The misled leader

and the teetering vessel of the Lord
^Study

David again brought together all the able young men of Israel—thirty thousand. He and all his men went to Baalah¹ in Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim on the ark. They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart with the ark of God on it, and Ahio was walking in front of it. David and all Israel were celebrating with all their might before the Lord, with castanets,² harps, lyres, timbrels, sistrums and cymbals.
When they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God.
Then David was angry because the Lord’s wrath had broken out against Uzzah, and to this day that place is called Perez Uzzah. ³
David was afraid of the Lord that day and said, “How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me?” He was not willing to take the ark of the Lord to be with him in the City of David. Instead, he took it to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. The ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite for three months, and the Lord blessed him and his entire household.
Now King David was told, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God.” So David went to bring up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing.
1Sam 6:1-12 (ESV)

1 Kiriath Jearim (see 1 Chron. 13:6)
2 some text says: 'with songs'
3 Perez Uzzah means 'outbreak against Uzzah'.

Pre

It's pretty obvious that at first glance, what's happening here looks amazing!
After years of oppression, years of exile, years of concrete danger to life and persecution, David's life was shaped by God to this very moment.
As for the people of Israel: After the great divisions among the tribes of Israel, a great day had come, and every man and woman knew: a new era was here, a new milestone had been reached, and a peaceful life had arrived in those days.
At last the city of David had received the ark, the presence of the Lord as promised, the unity of the echad with the shamah had taken place and everyone, everywhere enjoyed the great moment.
So did David. He was prepared and was about to carry the ark into the city in great triumph.. when the drama happened.
I, for example, have often wondered why. Why then? Why did the one who wanted to help die?
Not only is the story unique, but for the God-fearing person it immediately offers numerous lessons. We will examine it in detail below,
- What does the Ark mean for the believers - How such a tragedy can happen
- What lessons it can teach us for the New Covenant

About the Ark

The Ark of the Covenant was made according to God's plan as we read here:

They shall make an ark of acacia wood. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. 11 You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and outside shall you overlay it, and you shall make on it a molding of gold around it.
Ex 25:10-11
Bezalel made the ark of acacia wood. Two cubits and a half was its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. And he overlaid it with pure gold inside and outside, and made a molding of gold around it. And he cast for it four rings of gold for its four feet, two rings on its one side and two rings on its other side. And he made poles of acacia wood and overlaid them with gold and put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark. And he made a mercy seat of pure gold.^[i] Two cubits and a half was its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth. And he made two cherubim of gold. He made them of hammered work on the two ends of the mercy seat, one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with the mercy seat he made the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat were the faces of the Cherubim.
Exo 37:1-9

i. "Mercy Seat": the cover of the Ark. The word "lid or cover" also refers to the covering of sins, atonement. On the Great Day of Atonement, the high priest had to pour the sacrificial blood on the lid /cover of the Ark.

Serving the Ark

The ark is very holy. In its earthly days it was treated with great reverence and was the centre of Israelite worship and ritual.
In Israel, the priests and Levites are responsible for guarding and transporting the Holy Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant and for serving the Holy Place.
The ark was located in the inner sanctuary of the Holy Tabernacle (Exo 26) (a good description is found in Paul's letter to the Hebrews 9:3-4). It means that the Ark was permanently inside the Tabernacle, in the inner sanctuary or it was travelling with the people. A separate,dedicated tribe (clan) looked after the Holy Tent and the Ark. (For a full detailed description see Num 3:5 and Num 3:27-31)
No one approached or touched the Ark, as it represented the Presence of God among the people. In fact, the top of the ark was the royal seat of God's grace.
Only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies once a year (Heb 9:6-7), he could stand before the Holy One but before him he had to make sin offerings for himself and for the people (Heb 7) which had to be renewed every year since the high priest himself was mortal.

The Communion of the Ark

The Ark also means fellowship with God. Wherever the ark is, God camps or walks with Israel, because He established a covenant, an Alliance with man, and through this He has formed a nation. The old covenant had formally appointed people for holy services, but also had direct contact people to help the people before Gd. Many things are symbolical, some things are actually built and maintained for the relationship between God and man. Moses and God were in very close fellowship and we see that Moses' successor Joshua spent much of his youth with Moses and even in the Tabernacle (Exod 24:13; Exod 33:11; Deut 31:14; Num 27:18;)

A wandering life

At the time of the Old Testament/Exodus, the Jewish nation wandered, stopped, started again according to God's plan. Psalm 107:4-9 perfectly expresses this accompanying period of guardian deliverance in God's plan. It is important to understand that God has declared that He will walk with them all the way, wandering. On the road, the Ark of the Covenant was carried according to God's specific instructions to Moses. In Num 3:27 we read that the ark of the Covenant was to be carried by the Kohathite tribesmen, who were appointed by God for this purpose. To carry the ark, long poles were used, inserted through rings on the sides of the ark, ensuring that no one could touch it directly, as God was holy and the instruction in Num 4:15 was that such contact could lead to death.

The testimony of the Ark

The Ark is not only a symbol of the covenant bond, but also a chest of testimony. It contains the rod of Aaron (a sign of priestly authority) and the tablets of the Law() a sign of the covenant of the nation and of leadership authority, and the ark itself is the most important place because the presence of God, the royal seat of grace, is also placed there above the lid during the camping process (). The Ark is very holy and must be treated with dignity.
So, from a practical point of view, the message of the story is: it is the most noble responsibility of every king (faithful leader) to know the foundations of holiness and even the foundations of the bearing and dwelling of holiness. If the leaders have strong fellowship and Gd, this radiates around the nation helping many toward the strong fellowship with God.
One of God's names, YHVH Shammah, is a direct reference to heavenly fellowship with men, and our testimony is rooted in this. However, I should note here that the New Covenant is a much closer and higher covenant than the covenant with Moses and Israel. The testimony clause and the form of holiness are only earthly forerunners in this age of Israel, so all the formulas concerning the ark are invalid in our day(Col 2:20-22): we have a better covenant and a better High Priest Who is constantly interceding for us. This is central to the new covenant witness. We have the greatest high priest who is constantly interceding for us and lives with us by the given Holy Spirit. (Jn 14:16-18; 16:13-14) The Greek form: Immanuel also means God with us, among us - which, in view of the above, obviously refers to the community of believers, exclusively.

A Tabernacle – foretaste of the new Alliance

The Old Testament tabernacle is where God moved in and lived with his people. This tabernacle is a spiritual preview of Jesus Christ.
Surprisingly for many: in The New covenant Gd also tabernacled among us... The Apostle John recognized that in Jesus Christ was revealed the earthly tabernacle of God, the Holy Eternal God:
John 1:14 says, “the Word dwelt among us,” literally, “tabernacled among us,” which means, “he pitched a tent among us.” referring Jesus' earthly ministry and relationship with them.
The apostle Paul also has personal experience of Jesus the Christ. (Act 9:3-6) He also wrote about His totality - in human shape:
“in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col. 2:9).
The apostle John foreshadows the ultimate significance of tabernacling in his prophetic book. In Revelation 21:3-4, we see clearly that all "tabernacling together" is a foreshadowing of the final, great, heavenly community:

I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Rev 21:3-4

Having reviewed the history of the tabernacle and the community, let us now look at the conflict described in 2 Samuel 6. This is actually the conflict between David and the Lord...

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