Come on in. We're going to continue our study on the life of David. We've been at it for a while, and it brings us to—does anybody know what chapter are we in? Six. Good to know. Good job. So if you have a Bible, open it to 2 Samuel chapter six. We're going to keep marching through David's life. This is kind of an infamous story, and we'll take it apart as we go. Ready, all? Alright.

The Ark of the Covenant

Second Samuel six. I'll read you the first couple of verses.

David again brought together out of Israel chosen men, 30,000 in all. He and all his men set out from Baalah of Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name the name of the Lord God Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim that are on the ark. — 2 Samuel 6:1-2

Let's do a little cultural background here. What do you know about the ark? Noah. Okay, good. Here's what's interesting. So when we say ark, you think Noah. The word ark doesn't mean boat. It means box. Noah's ark, we think of it as Noah's boat. It really was Noah's ark. And that same word ark, which is a reference to a very, very large box full of animals, is also the same word for a different box. No relation to Noah's, but another ark.

So what is the other ark? Ark of the Covenant. Right? What is that? What is the box of the covenant? It's got—what is it, Linda? Where God dwells. That's right. That's kind of the punch line of it.

So there's stuff in the box. What's the stuff that's in the box? The 10 Commandments. The actual stone tablets. Moses' or Aaron's—some stick. Aaron's? Okay, it's Aaron's stick. What else? A jar of manna. Right? So like a sample of the bread. The name really means—what is it? Remember the candy bar? Whatchamacallit? It's like a jar of whatchamacallit in there. That's what's in the box.

But Linda, who's in the box? God. And that's so odd, right? God is omnipresent. He is all places. But He's especially in the box. It's just kind of weird.

The way it describes it here is: "The ark of God, which is called by the name, the name of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim that are on the ark." So He might not technically be in the box. He's just above it. But wherever this box goes, His presence was. So as this box was getting dragged around the desert for forty years, what was the emblematic visible presence of God in or on that box? Do you remember? It's the glory of the Lord. Yes. So it's fire. Fire by night and smoke by day. He is like—it's super strange, but this nonphysical spiritual God who is omnipresent everywhere is especially right here. This box is a big deal.

Is there anything else you know about the ark that's important? The lid is called the mercy seat. Yeah. And there's a couple of different ways that gets translated, but there's these sculptures, statues, whatever, of two angels with their wings outstretched over the top. This is in particular where God really is and where the offerings to Him are made. This is where we intersect and find His mercy.

And David wants to bring the box to his new place, which is a good idea. So he's going to do that. But things are going to go sideways pretty quickly. If you wanted to read about the Ark of the Covenant, probably Exodus 25 would be a good place to start.

Kelly Sue, do you want to unpack that? Okay. Let me try to repeat that because there's no way people heard you. So what's interesting here is Kelly is saying that inside the box is the law, and that's kind of rough news. If we sit judged by the law, it's probably not going to go that well. But in the very place where the law resides, there is this seat of mercy, and that if we're hidden in Christ, we experience His mercy despite our violation of the law that's in the box.

The mercy seat. Okay. So here's what happens.

They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart with the ark of God on it, and Ahio was walking in front of it. David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the Lord, with harps, with songs, with lyres, tambourines, cisterns, and cymbals. — 2 Samuel 6:3-5

Okay? Anybody see anything wrong with what we've read so far? Anybody got a problem with any of this? Don?

There's something about how you move the ark. I think we're breaking more of the rules. Yes. Now, that could appear to be very arcane knowledge, right? So they've got a brand new ox cart, and they're making a bunch of songs, and they're going to go get the ark.

Everyone's happy and everything's great, but they perhaps don't realize that this thing is going to go off the rails. But it's already gone off the rails. Suzanne, were you going to add anything to that or the same thing that Don said?

Yeah, it was supposed to be carried. It was supposed to be carried by the priests.

That's right. Now, it's supposed to be carried by the priests. When they made the thing, in fact, I can go show you this. Go back to Exodus 37. I'm going to read you this again. This is candidly the part of the Bible that bores you, right? When you're doing your Through the Bible, you're like, blah, blah, blah. You don't care about any of this. But sometimes the details matter.

So Bezalel—I'm going to butcher every name. Just live with it, okay?

Bezalel made the ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high. He overlaid it with pure gold, both inside and out, and made a gold molding around it. He cast four gold rings for it and fastened them onto four feet with two rings on each side. And then he made poles of acacia wood and overlaid them with gold, and then he inserted the poles into the rings on the side of the ark to carry it. — Exodus 37

This thing is not designed to be settled into an ox cart and transported that way. You're supposed to carry it on poles, right? It's very clear, very explicit. If you keep going—well, don't keep going. Turn your page. Go to Numbers 4. We're just going to cherry pick through some of the boring stuff that you never read.

