2 Samuel 6:5-7 – “5 David and all the people of Israel were celebrating before the Lord, singing songs and playing all kinds of musical instruments- lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets, and cymbals.
6 But when they arrived at the threshing floor of Nacon, the oxen stumbled, and Uzzah reached out his hand and steadied the Ark of God. 7 Then the Lord’s anger was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him dead because of this. So Uzzah died right there beside the Ark of God.”
This passage troubled me when I first heard it. I actually remember it from being in Sunday School in 6th grade, reading it aloud from this Bible that my Sunday School teacher, Shirley Guerrero, had just given me.
I thought, “That isn’t fair.” Someone asked “Why?” We were told, you just don’t touch the Ark. I didn’t think that was right for trying to doing something good, for just making a mistake. But the mistake started before it happened. And to know what’s going on, we’re going rewind back about 20 years and 8 months to 1 Samuel chapter 4.
The rulers of 5 Philistine towns brought their troops together to fight against the Israelites at Ebenezer. 4,000 Israelites were killed. They blamed God and had the Ark of the Covenant brought down, thinking it would help them in the battle – like they’re gonna’ force God’s hand. When it arrived, Israel cheered so loud it shook the ground and got the attention of the Philistine army. They found out what was going on and feared that the Ark would bring Israel’s God into play, and they knew they did not want to face that kind of power, though they wouldn’t turn to Him. In 1 Samuel 4:8-9 they said, “8 Help! Who can save us from these mighty gods of Israel? They are the same gods who destroyed the Egyptians with plagues when Israel was in the wilderness [They knew the stories]. 9 Fight as never before, Philistines! If you don’t, we will become the Hebrews’ slaves just as they have been ours! Stand up like men and fight!”
They fought with desperation, killed 30,000 Israelites, won that battle, and they captured the Ark of the Covenant. If you didn’t know, that’s the thing they were looking for in the first Raiders of the Lost Ark movie.
And they did Rock-Papyrus-Scissors to decide which city got to keep it – Ashdod won. They took it and put it in their temple to their God, Dagon, next to the idol they’d made – a statue depicting Dagon. The next morning, Dagon is down on his face in front of the Ark in a worship position. They prop him back up, and the next morning he’s in the same position, but his head and hands are cut off – not broken off as some translations say – literally “cut off“ and were placed on the threshold leading into the temple. “Cut-off” is a military term; it’s what they did to make the body counts easier in a battle; it’s what David did to Goliath; it’s what the Philistines did to Saul; it’s what a conqueror did to the vanquished enemy: They cut off their head and their hands.
And so Dagon, being in front of the Ark with his head and hands cut off, was a gesture from God that said, “I just conquered your false God.” But He did a little more than that. He sent tumors to plague Ashdod, and people were dying from it! So they said, “Oh no! This must have come from the Ark! Send it to Gath!” They send it to Gath – killer-tumors! They send it to Ekron.
1 Samuel 5:10 – “…when the people of Ekron saw it coming they cried out, “They are bringing the Ark of the God of Israel here to kill us, too!” And killer-tumors came to Ekron as well! And by that time the other two cities of Ashkalon and Gaza got tumors – a full-blown plague!
And they called the 5 rulers together and said, “What do we do?” They sent for their religious diviners and priests, who said, “Send the Ark back to the Jews! But you have to include a guilt-offering.” A guilt-offering?!
1 Samuel 6:4 – “4 “What sort of guilt offering should we send?” they asked. And they were told, “Since the plague has struck both you and your five rulers, make five gold tumors and five gold rats, just like those that have ravaged your land.”
Tumors?! and Rats?! – With rats you get fleas; with fleas you get Bubonic plague; with Bubonic plague you get tumors. Can you imagine being the guy who was asked to make 5 gold tumors?
“Send the offering back with the ark and see if God, in a miraculous way, will take all of this back.”
They made a new cart to send the Ark back on, pulled by 2 cows, which the Israelites would actually use for a sacrifice, including the wood of the cart for the fire.
1 Samuel 6:13 – “The people [Israelites] of Beth-shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley, and when they saw the Ark, they were overjoyed!”
They knew what it was! They knew what they should do with it. And they started off right – they broke up the wood of the cart for a fire, killed the cows, and sacrificed them to the Lord as a burnt offering – they were so happy! But then 70 of their people looked inside the Ark and were killed, because you don’t touch the Ark. And guess what – they didn’t want the Ark anymore.
Q: Do you know anyone who went to church, bumped up against a rule they didn’t like, and then they didn’t want to go back?
1 Samuel 6:21 – “So they sent messengers to the people at Kiriath-jearim and told them, “The Philistines have returned the Ark of the Lord. Come here and get it!”” [‘Cause they weren’t touching it again!]
