Chapter 6

The Ark is moved to Jerusalem.  It takes two tries.  Uzzah is killed when he touches the Ark to steady it.  David is angry at God about this, and also this verse:

9 And David was afraid of the LORD that day, and he said, "How can the ark of the LORD come to me?" [2Sa 6:9 ESV] 

The story here is very similar to the previously read version.  I don't see many differences at all.

2021 - I note that David is not only angry, but decides to just leave the ark where it is.  He sees God's action as sort of an "effect without cause", and refuses to flirt further with unpredictable consequences.  He just goes on home, sort of  goes home to pout.  David is just a man, just like the rest of us.  He set out to do a good thing, and bring the Ark of God to the City of God, and then there's this mishap - no one's fault really - and David decides to just forget it.  Let God get His own ark home if he wants it home!

2023 - I had not noticed before that the cart drivers were the sons of Abinadab, who had apparently been keeping the ark since the Philistines brought it back , per this verse:  1 And the men of Kiriath-jearim came and took up the ark of the LORD and brought it to the house of Abinadab on the hill. And they consecrated his son Eleazar to have charge of the ark of the LORD. [1Sa 7:1 ESV].  So the Ark had been kept safe here at Abinadab's for quite some time, and his sons "volunteer" to help move it.  It would have made sense for them to do so.  And then one of them, Uzzah, dies trying to take care of the ark when the oxen stumble.  No wonder David was upset.  And yet...you DO NOT TOUCH the ark!  God takes care of what is His.  And wasn't there a precedent for this?  I think someone else had also died for touching the ark.  Maybe not though...

One might say the lesson was that we are not to usurp God's sovereignty over what is his own...but that would be everything.  We could say don't interfere with God's plan, but everything that happens is His plan.  Only the high priest could touch/care for the items in the Holy of Holies.  The requirement was clear, the penalty was clear.  So if there is a lesson here, is it about fearing God, and fearing the consequences of not fearing God.  Uzzah may have been rewarded in heaven for taking care of the ark for so long, but on earth, he broke a rule that required his death.

After three months, they try a second time and get it to the tent David prepared for it.  The details of this second attempt are not as complete as the other version. 

2021 - This happens after David hears that the place where he left the Ark is being blessed by its presence.  Perhaps this tells him that God is no longer angry, either about Uzzah or about David's pouting.  So David once again moves the Ark.  I suspect everyone involved is far more respectful of the Ark this time. 

The Ark is brought to a tent David had prepared for it.  So the  tabernacle must have been abandoned and left in Shiloh at this time.   Surely the temple utensils and such were moved.  They almost had to be.   This verse:

17 And they brought in the  ark of the LORD and set it in its place, inside the tent that David had  pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings  before the LORD. [2Sa 6:17 ESV]

2021 - How was it ok for David to make these offerings?  He was not a Levite.  We can infer that he was still wearing that linen ephod mentioned in vs 14, which identified him somewhat as part of the priesthood...but he was not a Levite. (I see that this bothered me before in the comment below.)

As they are coming in, Michal, Saul's daughter now David's wife, sees him dancing before the ark and she is offended by this.

The Ark is delivered to the tent and this says David offered the sacrifices.  I suspect that he ordered them, and  the priests carried them out.  David offered them in the sense that they  were "from" David, not physically burnt by him personally.  No MSB  comment on it though.  David gives everyone - man and woman - some bread, some meat and some raisins.  A very generous thing to feed the whole city and those from outside the city who were in attendance. 

After making the offerings, David goes home.

It does say, clearly, that David was wearing a linen ephod as he danced  before the Ark.  He was not naked.  God wouldn't have stood for that.   He had required that the priests always wear undergarments, so as not to  offend God. 

Michal "despised him in her heart", that is, despised David, for his  dancing in public.  It was more about him donning priestly attire  instead of royal robes as he went before the Ark.  She believed he had  demeaned himself.  The MSB note says she thought the dancing was beneath  the dignity of a King because it "exposed him in some ways". 

It reads as if Michal meets David at the door as he gets home.  She confronts David for "uncovering" himself before the people, especially the female servants.  The MSB note says this refers to him wearing priestly instead of royal attire.  Her words do NOT mean that David was dancing nude in the streets.  David says it was before the Lord, and that God chose him as King, over Michal's father.  There is this:

22 I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes. But by the female servants of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honor." [2Sa 6:22 ESV]

David is not ashamed, and in fact, says it is her attitude that is the problem.  She has no more children after this incident.  It doesn't say she was made barren so it could mean that David never slept with her again after this.  Per MSB note, whatever the case was, she had no children, and therefore no descendants from Saul that could make a claim to the throne of David.  (But what about Mephibosheth, who comes later?  Disqualified because he is lame maybe?)

MSB says that David was hoping his house would be blessed as Obed-edom's had while the Ark was there.  Michal's attitude aborted that blessing until 2 Sam. 7:29.