Commentaria in II Regum (II Samuelis)
Chapter 6. Synopsis of the Chapter
David religiously transfers the ark of the covenant with solemn pomp from the house of Abinadab to the house of Obededom; thence, verse 14, to Sion, playing and leaping before it: wherefore his wife Michol mocks him, verse 20, but David by reproving her restrains her.
1. And David gathered together again all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. 2. And David arose and went with all the people that were with him, of the men of Juda, to bring the ark of God, upon which the name of the Lord of hosts is invoked, who sitteth upon the cherubims over it. 3. And they laid the ark of God upon a new cart: and took it out of the house of Abinadab, who was in Gabaa: and Oza and Ahio the sons of Abinadab drove the new cart. 4. And when they had taken it out of the house of Abinadab, who was in Gabaa, Ahio, who guarded the ark of God, went before the ark. 5. But David and all Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of wood, on harps, and lutes, and timbrels, and cornets, and cymbals. 6. And after they came to the threshing-floor of Nachon, Oza put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it, because the oxen kicked and made it lean aside. 7. And the indignation of the Lord was enkindled against Oza, and he struck him for his rashness: and he died there before the ark of God. 8. And David was grieved because the Lord had struck Oza, and the name of that place was called, The striking of Oza, to this day. 9. And David was afraid of the Lord that day, saying: How shall the ark of the Lord come to me? 10. And he would not have the ark of the Lord brought in to himself into the city of David: but he caused it to be carried into the house of Obededom the Gethite. 11. And the ark of the Lord abode in the house of Obededom the Gethite three months: and the Lord blessed Obededom and all his household. 12. And it was told king David that the Lord had blessed Obededom, and all that he had, because of the ark of God. So David went and brought away the ark of God out of the house of Obededom into the city of David with joy: and there were with David seven choirs, and a calf for victim. 13. And when they that carried the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a ram. 14. And David danced with all his might before the Lord: and David was girded with a linen ephod. 15. And David and all the house of Israel brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord with joyful shouting, and with sound of trumpet. 16. And when the ark of the Lord was come into the city of David, Michol the daughter of Saul looking out through a window, saw king David leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart. 17. And they brought in the ark of the Lord, and set it in its place in the midst of the tabernacle, which David had pitched for it: and David offered holocausts and peace offerings before the Lord. 18. And when he had made an end of offering holocausts and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts. 19. And he distributed to all the multitude of Israel, both men and women, to every one, a cake of bread, and a piece of roasted beef, and a flagon of wine: and all the people departed every one to his house. 20. And David returned to bless his own house: and Michol the daughter of Saul coming out to meet David, said: How glorious was the king of Israel today, uncovering himself before the handmaids of his servants, and was naked, as if one of the buffoons should be naked. 21. And David said to Michol: Before the Lord, who chose me rather than thy father, and than all his house, and commanded me to be ruler over the people of the Lord in Israel, 22. I will both play and make myself meaner than I have done: and I will be little in my own eyes: and with the handmaids of whom thou speakest, I shall appear more glorious. 23. Therefore Michol the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death.
in Sion, both that David might have the ark with him, and before it religiously worship and invoke God; and that the ark and God in it might be the more honoured, as being in the royal city; and that he might escape the greatest calamities which God had sent upon Israel because of the neglect of the ark in Gabaa, says Josephus, although Abulensis denies it.
UPON WHICH THE NAME OF THE LORD OF HOSTS IS INVOKED.—It is a Hebraism, as if to say: Which is called the ark of the Lord, who is said to sit upon the wings of the Cherubim, or upon the propitiatory, so that he has the ark as the footstool of his feet; because from there an Angel in an assumed body, out of the cloud, gave oracles and responses in God’s stead. So Abulensis, Vatablus and others.
3. AND THEY LAID THE ARK OF GOD UPON A NEW CART.—It was an error of David from ignorance, or rather a sin of the Levites; for the ark ought not to be carried on a cart, but borne on the shoulders of the priests or Levites, as is clear from Numbers 4:15 and following.
AND TOOK IT OUT OF THE HOUSE OF ABINADAB, WHO WAS IN GABAA.—“Gabaa” was a place or hill in the city of Cariathiarim: for there was the house of Abinadab and the ark, as is clear from 1 Kings chap. 7, verse 1.
DROVE (led, conducted) THE CART—Oza and Ahio, brothers, because Abinadab their father was already dead, as is gathered from this place.