They did, and they took it to the home of Abinadab, where it remained, according to 1 Samuel 7:2, for 20 years.
The Philistines knew things about God. They acknowledged that the God of the Jews was tougher than their God – far more powerful, the winner; but they would not submit, and they kept worshiping their created god, Dagon, because when you worship the God of the Jews, you can’t be your own god anymore, and when you worship a god of your own creation, then you get to be your own god. And that is the heart of the issue: Playing God.
You are never more like satan than when you try to be like God apart from God. You are never more like Jesus that when you try to be like God in friendship with God.
Our students go to school with thousands of kids who know things about God but would rather be their own God. There’s a new generation coming up who are paying the price for our earlier generations’ negligence, who are scared-at-heart, desperate, and who are working together like the desperate Philistines to take down people of God who bring religious things that we don’t understand or fear enough ourselves. And it’s not going to end well for them.
They need the Gospel clearly defined and demonstrated, and they need love – for us to genuinely care for their best interests, with our hearts informed from God’s from His Word, resting in His grace provisions – the same Holy Spirit Jesus said He depended on to do everything He did, that He now offers us.
Parents, grandparents, small group teachers, leaders of all things church, and believers:
1. Teach the people in your care that obedience is our response to trusting God. It’s the by-product. It’s not enough to know things. Faith is trust plus action – it’s what we do with what we know.
2. Frame all your discussions and activities as opportunities to know and trust Jesus. We practice our faith because we want to grow in being faithful.
Number 3 is not really in this text, but we have the rest of the story. We’re not at war with non-believers.
Ephesians 6:12 – “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.”
Those things are fighting for the hearts and souls of everyone we know who doesn’t trust Jesus.
3. Respond with grace, even when someone misbehaves or responds poorly. Jesus was full of both Truth and grace. And because we carry His presence, we should be, too.
- Rules without Relationship = Rebellion
- Relationship without Rules = Chaos
- Rules + Relationship = Respect
Let me tell you a few things about the Ark before we catch up with Uzzah.
The Ark of the Covenant is a box. And inside there are three things: Aaron’s rod, a golden bowl full of mana, and the two stone tablets God wrote the Ten Commandments on that Moses brought down from Mt Sinai. There are 4 rings with the 2 poles in them (never to be removed), and then you see the cherubim, facing each other and looking down on the atonement cover, with their wings spread above it, making what the Bible calls the Mercy Seat, where the Lord said He would meet and talk with them.
Exodus 25 records the plans God gave to Moses for making and handling the Holy items of the Tabernacle with specs and instructions. Verses 10-22 are specific to the Ark, including this from verses 13-15:
Exodus 25:13-15 –13 Make poles from acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. 14 Insert the poles into the rings [there were specific instructions for attaching those, too] at the sides of the Ark to carry it. 15 These carrying poles must stay inside the rings; never remove them.
Numbers 4 records God’s instructions to Moses and Aaron for preparing the Tabernacle, including the Ark of the Covenant, to become mobile and ready to be moved.
Numbers 4:15 – “15 The camp will be ready to move when Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary and all the sacred articles. The Kohathites [those who were first Priestly Levites, but who were also specifically chosen out by God from the family of Kohath] will come and carry these things to the next destination. But they must not touch the sacred objects, or they will die.…“
The Ark was to be carried upon men’s shoulders, and carried by certain Levites only, specifically those of the family of Kohath, using the poles prescribed.
Then in Numbers chapter 7, we see that Moses gave carts to the Levites, but he gave no carts to the sons of Kohath because the holy things had to be carried on the shoulders.
It is not church decorations. It is not furniture. It is not an ottoman. It is not just something that you move around as you see fit. This was a holy piece. This was a place where God had chosen to make His presence known among His people.
Now, let’s fast-forward 20 years to 2 Samuel 6:1-11.
David has just been anointed king, he’s beaten the Philistines, and Saul is no longer in charge. David now decides to move the Ark back to Jerusalem. And he is so excited! He’s got all these people around him, and he says, “Let us go and take the ark of the covenant and put it right there in the center of the Holy City.”
2 Samuel 6:1 – “1 Then David again gathered all the elite troops in Israel, 30,000 in all.”
Imagine 30,000 people gathered. The Bartow Memorial Stadium holds up to 3,000 people at capacity – multiply that by 10!
2 Samuel 6:2 – “2 He led them [no mention of Levites or Kolhathites] to Baalah of Judah to bring back the Ark of God…“
Notice who you do not see…you don’t see any Kohathite, or even any Levites, just 30,000 elite troops.
You know, a million people can believe in a dumb idea at it still remain a dumb idea!
