uzzah's punishment for touching the ark.
2 Sam. vi. 6 — 9. And when they came to Nachons threshing- floor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it ; for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the Lord ivas kindled against Uzzah ; and God smote him there for his error ; and there he died hy the ark of God. And David was displeased, because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah : and he called the name of the place Perez- uzzah to this day. And David was afraid of the Lord that day, and said. How shall the ark of the Lord come to me ?
THE noblest use of power is to exert it for God. So David thought: for no sooner had he attained the quiet possession of the throne of Israel, than ho determined to bring up the ark of God from Kirjath- jearim, where it had remained in obscurity perhaps for seventy years, and to place it in Jerusalem, where it might receive the honour due unto it. But, as persons striving in the Grecian games " were not crowned except they strove lawfully," and con- formed to the rules prescribed for them, so neither can they be accepted who exert their influence for God,. except they use it agreeably to the dictates of His revealed will. Accordingly in this very act David met with a repulse : the person whom he em- ployed to bring up the ark was struck dead upon the spot ; and the whole measure was disconcerted : yea the very frame of David's mind also was changed, from joyous exultation, to vexation, sorrow, and despondency.
Let us contemplate,
I. The punishment inflicted on Uzzah —
Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, having long had the charge of the ark in their father's house, undertook to drive the cart whereon it was to be conveyed to Jerusalem. Ahio went before to pre- pare the way, and Uzzah drove the oxen : but, when they were arrived at the threshing-floor of Nachon, the oxen by some means shook the ark ; and Uzzah,
311.] UZZAIl's PUNISHMENT. 243
apprehensive it would fall, put forth his hand to keep it steady: and for this offence he was struck dead upon the spot.
Now at first sight it appears as if this punishment was exceedingly disproportionate to the offence : but we shall be of a very different opinion, if we consider,
1. The offence committed —
[This was of a complicated nature : it was the offence, not of Uzzah only, but of David, and of the whole nation. As it related to Uzzah, it was highly criminal : for God, in the orders he had given respecting the removal of the ark from place to place, had du*ected that the priests only should touch the ark, or any thing belonging to it ; and that the Le\dtes should carry it : and so strict was this order, that it was enforced by the penalty of death : " The sons of Kohath shall hear it (by its long staves ;) but they shall not touch any holy thing, lest they die^." Now Uzzah was not a priest; and therefore he should on no account have presumed to touch the ark. It may well be supposed, that this violation of God's command was the fruit of an habitual irreverence, which a long familiarity with the ark had nourished in his mind : and therefore God took this occasion of punishing his presumption.
But David, also, and all the nation were to blame : for the very accident that occasioned Uzzah to put forth his hand, arose from their criminal neglect. God had given plain directions about his ark ; and had ordered that it should be carried on the shoulders of the Levites. The other articles belonging to the tabernacle were large and cumbersome ; and for the con- veyance of them God had given waggons and oxen ; but " to the sons of Kohath he had given none ; because the service belonging to them was, to bear the ark upon their shoulders''." Why then was this forgotten ? Why did David and all the priests and people presume to substitute another way, different from that which God had prescribed ? The Philistines, it is true, had sent home the ark in this way: but they knew nothing of the directions given in the law, nor had they any of the sons of Aaron with them to employ in that service. Were these ignorant heathens a fit pattern for David to follow, in direct opposition to the commands of God ? If David did not know what God had commanded in relation to the ark, should he not have examined ; or should he not have inquired of the Lord, as he had so recently and so successfully done in reference to his conflicts with the Phihstines ? This neglect