2 Sam. 6
It is not sufficient that the seat of the kingdom of David—or of Christ—be set up at Zion, the mountain of grace. God Himself desires to dwell there with His king forever (cf. Rev. 22:1,3). Thus David is entirely within the current of God's thoughts when he goes to seek the ark in order to bring it back to Jerusalem. God's glory finds no rest except in the place of grace. The ark, God's throne, is intimately associated with the throne of David, the throne of the Son of God. The Lord who up to this point had no permanent dwelling place because of the unfaithfulness of His people may now dwell with that same people because He desires to dwell with His anointed.
The king gathers together all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand, to go to get the ark (2 Sam. 6:1). This may appear unusual. When it is a matter of the Lord's battles we do not see men of God gathering their whole army together. It is rather the contrary. Gideon with three hundred men, Jonathan with a single man, together with so many other captains won most signal victories. God fought with them and what are few or many soldiers to Him? It may suit Him to test His entire people in battle-with Him it is not as with the nations. Numbers count for nothing in His victories.
When on the other hand it is a matter of giving testimony to the God who sits between the cherubim, of setting up the place where He is to be worshipped, all those who represent the strength of Israel are not too many. How little this is understood among the children of God! Do all the chosen men gather around Christ before the throne of God the Father to honor and worship Him? Does worship have more value in the sight of Christians than all the activity they carry out for Him, however blessed it may be? Many would make the Christian life consist only in fighting for the gospel—no doubt a blessed combat, but an activity for which it is not at all necessary to gather together "all the chosen men." We would soon see this degenerate into work based on human association—while worship would be ignored, neglected, unfamiliar. The gathering center of God's children would be despised and they would continue to be scattered as sheep which have no shepherd!
Such was not David's thought, thanks be to God. The object of his entire life as a wanderer, of all his afflictions, had been to arrive at this moment at which our chapter opens. We find proof of this in Psa. 132 to which we will return later.
The connections between chapters 5 and 6 are not limited to those we have mentioned. As a responsible king, David, despite his many failings was pleasing to God. The Lord did not hide His face from him. He loved David for his faithfulness, for the grace displayed in his ways, and for his humble and submitted spirit. As we have seen, He had taught him to join obedience to dependence. David understood these things when it was a matter of fighting the enemy. Would he understand them in the events about to unfold?
When the moment had come to gather the tribes of Israel around the ark, their divine center, what should David do? Consult the Lord. Even though in bringing back the ark he had God's mind, it was not for David to determine how to do this. Had he understood this he would have avoided serious chastening. Had he consulted the Lord and His Word he would have known in what manner he should bring the ark back to Jerusalem.
The Philistines had set the ark on a "new cart" to send it back to Israel's territory (1 Sam. 6:7). They had acted in ignorance, but God instead of expressing His disapproval had taken into account the fear that motivated them. Evidently David remembered this when he imitated the nations' way of bringing the ark back to the place it was meant to occupy. "They set the ark of God upon a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was upon the hill" (2 Sam. 6:3).
But although God might take the ignorance of the Philistines into consideration He will not tolerate a positive act of disobedience to His Word on part of those who belong to Him. The Levites had been expressly commanded to carry the ark as well as all the vessels of the sanctuary (Num. 4:15).
What David did ought to speak to the conscience of every child of God. Man has organized a system of will-worship according to his own ways and thoughts which are always opposed to God's thoughts. In God's eyes it is of greatest importance that His own obey Him when it comes to worship, the highest expression of the Christian life, as also in the minutest details of life, and God must deal with the disobedience of His children.
While David demonstrates a heart filled with piety toward God, he disobeys because he is ignorant of the bearing and consequences of his act; but David has no excuse, because he ought not to be ignorant of this. This is all the more striking as he was full of joy at the thought of finally giving His God the place due to Him. "David and all the house of Israel played before Jehovah on all manner of instruments made of cypress wood, with harps, and with lutes, and tambours, and with sistra, and with cymbals" (2 Sam. 6:5). Nothing was lacking in the expression of their joy—yet nevertheless something was missing. There were no trumpets: those silver trumpets which ought to have sounded when the ark set out (Num. 10:1-10; cf. Psa. 150 and 2 Sam. 6:15). It was only a detail, you may say, like the new cart; but this detail revealed a fact of serious significance: David had not taken the Word of God as the rule for his conduct.
In spite of this all the house of Israel rejoiced. There was much piety in this solemn ceremony but it was spoiled by human arrangement. This was of little importance for these rejoicing hearts, but it was of great importance for Him who had said: "To obey is better than sacrifice." There comes a time when man's meddling in the worship of God makes this worship limp in one way or another. "The oxen had stumbled" (2 Sam. 6:6), and naturally the men, thinking they ought to help, lent the support of their arms to this shaking system. They forgot that it is profane folly to want to help God. This was the problem of Uzzah, the son of Abinadab, who was the first, the chief agent of this transportation. He feels an entirely natural need to support what he had made and does not take into account that he is, as it were, laying his hand upon God. "When they came to Nachon's threshing floor, Uzzah reached after the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen had stumbled" (2 Sam. 6:6).
