1 Chronicles 13: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

David consults Israel's leaders and the whole assembly about bringing the ark of God back from Kiriath-jearim, and everyone agrees. The ark is moved on a new cart while David and all Israel celebrate with music. At the threshing floor of Chidon the oxen stumble, Uzza takes hold of the ark, and the LORD strikes him dead; David, angry and then afraid, leaves the ark at the house of Obed-edom, where it stays three months and the LORD blesses that household.

Claim by Claim

1. 13:1
   • David consulted with the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds.
   • David consulted with every leader.
2. 13:2
   • David spoke to the whole assembly of Israel.
   • David set a condition: if it seems good to them.
   • David set a condition: if it is from the LORD their God.
   • David proposed that they send word out to their brothers who remain in all the lands of Israel.
   • David proposed that they also send word to the priests and the Levites who are in their cities and their pasture lands.
   • David proposed this so that those people would gather to them.
3. 13:3
   • David proposed that they bring the ark of their God back to themselves.
   • David said they had not inquired of it in the days of Saul; the Hebrew leaves open whether the object of the inquiry is the ark or God.
4. 13:4
   • The whole assembly said to do so.
   • The matter was right in the eyes of all the people.
5. 13:5
   • David assembled all Israel.
   • The assembly extended from Shihor of Egypt to the entrance of Hamath.
   • The purpose was to bring the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim.
6. 13:6
   • David and all Israel went up to Baalah.
   • Baalah is Kiriath-jearim.
   • Kiriath-jearim belonged to Judah.
   • The purpose was to bring up from there the ark of God.
   • The ark is the ark of the LORD who is enthroned upon the cherubim.
   • The Name is called over the ark.
7. 13:7
   • They carried the ark of God on a new cart.
   • They brought the ark out of the house of Abinadab.
   • Uzza and Ahio drove the cart.
8. 13:8
   • David and all Israel celebrated before God with all their might.
   • They celebrated with songs.
   • They celebrated with harps.
   • They celebrated with lyres.
   • They celebrated with timbrels.
   • They celebrated with cymbals.
   • They celebrated with trumpets.
9. 13:9
   • They came to the threshing floor of Chidon.
   • Uzza put out his hand to take hold of the ark.
   • The oxen let the ark slip, or the oxen stumbled; the Hebrew does not settle which.
10. 13:10
    • The anger of the LORD burned against Uzza.
    • The LORD struck Uzza.
    • The LORD struck him because he had put out his hand to the ark.
    • Uzza died there before God.
11. 13:11
    • David was angry.
    • David was angry because the LORD had broken out in a breach against Uzza.
    • David called that place Perez-uzza.
    • The place is called Perez-uzza to this day.
12. 13:12
    • David was afraid of God that day.
    • David asked how he could bring the ark of God to himself.
13. 13:13
    • David did not move the ark to himself into the city of David.
    • David turned it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.
14. 13:14
    • The ark of God remained with the household of Obed-edom in his house.
    • The ark remained there three months.
    • The LORD blessed the house of Obed-edom.
    • The LORD blessed all that Obed-edom had.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

13:1

Israel's fighting force was organized in nominal units of a thousand and a hundred, rather like regiments and companies; the numbers are conventional labels for units, not exact head counts.

13:2

"The LORD" printed in capitals stands in for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants usually written YHWH. Jewish readers came to avoid pronouncing it, saying "Lord" instead, and English Bibles keep that substitution. The Levites were the tribe set apart for duties around the sanctuary, assisting the priests. Instead of a territory of their own they were given scattered towns, each with a ring of open pasture land around it for their livestock, what the King James calls "suburbs."

13:3

The ark was a gold-covered wooden chest, the most sacred object Israel possessed, holding the stone tablets of the covenant and regarded as the place where God was present with his people. It had been captured in battle by the Philistines, returned by them, and then left at Kiriath-jearim for roughly a generation. "We did not inquire of it" means they did not come to the ark to seek God's decisions, the usual way of putting a question to God through the priesthood. Some translators read the Hebrew instead as "we did not concern ourselves with it," that is, we neglected it.

13:5

Shihor is a waterway on the Egyptian frontier, and Lebo-hamath lies far north in the Beqa valley region. Naming the two together is a stock phrase for the whole country from one end to the other, the way "from coast to coast" works in English.

13:6

Baalah and Kiriath-jearim are two names for the same town, about nine miles west of Jerusalem; the writer gives the older name and then the current one. The cherubim were not infants with wings but powerful winged creatures; two of them, worked in gold, faced each other on the lid of the ark, and the space above the lid between them was pictured as God's throne. For something to be "called by his name" was a claim of ownership, the way a conquered city renamed after a king was thereafter his.

13:7

A cart was how the Philistines had sent the ark back after capturing it. Israel's own instructions were that the ark be lifted by poles slid through rings at its corners and carried on the shoulders of Levites, and that no one touch the chest itself.

13:8

In 1611 "played" meant made music and celebrated, with no suggestion of games. The instruments listed are a harp and a lyre, both stringed; the "timbrel" is a hand drum like a tambourine; and the cymbals and trumpets are much as they sound. This is a loud public procession, not a quiet religious ceremony.

13:9

A threshing floor was a flat, hard, open patch of ground (often bare rock on a rise where the wind could catch) where grain was trodden out by oxen and tossed in the air to separate it from the chaff. Every settlement had one, so they served as landmarks.

13:10

"Smote" in the King James simply means struck, and here it means struck dead. The law governing the ark warned the Levites who carried it that they must not touch the holy objects or they would die, so Uzza reaching out was crossing a boundary the text treats as absolute, even though his intention was to keep the ark from falling. "Before God" means right beside the ark itself.

13:11

The Hebrew word covers both anger and distress, so it is unclear whether David was furious or simply devastated; translators divide over it. Perez-uzza means "the breaking out against Uzza." "Broke out" is the image of a river bursting its banks or an army breaching a wall, a sudden violent rupture. "To this day" means the name was still in use when the writer was writing, centuries later.

13:13

The City of David was the fortified ridge of old Jerusalem that David had captured and made his capital. Gath was one of the five main Philistine cities, so "Gittite" ordinarily marks a foreigner; but there was also a Levite town called Gath-rimmon, and later chapters count Obed-edom among the Levites, so which is meant here is disputed.

13:14

Three months is not a random interval; the writer records it because what happened during those months, the visible prosperity of the household, is what convinces David to try the move again, this time carrying the ark the way the law prescribed.