2 Samuel, Chapter 6 - Carry it Right | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] >> Shalom friends, welcome back to the Prophets for Israel daily. This is the second [music] book of Samuel chapter 6. I'm Jeremy Gimpel here with my dear friend and my study partner Ari Abramowitz. [music] And this mission of bringing the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, the words of the Prophets of Israel to the world is brought to you by the Land of Israel Network at the land of israel.com. All right, friends. The kingdom has finally come. Chapter 5, all of Israel made David king over the entire nation. All 12 tribes united under a new king. He captured Jerusalem, made it his capital, defeated the Philistines, and the man who started in exile in Ziklag in the Philistines is now sitting on a united throne in the city of God. And we talked about the brilliance of Jerusalem is that it's literally situated right at the border between Judah and Benjamin, between the two representations of Leah and Rachel. A city that was owned by no one, that was conquered, and now it belonged to everyone. And so, what does David do now? He's got He's got it all. He's got the power. He's got the dream. So, he goes to bring God's presence home. He brings 30,000 men. He brings them and tells them, "We want to bring the ark of God from the house of Abinadab in the hills into Jerusalem." And so, that's just a beautiful thing. His first action on a national level as king is to bring the ark, the holiest object in the world, the seat of the divine presence, that was lost generations ago and has just been in storage up until now. He says, "This is the time to bring it home." And so, David's first national act as king is to put God at the center of the kingdom. And it begins in pure joy. David and all the house of Israel, they're playing music before Hashem with all their might. Harps, lyres, timbrels, symbols, the whole nation is dancing the ark up the mountain, and then in an instant everything goes wrong. This is verse 6 and 7. And Uzzah reached out to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his error, and he died there beside the ark of God. And so now my whole life I read this story one way. The oxen stumble, the ark tips, it's about to fall, Uzzah instinctively reaches out to just steady it, and he falls dead on the spot. And if you read it like that, every honest reader kind of has to recoil. It's like, what on earth? Uzzah was just trying to help. He was protecting the holiest object in the world from crashing to the ground. Saving the ark kills him? Like, how is that just? That just never made any sense to me. What was he supposed to do? Just let it fall? And so I want to offer another reading. The verse doesn't say that the ark was falling. It says kishamtuhabakar, because the oxen stumbled. And so Rav Medan, the Rosh Yeshiva of Har-Tzion, who I had the privilege of learning Tanakh with years ago, taught the oxen stumbled doesn't mean that the ark was falling. The ark was fine. It was Uzzah who lost his balance and was about to fall, and then he grabbed the ark to save himself. So the ark is not a railing. You don't grab the holiest object in the world because you're about to slip. He wasn't saving the ark, he was saving himself. And so that reading doesn't make it less sad, but at least it makes it make some sense to me. >> Yeah, Jeremy, I really like that reading. You know, and this verse has troubled the greatest minds. Obviously mine would not have been included in that category, but it's troubled the sages for 3,000 years, and I don't think we're meant to rush past it, and it's good you're focusing on it. And so this is the point I want to make, which by the way, it's right at the top of Rav Medan's point here, because your reading forces a question, right? Why could Uzzah grab the ark to steady himself in the first place? I believe the answer is in how they carried it. They put it on a new cart pulled by oxen. But the Torah was explicit, the ark is never carried on a wagon. It's carried on the shoulders of the Levites on poles, by human beings who bear its weight personally. That is God's instruction and his desire. The Philistines, the pagans who captured it, also sent it back on a cart, right? So, in his overwhelming enthusiasm, I think the the Philistine method of handling what was holy to them was imported, right? To to Israel. Right? Sincere, joyful, and fundamentally wrong. You know, and and and now how does that connect with Rav Medan is saying? An ark on a cart is an ark nobody is really holding. It rolls along beside you like cargo. And the moment it's cargo, it's also something you can reach out and lean on when you stumble. And that's the whole tragedy here, right? Had Uzzah been carrying it on his shoulder and bearing its weight, he never could have grabbed it like a handrail. He could only treat it that way because it had already been reduced to a thing. And that's one of the important spiritual lessons there, I think, for us even today. You know, good intentions are not enough. You can't serve God on your own terms and assume that sincerity just covers the rest. Right? Holiness has a form and a discipline. That's what the Torah was giving given to us for. Right? A particular way you're meant to carry it. God expresses to us his love language, how he wants to receive that. And enthusiasm without