2 Samuel 6:3-4 – “3 They placed the Ark of God on a new cart and brought it from Abinadab’s house, which was on a hill. Uzzah and Ahio, Abinadab’s sons, were guiding the cart 4 that carried the Ark of God. Ahio walked in front of the Ark.
They didn’t want something wrong; they wanted to do a right thing! They wanted the presence of God in the center of the Holy City, but they put it on a new cart.
I imagine it looked new, looked well-prepared, probably decorated. It was probably excellent. It was probably clean, and maybe had jewels on it. I mean, it was carrying the Ark of the Covenant. But new does not always mean obedient.
Through the 8 months of 1 Samuel 4-6 the Philistines handled the Ark in ignorance, and it was wreaking havoc. They didn’t know the rules or the reasons, and the cart was what happened. Then later, though Israel knew better, the cart happened when Holy things became familiar enough to handle them without fear or wisdom.
God had told them how to carry it. He’d given them specific instructions on how to carry it.
4. Carry the things of God God’s way even when your way works.
Touching the ark and dying was the natural result of your actions. They “knew” this. You “know” stuff, too…in theory. The question is if you believe it. And you, and everyone around you will know if you believe it by what you do next, what you do about what you say you believe.
5. Take time to understand what you’re carrying, and handle it accordingly.
The cart worked, even though it was wrong, till it didn’t. 4 times the book of Proverbs warns us that there is a way that seems right but that it leads to destruction in the end.
The things and commands of God are not in question. God is Who He says He is; reality is the way He describes it; and He will do what He promised He will do. God is not in question. The beliefs we say we believe are. Because the right thing on the wrong system is still wrong. And the road is about to get rougher.
The ark was in Abinadab’s house for 20 years. Proximity did not produce reverence! He had seen it so much he no longer had reverence. The issue for Uzzah was not what he knew privately, it was what he practiced publicly. They literally and figuratively quit feeling the weight of this thing where God said He would make His presence known.
Q: Where have you replaced obedience with strategy, tactics, or demands?
Q: Where have we edited God’s instructions to fit our preferences and then called it wisdom?
Q: Where are we doing what works instead of what God said, because deep down we trust speed more than we trust surrender?
Some of us are praying over our cart right now, asking God to bless a method that He never authorized, a relationship he never approved of, or a shortcut he never signed-off on. And we are frustrated that Heaven is quiet. But Heaven is not quiet. Heaven has already spoken, and we are just asking for a second opinion.
Obedience means that when God’s way and my way disagree, my way always loses. Even when my way is newer, and nicer, and cleaner, and it draws more applause, but, like Samuel told Saul, “…obedience is better than sacrifice…” (1 Samuel 15:22).
2 Samuel 6:5 – “David and all the people of Israel were celebrating before the Lord, singing songs and playing all kinds of musical instruments – lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets, and cymbals.” This was a party! A praise party! They were celebrating the presence of the Lord. Nothing wrong with that. Everybody there loves the ark and wants the blessings of God. But the whole time they were dragging the Ark on a cart; they were handling the holy in a way it was never meant to be handled.
2 Samuel 6:6 – 6 But when they arrived at the threshing floor of Nacon, the oxen stumbled, and Uzzah reached out his hand and steadied [or took hold of] the Ark of God.”
Q: What is the threshing floor?
Harvested wheat would be gathered. Sometimes farmers would smash bundles of it on the ground, or farmers would trample the bundled stalks using oxen or sledges to loosen the grain. When they did, it would dislodge the actual grains of wheat from the chaff. Then you’d have to toss the mess up into the wind, and the wind would blow the chaff out of the way so you could gather the heavier, less aerodynamic grains that would just fall straight down.
The ground would get distorted and uneven from the thrashing and trampling, with chaff and wheat trash all over and getting smashed into the ground. And so the ground would be extremely uneven.
So here we are: The ox stumbles, the cart shakes, the ark tips, and Uzzah reaches for it and takes hold of it.
2 Samuel 6:7 – 7 Then the Lord’s anger was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him dead because of this. So Uzzah died right there beside the Ark of God.
The music stops, the tambourines go silent, 30,000 people all standing there quieted. And we’re thinking, “What? Why?!”
David turns around and sees a body in the dirt next to the ark of God. And David is like, “Why God? Why did You kill this man? He saw the Ark of the Covenant tipping – he put his hand out, just trying to make sure that the holy thing doesn’t hit the ground. He wanted to protect it. He wanted to make sure it stayed covered and taken care of. So why God? Why would You do that?”
And that’s what I said in 6th grade.
