Ver. 1.-The ark and the tabernacle. "So they brought the ark of God, and set it in the midst of the tent that David had pitched for it: and they offered burnt sacrifices and peace offerings before God." The incident of Uzza has distracted the attention due to the return of the ark. The preacher has laboured to justify the ways of God to men; has expounded the sanctity attaching to the ark as tbe immediate throne of God, the strict injunctions as to its removal, its covering, its Levitical bearers, and the strictness with which access to it was limited to the high priest alone once a year, and shown that during its sojourn in .Abinadah's house, familiarity had permitted a lighter and less reverent regard to possess those about it. So that when it_ was broug(it back it was in a right spirit, but in a wrong way. This irreverence found its penalty ~n the death of Uzza; but finding God's blessing rested on the house of Ohe~-edom, J?avid resumes the purpose he had framed of bringing the ark to Jerusalem. This event 1s not sufficiently considered. We are apt to imagine that from Moses to Sol?mon th~re was a continuous identity of service and of sanctuary; that the express10ns which wo read in the psalms of devotiQ~ tQ t)le ~aberna1;les of God had bee11 the habitu11l expre1;,• OH. xvr.1-43.] THE FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. 257
sione of God's people for centuries; whereas it is far otherwise. It is probable tl,at never, till the reign of Hezekiah, was the sacrificial service of God confined to one sacred spot. Samuel sacrificed at Ramah; David, on the threshing-floor of Araunah; Solomon, at Gibeon; others at Carmel, Beersheba, Bethel. The true worship of the true God finding many centres when the Law of Moses contemplated it should have but one, the later historian, imbued with stricter sentiments of a later day, brings it as a fault against almost all the good kings of Judah, that, though they abolished all idolatry, "nevertheless the high places were not taken away;" but our text brings us face to face with something more striking than this multiplication of centres of sacrifice. It reminds us that, for a space of about a hundred years, the ark of God and the taber- fUJCle of God, which God had joined together, had been put asunder. Never since the ark was taken by the Philistines in Samuel's boyhood, had it returned to the taber- nacle. It rests in Beth-shemesh for a few months, then for nearly a hundred years in Kirjath-jearim, in the house of Abinadab. During all the time of Samuel we bear very little of the tabernacle at Shiloh, and, I think, nothing of the ark. In Saul's reign the tabernacle is at Nob, and still the ark is separated. The ark, God's earthly throne, the holiest centre of all Mosaic worship, had no tabernacle, with its altars and its regular service. The tabernacle ha.d its altars of burnt and of peace offerings, but no presence within the veil. It was a first court without a second; a staircase which seemed to lea.d nowhere. So that for a hundred years the tabernacle worship was cut in two-here altars, there ark. Perhaps one may almost say, cut in three during part of this period; for the high priest came with his ephod, and lived with David. So that the priesthood with its service stood thus: Abiathar, with his ephod, "inquirin~ of God," kept company with David; some of the priestly families repaired to Nob after the massacre of the three hundred priests by Saul, and there offered the appointed sacrifices; while at Kirjath-jearim was the ark, in charge of a Levitical family," neglected in the days of Saul," but doubtless sought by individual worship- pers. To make the confusion more complete, Samuel, David, Solomon, all sacrifico where is neither ark nor tabernacle, and when David brings the ark to Jerusalem, ho builds a new tabernacle to receive it, with its proper arrangement of altnrs, whilo still leaving the old one at Nob, to continue for some time longer (until the reign or Solomon), on its own lines, its series of sacrifices and worship. I do not bring this stato of confusion forward to justify it, or suggest that all the ordering of God's house, concerning which eo many minutest precepts had been given, were unimportant and superfluous. It was undoubtedly a vost gain to all subsequent generations when, in Zion, the tabernacle of God rose supreme above all other places honoured by his worship. It wo.s a still grander service when all the high places where sacrifice had been offered were destroyed. It was fitting that the one God should have one earthly throne, everywhere accessible, but in one place revealed. The one temple rendcrctl something of the same sort of service that the one Bible did in later times ; it kept "the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." But while, as we shall see, the ccnterin:; of all sacrificial worship in one spot rendered grand service, yet it is well to con- template the state of external confusion registered in the facts thua brought before us, and endeavour to learn their lessons. What are these? I. First of all obviously, there is this: THAT THE EXTERNAL ORDEnmo OF Gon's HOUSE NEVER REALIZES ITS IDEAL, As elsewhere, so here. The ideal nud the real go not hand-in-hand. The most that reality can say is, "I follow after, if that I may attain." The letter of the holiest and wisest law never gets complete accomplishment. The very generation to which the Law of Sinai was given neglected one of most important sacraments, circumcision, through all the wilderness journey between Egypt and Canaan. Somehow the very eminence of judges and prophets made, for centuries, God's tabernacle at Shiloh play an inconspicuous part in the history of the nation. In the instance of our text the tabernacle is really cut in two, and the holy pince is at Nob, while the holy of holies is miles away at Kirjath-jearim. Solomon's temple wa11 hardly consecrated beforo it was desecrated by the neighbourhood of idolatrous temples in Jerusalem itself. The secession of the ten tribes deprived them of any temple services, save the irregular ones instituted by Jeroboam. There is always something missing, or something crooked, in the external institutions of religion. Tho Lord's Supper at Corinth is desecrated by selfish conviviality, even in l'aul's lifetime ; 1rnll L CHRONICLES, 8 258 THE FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. [cH. xvI. 1-43.