that discipline and those that guidance from Hashem can turn even the ark of the living God of Israel into a piece of furniture. >> You know, Ari, that's exactly right. And no one in Israel needed that message, I don't think more than David. I mean, he's such a free spirit, such an artist, such a warrior. I mean, he's got so much going on inside, he really needs that discipline to order his actions, especially as king. And so, remember Uzzah was Abinadab's son. The ark sat in their home for years, and I think maybe Uzzah just kind of grew too comfortable around it. But, I also want to point something else out. David, when he goes out to battle the Philistines in the last chapter, he asks God for detailed instructions, whether to fight, how to fight. Now, carrying the ark to Jerusalem, he's not only not asking, he goes against the Torah's own guidance for how to carry it. I mean, I think that his passion just got the best of him, and he was a I don't know, it was like took over him for just that moment. And I mean, you can't get more sincere than David, but he's learning that as king, every decision, especially on the national stage, really has to be prayed over, has to be thought about, really to seek guidance. It has to be guided by Hashem. But, look at his response in verse 8. It's just so interesting. David gets angry. And David became angry because of the Lord's outbreak against Uzzah. I mean, the text uses the same root for David's anger as for God's anger, va'yihar. I mean, it's anger from a place of righteousness, or at least that's how David felt, and that's really interesting to note. Who exactly is David angry at? At God? And it's like one of those rare windows into David's heart. He felt everything so powerfully, and that intensity, I mean, that's what gave birth to the book of Tehillim, to the book of Psalms. And then, he immediately senses, "Wait a minute. I'm a little bit off here. And he's clearly spiritually out of balance. Verse 9, Vayira David et Hashem bayom and David was afraid of the Lord that day. And he said, "How shall the ark of the Lord come to me?" So, it's like his joy turns into anger and then it collapses into fear. I mean, his huge national celebration. I had to think that was probably a little bit humiliating for David. I mean, God in the clearest fashion rejected David's entire parade. And so, David remembers who he is. He remembers who the creator of the universe is. And then a healthy sense of fear and awe of heaven sets on him. And he says, "How can I, a human being, possibly host the presence of God?" So, he stops the procession. He's too frightened to bring the ark into Jerusalem. And then he diverts it to the house of Obed-Edom, the Gittite. A Levite. And for 3 months, that's where it sits. In the home of a private citizen. And I think David took those 3 months to recover. I mean, emotionally, spiritually, he had like a trauma. And I've been thinking a lot about those 3 months. David had to have been doing some serious soul searching. Some serious soul searching. Like, what happened? What went wrong? Why? All he's trying to do is first act of king is really to sanctify God's name and all of a sudden like God blocks him and creates this trauma. And in verse 11, Hashem then blesses Obed-Edom. And his whole household because of the ark. So, the same ark that struck Uzzah dead now pours blessing onto the house that simply made room for the ark. So, it's not like the ark is in any way like a curse to anyone. It's the fountain of blessing when it's approached the right way. >> Right. And those 3 months, Jeremy, are very much the uh I think the turning point like the hinge of the whole chapter. It's very easy to skip over. Right? But David needed them. He needed that time. He had pictured uh you know, I believe he pictured triumphantly dancing the ark into his city in one glorious, beautiful afternoon. And Hashem said, "No, not like this. Not on your timeline." And to David's enormous credit, instead of forcing it, he stopped. He let the ark sit. He waited. He watched what happened in Obed-Edom's house, and he learned. And what he learned, I believe what he learned was that the holiness was never the problem. The approach was. The same ark in a home that received it humbly become it became nothing but a blessing. Right? So, when David comes back for it, he does it completely differently. The Levites carried on their shoulders, the right way. And every six steps, they stopped to offer a sacrifice. Right? It was slow and patient. Every step of it on God's terms. And I'll tell you why this, you know, I think one of the reasons it sort of touches my heart out here in the Har Adonai farm, in our hills in Judea, raising my kids on these hills, is because this is the whole story of building anything holy. I think, Jeremy, you and I could testify to this in pain and heartbreak and blood. Right? Our first attempt is almost always too fast and too sure of itself and too much us in it. Right? Sometimes Hashem has to stop us painfully and make us wait. And the wisdom isn't to rage at the delay or wish things were different or to abandon the dream. It's to use the waiting time to learn how to carry that holy thing properly, on Hashem's terms. Right? Obed-Edom's house is where David learned the difference between wanting God in your life and knowing how to make a home for him in this world. >> Yeah. I I