There’s an interesting story from early in David’s reign as king that takes place in both 1 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 13-15. After securing a new capital city, one of King David’s first recorded acts was to defeat the Philistines, retrieve the ark of God, and begin the important process of putting it in the new capital so God’s presence and worship would be at the center of Israel’s kingdom and life. David admonished the priests and people for not prioritized seeking God by seeking the ark in the days of Saul (1 Chronicles 13:3).
David’s intentions were good. He put God’s glory above his own. He desired the presence of God among His people and the worship of God to be central to everything else Israel did. Unlike most rulers, David isn’t seeking praise or fanfare; he wants God to be praised.
The king assembled thousands of men for this significant moment in Israel’s history and David’s reign. It would be a ten-mile march, lined with people celebrating. “And David and all Israel were celebrating before God with all their might, with song and lyres and harps and tambourines and cymbals and trumpets” (1 Chronicles 13:8).
When Good Intentions Aren’t Enough
However, the narrators of both 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles include an important detail. When David and the priests moved the ark of God, they did it the way the Philistines had (1 Samuel 6:7). They placed the ark on the back of a cart pulled by oxen. It was a “new” cart, likely made ceremonially clean and custom fit for the job.
The problem is they disobeyed a direct command of God. Numerous passages in the Law gave clear guidelines on how the ark of the covenant should be moved. It wasn’t to be carried on a cart or pulled by animals. It was to be carried by Levites who lifted it on poles (Exodus 25:14-15; Numbers 4:15; 7:8-9; Deuteronomy 31:9). It was also meant to be covered as it was moved and not touched or seen.
Despite their zeal and intentions during the processional, their ignorance or rejection of God’s commands started them off on the wrong track. The priests and the king should have known God’s Word. But either no one knew God’s instructions or no one spoke up. They thought having the right intentions was enough. But it wasn’t. God cares about our full obedience and not just our good intentions.
Eventually the oxen stumbled and David’s nephew, Uzzah, reached out his hand to steady the ark rather than see it fall over. While it’s understandable that Uzzah wanted to keep the ark from toppling off the cart, he still disobeyed God’s command not to touch the ark. We don’t know all the motives behind Uzzah’s actions, but we’re told that God “broke out” against Uzzah and put him to death (just like He had broken out against the Philistines in 2 Sam. 5:20).
A Dead Person and A Dead Party
Talk about killing the vibe. David had gathered many people for this festive celebration to honor God and reorient the kingdom around Him. They were halfway into the expedition and God struck Uzzah down. You can just imagine the shouting, singing, and musical instruments coming to a screeching halt. After the initial gasp and the whispers spreading the news, silence took over. David’s royal carnival became a real catastrophe. The morning papers would be rough. “All the king’s oxen, and all David’s men, couldn’t bring Uzzah back to life again.”
What could David do at this point? How do you restart things after God rained on the parade by putting someone to death?
You can imagine the embarrassment and confusion David must have felt. Maybe he thought, “If this is what happens when we mess with the ark, and it’s likely to happen again as we travel the next few miles, should we dare to even finish this journey and bring it to Jerusalem?” The narrator tells us that David was “angry” and “afraid” (2 Samuel 6:8-9). He was frustrated by Uzzah’s death and fearful that they might do the wrong thing again and incur the justice of God. John Woodhouse explains: “David did not understand what the Lord had done and therefore what God might do next. The men of Beth-shemesh had asked, ‘Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?’ (1 Samuel 6:20). David’s question was essentially the same: ‘How can the ark of the Lord come to me?’ (v. 9).”[1]
But David was learning something about God. David and the people acted too casually with the ark of God’s presence. They ignored or overlooked God’s commands in how to transport it. They were guided by what they saw the Philistines do instead of God’s instructions. Then they presumed upon God in taking the ark so lightly as to touch it. They failed to fear and obey God. They minimized God’s holiness and presumed upon His mercy. They set aside God’s prescription for how He was to be worshipped.
Proverbs 19:2 says that zeal—a good thing—without knowledge is a bad thing. The first two commandments make it clear we’re not to worship false gods, but we’re also not to worship the true God in false ways or whatever way makes sense to us or is popular in our day. False worship, or idolatry, includes worshipping the right God in the wrong way.
If David’s kingdom was unfaithful in this initial matter, they would likely be unfaithful in later things. If David began his reign by neglecting God’s Law, then his kingdom wouldn’t be blessed (Deuteronomy 17:18-20). If David was to be a faithful servant to God, he must be taught by God the need to fear and obey God.[2]
Going Back to the Book
Because David didn’t know what to do, he ended the celebration and sent everyone home. What a tragic end to a party that had such promise. Instead of placing the ark in the city of David, it was placed in the home of Obed-edom. Over the next three months, Obed-edom experiences the blessing of God because the ark of God’s presence is in his house (2 Sam. 6:11).
We can shake our finger at David for a moment. He should have known better. We don’t know if he did or didn’t know the requirements for transporting the ark, but he should have. This was literally the job description of Israel’s king (Deuteronomy 17:14-20).
David was not immune to mistakes, even big ones. He’s a sinner through and through. He made boneheaded decisions and sometimes allowed fear to drive his actions. But what is noteworthy about David is his willingness to learn from his mistakes. Instead of doubling down, justifying his actions, blaming others, or being overwhelmed by shame, David humbly received God’s correction. David hears and heeds the lesson God teaches him.