I am speaking here of the worship of God's children, but what should we add about the so-called worship of the world? The world does not only sin in a few particulars, for in its forms that appear to be divine worship there is not even a shadow of reality. Nevertheless we do not see God's judgment falling on this state of things. The reason is simple: God is absent. It was otherwise with Uzzah: "The anger of Jehovah was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God" (2 Sam. 6:7). His judgment was immediate, for when it is a matter of children of God whom the Lord has set in a place of testimony, He does not allow them to introduce any human element into worship without causing them to feel His judgment.
What happened to David here also happened to the Corinthians who had introduced a carnal element at the Lord's table. God could not tolerate such a thing. "On this account many among you are weak and infirm, and a good many are fallen asleep" (1 Cor. 11:30). God was a consuming fire for them, as well as for Uzzah, and we must remember this. David was forced to understand this. The Lord had made a breach before him against the Philistines at Baal-perazim; now God's judgment makes a breach against him. "He called that place Perez-uzzah [breach of Uzzah]" (2 Sam. 6:8).
The king's first feeling is that of vexation: "David was indignant, because Jehovah had made a breach." This is understandable but it is not excusable. Here is a man full of desire to serve the Lord, of giving Him the honor due Him; here he is, full of joy and praise; he has arranged everything in order to re-establish the worship of his God—he fails in one detail and the wrath of God blazes against him! David's heart was more godly than ours. What a wound to his affections! How can God judge me in this way—he might have said—when He sees my intention to glorify Him!
In 2 Sam. 6:9 a second feeling arises in the king's heart, a feeling no more excusable than the first. "David was afraid of Jehovah that day." He carries the ark aside. "How shall the ark of Jehovah come to me? So David would not bring the ark of Jehovah home unto himself into the city of David; but David carried it aside into the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite" (2 Sam. 6:9-10). Because of this discipline David regarded the Lord as a pitiless judge and was vexed with Him. At this moment he forgot that it was a God of grace who had chosen him, led him, kept him, made him victorious, and who had given him the kingdom on Mount Zion. He cannot understand that grace can judge him, and that the closer one is to God, the less God tolerates in His own anything that dishonors Him. But God is about to prove to him that others will profit from that of which David had deprived himself to his great loss. The ark's presence is a source of abundant blessings for the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. And Jehovah blessed Obed-Edom and all his household" (2 Sam. 6:11).
At last David had learned his lesson! He is told what had happened (2 Sam. 6:12) and we see that these things were fruitful for his conscience. In 1 Chron. 15:11-13 concerning this same incident, "David called for...the priests, and for the Levites... and he said to them...Hallow yourselves, ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of Jehovah the God of Israel to the place that I have prepared for it. For because ye did it not at the first, Jehovah our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought Him not after the due order." David realized that this breach had been made because of his disobedience and that holiness can be found only in the path of obedience.
When the ark had been set on the new cart the priests and the Levites had no need to sanctify themselves, but when they carried it themselves they must do so; they could not come into contact with the objects of the sanctuary without self-judgment.
Thus the priests occupy the place that God has assigned to them, but what is more, David enters into an order of things that is in absolute conformity to God's thoughts regarding worship. "It was so, that when they that bore the ark of Jehovah had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatted beast" (2 Sam. 6:13). David makes sacrifice the very center of this worship. The first time (astonishingly enough) they had forgotten the sacrifices! The cart (notice the importance of one omitted detail) had no need to stop, whereas when the priests and Levites carried the ark, pauses during which sacrifices were offered were necessary.
And the trumpets! And joy! And David rejoicing with all his might before the Lord! The king was clothed with a linen ephod (2 Sam. 6:14), the distinctive garment of the priests. Here we see him once more become a type of Christ in His future glory. There is a bit of Melchisedek in the person of David as he is presented to us here. Here we have kingship united to priesthood. Blessing goes up from the people to God by David's mouth, and blessing comes down from God upon all the people through His mediator (2 Sam. 6:17-18).
"David danced before Jehovah with all his might" (2 Sam. 6:14). He made himself ridiculous; at least that is what Michal, Saul's daughter, felt and said when she saw her husband forgetting his dignity that he might exalt the Lord alone. Often the world judges the worship given to God by His children to be ridiculous; and the more it is according to God the more those who offer it will be despised. This is because the worshipper makes no account of himself. "We... worship by the Spirit of God," says the apostle, "and boast in Christ Jesus, and do not trust in flesh" (Phil. 3:3). David in himself was nothing; he was vile: "I will make myself yet more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight" (2 Sam. 6:22). This cannot suit the world, but thanks be to God, there are simple souls who understand this abasement and esteem it an honor when the Lord is concerned: "And of the handmaids that thou halt spoken of, of them shall I be had in honor."
David danced before the Lord and did it for Him, forgetting himself so that God might be glorified. He divested himself of his royal dignity. David was nothing more than a simple worshipper, full of joy in the presence of the Lord of hosts who is seated between the cherubim and who had come to make His dwelling forever in the midst of His people.
"They brought in the ark of Jehovah, and set it in its place, in the midst of the tent that David had prepared for it" (2 Sam. 6:17). All the people are blessed and are satisfied. Michal, left in her haughty solitude, to her shame is stricken with barrenness until her death. From that time on she is a stranger to David. The character of this daughter of Saul reflected that of her father. In Saul there was hatred; in Michal there was contempt for the Lord's anointed. There can he no more fellowship between her and the king. Typically speaking, He abandons the daughter of this fallen race to judgment while he, the chosen one of the Lord, is established as prince over His people Israel.