want you to know that that really speaks to me. Sometimes God is just going to have to stop us even when we're trying to do something for his kingdom. And so, um you know, David then goes back and he's like, "All right, the blessing is coming." And then it's like, "Let's do this right this time." So, then he starts to carry it exactly as prescribed by the Torah. And now comes one of the most beautiful images of David that we see in his whole life. This is verse 14. And David danced before the Lord with all of his might. Mecharcare in Hebrew isn't even dance, it's something much more exuberant than that. And David was girded with a linen ephod. Mecharcare bechol oz, he's like whirling, leaping, dancing with all of his strength. And so the most powerful man in the nation strips off his royal robes, puts on a simple linen ephod just like a ordinary Levite and dances through the streets of Jerusalem with utter abandon before God. And he's overflowing with joy and all of Israel brings the ark up with shouting and the sound of the shofar. But not everyone's dancing. Verse 16, Michal, Saul's daughter, David's wife, watches from the window. And when she sees the king leaping and whirling, she despises him in her heart. And when David comes home, she meets him with kind of bitter sarcasm. It's like verse 20. How the king of Israel honored himself today exposing himself before the [snorts] handmaids of his servants like a commoner. >> Yeah, yeah. And and you know what's so profound about this clash, Jeremy? Look at where Michal stands. She's at a window inside the palace looking down at the celebration. You know, just from above, from her lofty window, and David is down in the street and in the dust dancing among the people. This is not a disagreement about royal etiquette. It's two opposite understandings of greatness. Michal is the daughter of Shaul, the king obsessed with his own honor, who at the very end begged to be honored in front of the people. That was the house of Saul. Kingship as a status and image, the king standing above his people. She inherited a little bit of that. To her, a king dancing like a commoner is a humiliation, but David belongs to an entirely different school of greatness entirely. You know, he he answers her that he'll make himself even more lowly than this, humble in his own eyes. And it's precisely through that lowliness that he'll be truly honored. Right? Honored before Hashem. You know, the crown before Hashem, the crown means nothing. Real greatness isn't standing above your people in a window, it's getting down into the street and rejoicing before God with all of them as one of them. >> Yeah, exactly. Just as one of them. And it's the whole gap between them, too. I mean, she grew up as a princess. He grew up as a poet, musician, shepherd. And I have a lot to say about David and Michal. I mean, their union could have been the ultimate marriage, the finality of Israel. From Saul, Benjamin, the son of Rachel. David from Judah, the son of Leah. In Jerusalem, one complete kingdom. Joseph and Judah joined. But I I I just don't have time. If you want to go deep into Michal's story, so my wife, Tehila Gimpel, of course, one of the great teachers at the Land of Israel Network, runs a women's community called Women of Valor, part of Land of Israel Network. And she's now doing a series called Sacred Seasons about all of the different Hakem and appointed times. But she already completed a series called The Biblical Heroines that teach all of the heroines of the Tanakh. And so, you can be a part of it. If you're a woman of Valor, come to the land of Israel.com and check it out. But anyway, enough of that. Back to chapter six. Because it's not only the story of moving the ark to Jerusalem, it's really teaching us, I believe, about Israel today. Because you look where we are. I mean, we're back in the land. We have Jerusalem once again. We have the kingdom being built before our eyes. And this chapter puts our generation exactly where we need to be. The question David asked, with the kingdom being built, you have all the power, what do you put at the center of that kingdom? And David's instinct, the moment he had it, was to bring God home, to put the presence of Hashem in the heart of the capital. Not the Knesset, the attention wasn't the Supreme Court, but was the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem. And that is the kind of nation Israel was always meant to be, and please God, will soon be. So, spiritually, the Ark is coming home to Jerusalem, slowly but surely, my friends. The dance has already begun. The question is, are we going to watch from the window in Brooklyn and Miami and kind of look at that and be like, "Well, they got a lot going on over there in Israel. I'm over here watching that happen." Or, are you going to get down in the streets with us, here with King David, and dance alongside us? Now, something that's not always dancing, it's also a battle and a struggle, but you guys understand what I'm saying. And so, with that, I want to bless you with strength and courage. Hazak u'barukh, my friends. And before we go, if you want to be a part of it, even if you're from Brooklyn or Miami, and these daily words of the prophets, they mean something to you, I would love to invite you to become a sponsor of the Prophets of Israel Daily. 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