This not only happens when he mishandled the ark of the covenant, but David’s responded with an openness to correction when he sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah (2 Samuel 11-12), when Abigail intervened and restrained David from sinning in anger (1 Samuel 25), as well as when he took an unlawful census (2 Samuel 24). When God’s prophets rebuked David (2 Samuel 12, 24), he responded with humble confession and heartfelt repentance.
Part of what makes David great is that he was sensitive to conviction (1 Samuel 24:5; 2 Samuel 24:10) and open to rebuke when he did wrong. And the story of him failing to heed God’s instructions on how to move the ark, but then being corrected and guided by God’s Word, offers us another great example of how to walk with God.
The book of 1 Chronicles gives us insight into how David spent the three months following the celebration gone wrong.
“Then David said that no one but the Levites may carry the ark of God, for the Lord had chosen them to carry the ark of the Lord and to minister to him forever. 3 And David assembled all Israel at Jerusalem to bring up the ark of the Lord to its place, which he had prepared for it…
Then David summoned the priests Zadok and Abiathar, and the Levites Uriel, Asaiah, Joel, Shemaiah, Eliel, and Amminadab, 12 and said to them, ‘You are the heads of the fathers’ houses of the Levites. Consecrate yourselves, you and your brothers, so that you may bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel, to the place that I have prepared for it. 13 Because you did not carry it the first time, the Lord our God broke out against us, because we did not seek him according to the rule.’ 14 So the priests and the Levites consecrated themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel. 15 And the Levites carried the ark of God on their shoulders with the poles, as Moses had commanded according to the word of the Lord.” (1 Chron. 15:2-3, 11-15)
After Uzzah was killed and the ark was set aside in a temporary location, David returned to God’s Word. He realizes they hadn’t done things according to God’s instructions. He read the Law and learned what was the “rule” according to which they should move the ark (1 Chronicles 15:13). He ditched the oxen and carts. He assembled the Levites and had the ark moved “according to the word of the LORD” (1 Chronicles 15:15).
Learning the Lesson God Has for Us
I love that David wasn’t defeated by his failures, but he also didn’t dismiss them. He owned his failures, but he also learned from them. When he was unsure what to do, he went back to the Word to learn what he should do. And he did so with a heart open to receiving rebuke and correction. David doesn’t justify his actions. He admits their wrongdoing and turns from it to obedience to God’s commands. He adds knowledge alongside his zeal.
Kevin DeYoung writes, “I believe David’s greatness was simply this: for as much as he sinned he never failed to own up to his sin. I can’t find a single instance where David was rightly rebuked for his failings where he then failed to heed the rebuke… David was a man after God’s own heart because he hated sin but loved to forgive it.”[3]
Just a couple chapters earlier, David wanted Israel to seek God where they had failed to seek him before (1 Chronicles 13:3). What a great desire on David’s heart. But they “did not seek him according to the rule” (1 Chronicles 15:13). We need both. We need to seek God, but we also need to seek God the way He demands. We need to worship God, not according to what we think it should like, but according to what God commands. We need to not just have good intentions, but we need the knowledge of God found in His Word and we need obedience to what God has said.
David had demolished the pagan idols of the Philistines (2 Samuel 5:21), but he failed to recognize and raze the more subtle idols in the hearts of Israel. He needed a little more fear of God in his life to help him follow God fully, and this series of events helped David better fear and follow God.
God is good, but He is not tame. God draws near and is to be considered our Father (if we’re in Christ), but He’s also the transcendent God whose name is to be hallowed. God is merciful and just. We should never neglect the intimacy we can have with Him and the boldness to come into His presence, nor should we fail to be awed and amazed by Him.
Most of us grow a little too casual in our approach to God over time. We can take credit for what He’s done. We can neglect His Word or the gathering of His people to worship Him. We can even think small thoughts of Him and need our vision of God expanded and elevated. That’s what Scripture does. It reminds us of who God is and who we are. It keeps our view of God balanced or whole so that we don’t fall into a ditch of seeing God as too severe or lacking severity. We should not be afraid of God, but we should fear and respect God. We can run into His arms anytime, but we also should fall on our knees at times.
Like David, when should be open to correction. We should humbly own our failures and learn from them. When we don’t know what we did wrong, or what to do next, we should go back to the drawing board of Scripture and ask God to teach us. Then we should obey.
David teaches us how to learn from our mistakes by returning to God’s Word and allowing the Scriptures to guide us back into a path of obedience and wisdom. David shows us the need for humility and the beauty of a broken spirit that receives correction and redirection from the Lord. And David shows us what it looks like to repent of our sin (instead of minimizing it), to cling to God’s grace to us in our sin, and how to get right back up so we can follow and obey God.
ENDNOTES
[1] John Woodhouse, 2 Samuel: Your Kingdom Come, ed. R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 182.
[2] For the importance and centrality of the “fear of God” to David’s reign, and how it was missing in Saul’s reign, see David M. Cook, “The King’s Fear of the Lord as a Theme in the Books of Samuel,” Themelios, Vol. 45: Issue 3. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/the-kings-fear-of-the-lord-as-a-theme-in-the-books-of-samuel/
[3] Kevin DeYoung, “What Made David Great,” 1/18/2011, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/what-made-david-great/
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