Uzzah was the son of Abinadab. And whose house did the ark of the covenant come out of? Abinadab’s house, where it sat for 20 years! The same house Uzzah grew up in. Uzzah did not meet the ark that morning. He grew up around it. He walked past it. He ate meals knowing that it was in the other room. 20 years of proximity, but proximity did not produce reverence. And that is the danger. The danger is not that Uzzah had never seen the ark. The danger is that he had seen it so much that he stopped being in awe of it.
Familiarity can put you in the house with holy things and still leave you casual. And I’m not talking about our clothes, I’m talking about our attitude – that thing that reveals what you’re really after – the heart of God, or just the hand of God.
So you can grow up around the language, and you can know the songs, and you can know when to shout, and know when to dance (if you didn’t grow up Baptist), and grow up around the presence, and still not know how to carry what God entrusted His people with.
And here is why the threshing floor matters. The threshing floor is where the grain gets separated from the chaff. The grain gets gathered and used for food. Then you have the chaff, the fluff & stuff that has no fruit, the stuff that doesn’t clean itself up, but just accumulates and becomes obstacles and barriers if you don’t do something about it.
The Ark stumbles, but it stumbles at the place of separation. The stumble did not create the problem; it exposed it. The mistake started before it happened.
The bump did not make them careless; it revealed that they were already handling it the wrong way. And when the moment got urgent, Uzzah did not have an understanding to fall back on. He only had instinct. And instinct without understanding grabbed what God said, “Don’t touch”.
And this is what happens when we come to church on autopilot. When the shaking comes, and it will come, we don’t rise to our intentions; we fall to our own understanding. And Uzzah was never closer to the Ark than the moment it killed him. Because proximity does not automatically equal purity.
David’s first emotion was not, “Lord, search me. I’m sorry. I’m wrong. I’ve made a mistake.”
2 Samuel 6:8 – 8 David was angry because the Lord’s anger had burst out against Uzzah. He named that place Perez-uzzah (which means “to burst out against Uzzah”), as it is still called today.
That’s where David and my similarities stopped back then.
2 Samuel 6:9 – 9 David was now afraid of the Lord, and he asked, “How can I ever bring the Ark of the Lord back into my care?”
This is someone with enough humility to stop self-promoting and self-protecting and to start examining himself, because you cannot repent for what you keep blaming others for.
2 Samuel 6:10 – 10 So David decided not to move the Ark of the Lord into the City of David. Instead, he took it to the house of Obed-edom of Gath [Remember Gath? Someone there paid attention!].
That was not the end of David’s worship. It was the beginning of his correction. He was trying to recover the reverence. He still desired to bring the Ark home, but he was correcting the way they were handling it.
2 Samuel 6:11 – “11 The Ark of the Lord remained there in Obed-edom’s house for three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and his entire household.”
David heard about the blessings at Obed Edom’s and knew he needed to get the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. So he corrected things back to the way God instructed Moses in the first place. He had the Levites carry the Ark on their shoulders with the polls as God told Moses. They got back underneath the weight of it.
Maybe you need to as well. Here’s a starter prayer: “God, I am no longer going to do things my way – I am willing to submit to learning and doing things Your way.”
Accountability is not a church word. It’s not a Sunday word. Accountability is an everyday, everywhere word, even when life shakes, and it will. When the cart stumbles at your job, in your marriage, in your emotions, in your home, do the values you say you believe hold up, or do we grab control?
Set up ways to be reminded and to remind others of what matters most. Spend time with Jesus so you might know Him better, become like Jesus, and do as Jesus did. Read His Word, pray, serve, give, show up, evangelize, engage in outreach, find opportunities to plug into community.
When you lean on the Lord, when you trust Him with your heart and mind and say, “Lord, I surrender all to You. I am no longer going to do things my own way apart from You,” you get something that the old hymn, Blessed Assurance describes:
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine
Heir of salvation, purchase of God
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood
This is my story, this is my song
Praising my Savior all the day long
This is my story, this is my song
Praising my Savior all the day long
There will be a day when I’m not here. But there’s also a day when I will be with the Father! I am confident that when I close my eyes on earth, I will open them in glory.
I have that assurance, and some of you do, too. We are confident, but some of you are not.
If you are thinking, “I don’t know what’s going on, but I want that,” God says,
Hebrews 3:15 – “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled.”
That means that the voice you’re hearing is not the enemy; it’s the Lord. And He’s saying,
Matthew 11:28 – “Come to Me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
If you’re tired, God has given you this moment, that He can embrace you in His arms. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. If I’m talking to you, you need to come. The Gospel is for you.
Prayer: Father, I thank you for helping us understand better this morning. Help us take on the things that are holy and not treat them like they’re familiar. Thank you for inviting us, for welcoming us, and for guiding us. Teach us to make all our discussions and activities be opportunities to know and trust You.