6. THEY CAME TO THE THRESHING-FLOOR OF NACHON.—So the Hebrews, Aquila, Angelomus and others, though the corrected Roman Septuagint has Machor, for which 1 Paralipomenon chap. 13, verse 9, reads Chidon, because there Josue, chap. 7, verse 18 [sic], placed his shield with which he routed the enemy, says St. Jerome in the Traditions; or because Nachon was the name of the man and master of the threshing-floor, who was called by another name Chidon.
OZA PUT FORTH HIS HAND TO THE ARK OF GOD, AND TOOK HOLD OF IT, BECAUSE THE OXEN KICKED.—Oza was not a priest, as Angelomus and the Gloss will have it, but a Levite, as St. Jerome teaches, epistle to Sabinian; St. Gregory, book V of the Morals, chap. 10; the author of the Wonders of Holy Scripture, book II, chap. 12; Josephus, Serarius and others, and this is sufficiently clear from 1 Paralipomenon chap. 26, verse 4 [sic]. Wherefore it is strange that D. Soto in IV, dist. 12, Question 3, whom Sanchez favours, asserts that Oza was not a Levite but a layman.
THE OXEN KICKED,—that is, by kicking they seemed about to throw the ark to the ground; the Septuagint, the calf bent it aside; the Chaldee, the oxen had pushed it forward; Vatablus, they turned it aside. R. Kimchi, from R. Jona, thinks that the oxen, on account of the holiness of the ark, were deprived of strength and began to fail and tire, so that their limbs and joints seemed dislocated, loosened and divided, because not oxen but Levites ought to carry the ark on their shoulders. But in book I of Paralipomenon chap. 13, verse 9, another cause is given, where it is said: “For the ox being wanton had made it lean a little aside.”
7. AND THE INDIGNATION (that is, the Lord was exceedingly angry and indignant) OF THE LORD WAS ENKINDLED, AND HE STRUCK HIM FOR HIS RASHNESS.—Thou wilt ask why Oza was slain by God, when he was steadying the tottering ark, which was a religious office? R. Solomon answers that he was struck on account of the sin of David, who had placed the ark on a cart. But this is improbable. Again, Theodoret says that he was slain for some previous sin unknown and hidden to us, especially because, being in such a state, he dared to touch the ark, says the author of the Wonders of Holy Scripture. But others assign a definite sin; yet different ones differently. First, St. Jerome, epistle 48, gives this, that Oza did not carry the ark on his shoulders but conveyed it on a cart. Others add that he did it in perverse imitation of the Philistines, of which book I, chaps. 6 and 7. So Theodoret, Procopius, Lyranus. Second, others in Abulensis say that he touched the ark on that day on which in the preceding night he had been with his wife, and so was unclean and irregular; for the priests of the Gentiles also, when sacrificing, had to be chaste, as Macrobius attests, book I of the Saturnalia, chap. 22. Third, that he touched it without first examining and purging his conscience, says Pacian in his Paranesis. Fourth, others with Abulensis think that he was struck for irreverence, because he touched the ark irreverently, and that without necessity; for the kicking of the oxen was slight, for as is said in 1 Paralipomenon 13: “The ox, &c., had made it lean a little aside.” The Rabbis add, or rather feign, that the ark rather carried than was carried. Fifth, others say that he touched the ark when he was not clothed with the Ephod and sacred vestments. Sixth, and more truly: that Oza was not a priest but a Levite; and only priests were permitted to touch the ark, as Josephus expressly asserts, who was a priest and therefore very skilled in the law, book VII of the Antiquities, chap. 4; and it is clearly expressed in Numbers chap. 4, verse 15, and chap. 16 [sic], where the priests are commanded to wrap the ark in a veil and to put the poles through the corners of the ark, lest the Levites bearing the ark on their shoulders should touch it, and that under penalty of death. And this is what is said: “He struck him for his rashness.” So Josephus and Ribera, book III On the Temple, chap. 3. Serarius adds that Oza touched the bare ark: for although it was covered with veils, these veils were not bound together, but laid on so that they were moved and fanned this way and that by the wind or the shaking of the cart. When therefore the oxen kicked, they bent the coverings to one side, and so Oza, running up in imprudence and heedless zeal, touched the bare part of the ark. For to this end the priests ought to have been called and employed, who seem not to have been present, since none are named here; and David sufficiently hints at this, 1 Paralipomenon chap. 15, verse 13: hence Angelomus and the Gloss say that he touched the ark presumptuously and heedlessly. Salvian, book VI On Providence: “Oza, he says, that Levite of God, was disobliging in the very duty itself, who presumed what was not commanded.”