UZZAH & THE ARK OF THE COVENANT

I have been thinking on Uzzah and his predicament for some days now. Uzzah was one of the sons of Abinadab. Abinadab was the man into whose house the Ark of the Covenant was sent after it had been captured for 7months by the Philistines in war. It had been a dramatic 7 months, almost unbelievable.

Israel had been at war with the Philistines [1 Samuel 4]. The Philistines had killed 4,000 Israelites, so the Israelites decided to bring the Ark of the Covenant from Shiloh to save them from the Philistines. When the Israelites saw the Ark, they shouted so loudly that the ground shook! The Philistines panicked, and instead of retreating, they encouraged themselves to fight as never before. They fought desperately and defeated Israel again, and killed 30,000 men this time round! And then captured the Ark of the Covenant! They sent it to their god – Dagon’s temple, and set it beside Dagon. [Chapter 5]. When they woke up the next morning, Dagon had fallen on his face on the ground before the Ark. They put him back in his place. The next morning, they went to the temple and again, there was Dagon, face down before the Ark, this time with his head and hands broken off, prostrating before the Ark. The Philistines knew trouble had come to them, so they moved the Ark to Gath, then to Ekron, all the while experiencing deaths and weird plagues.

It was this returning of the Ark that led to Uzzah’s misfortune. The Ark was sent to his father Abinadab’s house, who ordained another son Eleazar to guard it. He kept it for twenty years until David became king, conquered the Philistines again at war and gathered 30,000 men to return the Ark of the Covenant to Israel-Jerusalem [2 Samuel 6]. So they set the Ark of God on a new cart and put Uzzah and Ahio, also Abinadab’s sons in charge of guiding the cart from their father’s home to Israel while David and the rest of Israel were ‘celebrating with all their might before the Lord’ with instruments I know you don’t know🤣 [2 Samuel 6:5]. All was well until they got to the threshing floor of Nakon. The oxen carrying the Ark stumbled, and Uzzah, being entrusted with the responsibility only to guide the Ark, reached out and took hold of the Ark of God!😬 He was instantly struck dead beside the Ark, because Uzzah had disregarded the Lord’s direct instructions about touching or looking into the Ark in Numbers 4 and 7. Now while this is not the focus of this piece, let me attempt to address the elephant in the room before I proceed: Why did such an innocent, reflex reaction merit such harshness? I came across a quote by RC Sproul:

Selah. Let’s move on.🤗

In prayer this week, I couldn’t stop thinking about Uzzah. There were so many more happenings when anybody attempted to go near the Ark of the Covenant. The justice and holiness of God struck them dead:

1 Samuel 5:12 – Those who did not die were afflicted with tumors, and the outcry of the city went up to heaven.

1 Samuel 6:19 – God struck down some of the men of Beth Shemesh, putting seventy of them to death because they had looked into the ark of the Lord. The people mourned because of the heavy blow the Lord had dealt them.

When David saw what had happened to Uzzah, 2 Samuel 6:9-10 says: ‘David was afraid of the Lord that day and said, “How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me?” He was not willing to take the Ark of the Lord to be with him in the City of David. Instead, he took it to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite.’

I pondered on these in prayer because the Son of God took the pain of our separation. He took our unworthiness to touch the physical carriage of the very presence of God.

Yet even now, we ourselves are the very carriers of God! My goodness!😪

We are that which Uzzah would have touched and be slain for! We are that which the seventy men of Beth Shemesh would have looked at and be struck down!

Goodness me! As I prayed I pondered on Hebrews 3:6a – ‘But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we…’! Mmmmm! We are the very house carrying the presence of the Most High God! What a glory!😪

I thought about John 14:23 – ‘If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.’ What a glory!😪

I thought about 1 Corinthians 3:16 – ‘Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?’. The same Spirit who hovered over the face of the deep, who united with the Word of God to birth all things on earth that were not as though they were! The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead!

I thought about Galatians 2:20a – ‘I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.’ What a glory! The Lord Jesus Himself living vicariously through me! Jesus the Christ, in 2billion bodies walking the face of the earth!

This is the most disregarded yet most precious, most valuable gift God gave His church! And if I ever took it for granted, Uzzah will forever be the whisper in my spirit’s ear that beckons me back into awe of what the One I love has done for me on the Cross!

Remain in awe, friend. Remain in awe! 

Love,

Rad!💖