procession was later given work outside the sanctuary altogether.

Berechiah is also the name of Asaph’s father in verse 17, and may be the same man. With Obed-edom and Jehiah in the next verse, there are two pairs of doorkeepers, which suggests one pair ahead of the ark and one behind, guarding it on the road.

Numbers 10:8 reserved the silver trumpets to “the sons of Aaron, the priests”. Seven priests with trumpets before the ark recalls Jericho, where seven priests with rams’ horns went before the ark around the city (Joshua 6:4). Obed-edom appears here as a doorkeeper, as well as among the harpists in verse 21.

Up to here the chapter calls it “the ark of God”. From this verse it becomes “the ark of the covenant of the LORD”, the name the book holds to the end of the chapter. Elders and captains, the lay leaders of 13:1, walk with the Levites this time.

2 Samuel 6:13 says that when the bearers had gone six paces, David sacrificed an ox and a fatling. Chronicles has seven bullocks and seven rams, the same large offering Balaam had built seven altars for (Numbers 23:1). The sacrifice came once it was clear the bearers could go on.

A “robe” is me’il, the word for the high priest’s robe in Exodus 28:31, here of fine linen. A linen ephod was the plain garment worn by the boy Samuel at Shiloh (1 Samuel 2:18) and by the eighty five priests Doeg killed at Nob (1 Samuel 22:18). David is dressed like the Levites around him.

The shout is teru’ah, the battle cry raised at Jericho (Joshua 6:20). When the ark came into the camp at Aphek, Israel gave a great shout, teru’ah, and was then defeated (1 Samuel 4:5). The cornet is the shofar, the ram’s horn. Six kinds of sound are listed in one verse.

Michal had once let David down through a window to escape Saul’s men (1 Samuel 19:12); now she watches him from one. Women at windows recur at bad moments: Sisera’s mother (Judges 5:28), Jezebel (2 Kings 9:30). Chronicles says “dancing”, meraqqed, skipping, where 2 Samuel 6:16 has “leaping and dancing”.