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“When they came to the threshing floor of Chidon, Uzza put out his hand to hold the ark, because the oxen nearly upset it. And the anger of the Lord burned against Uzza, so He struck him down because he put out his hand to the ark; and he died there before God.” 1 Chronicles 13:9-10
I wanted to write about this story because it has stayed with me for days since reading it. It’s in 1 Chronicles 13 -15.
Saul is dead and David is bringing back the ark to Jerusalem from Kiriath-jearim, which is where it had been for 20 years after the Philistines captured it. The Philistines sent it away with gifts after plagues infested their ranks.
The people of Beth-shemesh received it but some looked inside the ark and the Lord struck down 70 of their men because of that sin (1Sam. 6:19 ESV). Some translations say 50,070 but that seems implausible since Beth-shemesh was a small city. Beth-shemesh quickly got the ark out of their city and sent it away to Kiriath-jearim.
So, on the journey back to Jerusalem, Uzza, who was one of the men handling the oxen, grabbed the ark as it was tottering on the ‘new’ cart. When he did he was instantly struck down. Then David got pissed off at God (sorry about the lingo, but I think that aptly describes David’s reaction) because Uzza died for trying to do what David thought was a good thing.
David named the place ‘Perez-uzza’, which means ‘the outburst on Uzza’. In other words, David didn’t like that God had an outburst of anger toward Uzza. The passage says that David then left the ark at a man’s house by the name of Obed-edom. It remained there for 3 months and the family was blessed during that time.
David decided that he could not take the ark on to Jerusalem, ostensibly because of fear of God’s anger. It seemed to me that it was more of an attitude like – “Fine, then I’ll just leave it behind!”
Later, during that 3 month period, the Philistines came after David when they heard he had been made king. So David set aside his pouting and inquired of the Lord whether to go up against the Philistines, and the Lord said, “Go up, for I will give them into your hand”.
So David did, and God did.
And David named that place “Baal-perazim’, or the ‘Lord of outbursts’.
The Philistines tried again shortly after and David defeated them again.
David has a change of heart about bringing the ark back and he makes two confessing statements. “No one is to carry the ark of God but the Levites; for the Lord chose them to carry the ark of God and to minister to Him forever.” And, “Because you did not carry it at the first, the Lord our God made an OUTBURST on us, for we did not seek Him according to the ordinance.”
The first thing I thought of was that no one seemed to know what God had commanded through Moses regarding the care and handling of the ark. And David and all of the priests must have been aware of what happened to the Philistines when they captured the ark. Finally, Beth-shemesh was only about 20 miles from Jerusalem, so surely David had heard what happened to the 70 men when the ark was opened and looked into.
The ark represented the essence of the holiness of God. Only the tablets with the 10 commandments were stored inside of it. God had commanded that the Levites alone were to carry the ark using poles through rings in the side and it was NOT supposed to be carried on a cart – even if it was new! (Ex. 25:14)
So that’s the first take-away. David and his company were nonchalant with regard to the holiness of God. They should have known better. David should have known.
The second thing to consider is that God did not reject David for his reaction to Uzza’s death. He went before David and defeated the Philistines and David recognized that God’s anger was always righteous…He was the Lord of the outburst!
This must have helped David realize that the fault of Uzza’s death was not God’s but his.
The ark was to be regarded as most holy, and treated as such. Right after the ark was placed in the holy of holies in the finished temple of Solomon, the glory of the Lord filled the temple!
It wasn’t that God hated Uzza. Rather, God was faithful to Himself. Uzza was very probably a good and righteous man and is now with the Lord.
But no one was to touch the ark. It was the most holy of the holy objects. If anyone touched any of the holy objects, they would die (Num. 4:15).
If Uzza didn’t die, then God is not holy. And this is what David finally understood.
After David defeated the Philistines, and after David named the place Baal-perazim – ‘Lord of outbursts’, “the fame of David went out into all the lands, and the Lord brought the fear of David on all the nations” (1Chron. 14:17).
So this is my last takeaway – maybe David did fear God’s anger after Uzza was killed. But it was misappropriated fear. David could not be feared among all the nations until David feared the holiness of God.