We will back up for a moment and begin with a verse from yesterday's study because it makes a smoother transition into today's portion of Chapter 6. "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, harps, lyres, timbrels, sistrums and cymbals." (2 Samuel 6:3-5)
Who is this Abinadab? Abinadab is a very common name in the Bible; for example, David had a brother named Abinadab and King Saul had a son named Abinadab. But he is neither of these men. The only thing we're told about the Abinadab of Chapter 6 is that the ark was brought from his house, so he must be a man who resided at Kiriath-Jearim where the ark has been housed for several decades. The Bible doesn't mention him accompanying his sons as they set out with the ark to travel to Jerusalem so I assume he is too elderly or too ill of health to make the journey or else he is already deceased.
Because the ark is being transported on a cart pulled by oxen, a mishap occurs. The oxen stumble while traveling across a threshing floor. Threshing floors were where the wheat was separated from the chaff and this means a lot of dust and debris were in the path of these animals. I am not sure why the Ark of the Covenant was dragged on a cart through a threshing floor unless they were trying to travel in as straight a line as possible to make the journey quicker; otherwise I imagine they'd have gone around this obstacle. When the oxen stumble, the cart sways scarily to the side. Ahio is walking in front of the cart guiding the oxen and is not in a position to do what his brother Uzzah, who is walking right beside of the cart, does. When Uzzah sees the oxen stumble and sees the cart totter, he reaches for the ark in fear that it will slide off the cart. When he makes contact with the ark, he loses his life. "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." (2 Samuel 6:6-7) The Lord warned the people in Numbers 4:15 that no one other than the priests could touch the sacred objects of the tabernacle without dying. Uzzah is almost certainly a descendant of Aaron (a Levite) but not all Levites were priests and it seems clear by the consequences he faces that he is not a priest.
On the surface it seems as if Uzzah's touching of the ark is an innocent mistake, that he just automatically reaches to steady it when he sees the cart totter. And I do think his thoughts were only on protecting the ark and that he didn't intend to show disrespect to the Lord. But if the ark had been regarded with the proper reverence over the past several decades, not only wouldn't it have been placed on a cart but it wouldn't have entered Uzzah's mind to touch it, not even in a moment where he scarcely has time to think at all. I think one of the main problems is that he grew up with the ark in his household. Having it in a private home instead of in a tabernacle or temple probably led to some feelings of familiarity toward it. I don't know whether it was kept where he could have laid eyes on it (with or without its coverings) but having it in a private home must have contributed to a tendency to regard it as a more common object than if it had been housed in a sacred location. Having it in the home probably also led to Uzzah having a proprietary attitude toward it---a sense of ownership or a sense of having some sort of rights in regard to the ark---and this may have caused him to think nothing would happen if he touched it. He might have assumed the Lord would overlook this infraction due to who he is: the son of the man who gave a home to the ark for many years. He could have viewed himself as the exception to the rule without even really knowing he had these thoughts.
Moving the ark by the wrong method put people in danger, both physically and spiritually. If Uzzah had been able to handle the ark and get away with it, it might have encouraged people to take a more casual attitude toward the Lord. But it's imperative for the ark to be treated as a holy object because it represents a holy God. If we start getting too chummy with the Lord we'll stop regarding Him as holy as we ought to regard Him. Of course He loves us and wants to be a father and a friend to us but at all times we have to remain aware how utterly and indescribably and unimaginably different He is from us. If we get too familiar and chummy with Him we will start thinking He's like us and in our minds we'll pull Him down to our level. Then we'll regard Him with less reverence and we'll be less likely to obey Him. It's for our own good that we reverence the Lord because when we disobey Him we make a mess. We bring hardships into our lives that didn't have to be there when we disobey Him. There are already enough hardships to contend with in this fallen world without bringing additional ones on ourselves.
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