Play

In January I began a sermon series on The Life of David as recorded in the book of 1 & 2 Samuel. This morning we are going to be in 2 Samuel 6. To recap, David, a shepherd boy and youngest of eight sons of Jesse, has been anointed by the prophet Samuel as the next king, and so Saul, who is still the king, is envious of him and wants him dead. For the rest of 1 Samuel, David is on the run for his life, sometimes on his own and sometimes accompanied by some loyal men who have gathered around him. While on the run, he finds himself twice with the opportunity to kill Saul, but both times he refuses to kill him, since he believes that Saul is still God’s anointed king and only God can remove him. Eventually, Saul and Jonathan are killed by the Philistine army, and David becomes king over Judah, the southern kingdom and one of the 12 tribes of Israel, while Ish-Bosheth, son of Saul, becomes king over the rest of Israel. But after two years, Ish-Bosheth is assassinated, and everyone turns to David as king over all of Israel. David leads the army to drive the Jebusites out of Jerusalem and establishes that as his capital. And then he attacks and drives out the Philistines.

And once the capital city has been established and fortified, the next thing he does is to get together all his men and go get the ark of the covenant to bring it back to Israel. What is the ark? You first hear about it in Exodus 25 - The ark (chest) was a wooden box overlaid with gold, 4 feet long, 2 ½ feet high & wide. It had rings on the sides with poles that would go through it so that the Levites, the priests, could carry it. On the top was a slab of pure gold called the mercy seat, with 2 golden angels facing each other. According to Hebrews 9:4, “This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron's staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant.” It was the central piece of furniture in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle, and over the ark appeared the shekinah, the kabod, the glory of God, the presence of God. Exodus 25:22 - There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites. Once a year on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would go in and offer sacrifice for the sins of the people, with a cord tied around his ankle in case he died while he was in there.

But 20 years before 2 Samuel 6, the ark had been captured by the Philistines. The priest Eli’s two sons, Hophni & Phinehas, brought it into battle, thinking that having that with them would mean they would win, but instead they lost and the ark was captured. And so the Philistines were convinced that this Yahweh was not so powerful after all, and they put the ark in the temple of their God, Dagon. But the next morning, they came into the temple and found the statue of Dagon face down before the ark. They put the statue back in its place, but the next morning, the statue was not only face down again, but its head and its hands had been broken off. And so they moved the ark around their land, but everywhere they put it, it caused calamity. And so finally, they put the ark on a cart led by two cows and sent it back to Israel. And as the men of Israel saw the ark coming, they rejoiced, but some of the men who first found it looked into the ark, and were killed. And so we read in 1 Samuel 7:1-2, “So the men of Kiriath Jearim came and took up the ark of the LORD. They took it to Abinadab's house on the hill and consecrated Eleazar his son to guard the ark of the LORD. ² It was a long time, twenty years in all, that the ark remained at Kiriath Jearim, and all the people of Israel mourned and sought after the LORD.”