After Aaron and his sons have finished covering the holy furnishings and all the holy articles, when the camp is ready to move, the Kohathites are to come do the carrying, but they must not touch the holy things, including the ark, or they will die. The Kohathites are to carry those things that are in the tent of meeting. — Numbers 4:15

And if you flip forward just a couple of pages, Numbers 7:6:

Moses took the carts and the oxen, and he gave them to the Levites. He gave two carts and four oxen to the Gershonites, as their work required. And he gave four carts and eight oxen to the Merarites, as their work required. They were all under the direction of Ithamar son of Aaron the priest. But Moses did not give any carts to the Kohathites because they were to carry on their shoulders the holy things for which they were responsible. — Numbers 7:6-9

You hear it? So the guys whose job it is to move this thing around, they know that everybody's handing out carts and oxens, but these guys—the ones that are the ark carriers—get it. God's very particular. When you move the ark, don't put it on a cart. Put it on your shoulders. Carry it on the pole. Make sense?

The Van Halen Illustration

Anybody ever see Van Halen in concert? We got a Van Halen? Yes. What year? When did you see them?

Okay. So I graduated from high school in '88. So Van Halen was a thing back then, right? Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth, and then David left, and Sammy Hagar came in and everything was whatever. Their concerts were groundbreaking, okay? Just absolutely transformative. They were the most extravagant shows in the world, right? Just, I can't remember the numbers, but there'd be six, eight, fifteen, eighteen wheelers coming in with all the lights and all the pyrotechnics and all the speakers. It was just an absolutely insane show. And it's so insane, so crazy, so completely, absolutely overdeveloped that you have to get it right or somebody's going to catch on fire and die. It was a big deal.

So when they would build their riders—like the contract—if you're going to have our concert here, these are the rules. There's nine hundred fifty rules. You've got to do this, you've got to do this, you've got to do this. And if you don't do all of these things exactly the way we tell you to, somebody's going to die. You have to get it right.

So David Lee Roth developed this genius idea. Does anybody know the story? What did David Lee Roth do to make sure that they read the contract? Ever heard this story?

Brown M&Ms. That's exactly right. It's about the brown M&Ms, okay? Do you want to tell it really loud or you want me to tell it?

So you know how any kind of rock star is going to have all these ridiculous rules and these prima donna kind of things. He built into the contract that in his dressing room, there is to be a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown M&Ms removed. And if there aren't, he's flipping tables, okay? And it looks like he's just being a prima donna, right? He just doesn't like brown M&Ms. But in reality, what it was—it was a tripwire. It was his way to find out: did you read the contract? Because if you read the contract, you know it's in there, and we're done here, right?

The Importance of Attention to Detail

And so what I want to know is, are you paying attention to the details? And if not, it's not the brown M&M's. It's that somebody's going to die in a fire because you're not an attentive group. Did I tell the story right? Okay? I just want you to think about that.

What's going on here is here's the rules. This is how you carry the cart. You put the pole for the things, you put it on your shoulder, and you walk. This thing never goes on a cart. So if we were attentively reading this story, if we had read the contract, if we knew about the brown M&M's, when we get to this point of the story, we'd be like, woah, woah, woah, woah. Something bad is gonna happen. Right? But we probably don't read it that way, and they didn't live it that way.

It's almost certainly the case that you notice now about you gotta carry the ark because you've already read the rest of the story. But the rest of the story, the thing that goes sideways, it started earlier than anybody realized because it didn't get rid of the brown M&M's.

Uzzah and the Ark

So take a look at this. Second Samuel, where are we? Second Samuel, check it out, verse six:

When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God because the oxen stumbled. The Lord's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act. Therefore, God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God. — 2 Samuel 6:6-7

I think almost everyone who reads that well, what is your impression? When you read that story, when you read about touching the ark, the things about the fall, and he gets struck dead. How does that strike you?

Kathryn: It's kind of unfair. I mean, he was trying to save it. It was an impulse. I mean, it's not like, "I don't care if it falls." Just a reflex.

Yeah. So it feels unfair. He's just responding reflexively. It's the thing. It's like, what do you want? You want it to hit the ground? Right? Makes sense, yeah?

Audience member: The thing already seemed wrong to begin with. So now God's hyper-focusing on the fact that he was trying to save the ark.

Yeah. Okay. Zach is saying it seems like, well, the thing has already gone wrong, and now God is focusing on his ability to touch the ark.

The Delayed Consequences of Disobedience

Here's what I want you to think about. When we disobey on the front end and nothing goes badly, sometimes we think we got away with it. Have you noticed this? But sometimes the consequence of our prior disobedience, it doesn't show up immediately.

Imagine we filmed a movie about the shooting that took place in Texas this week. And you're watching things go, and there's this moment where a school teacher goes out kind of the back door, shoves a chair in the door, leaves it propped open, and then goes back and does whatever they were doing. Right? It would look like a small innocuous thing unless you know what's going to happen. Right? Somebody propped a door open. Have you ever propped a door open? Lots of times. Right?

Now, we don't know if that door was always propped open because that hallway didn't have air conditioning, and so it was always super hot, and so they got the door propped open. Or if the doors are constantly locked and they do a really good job, but this particular teacher on one time told somebody to unprops the door and they didn't hear them. I don't know what any of the particulars are.

But what we do know is that propping a door open is a pretty innocuous act, but it was a necessary link in a chain that led to the death of what's the number? 19, 20, 21? Children and teachers. Right?

So I think in this, sometimes we can be like, "It's not a big deal. What's the big deal?" Well, I don't know. I'm not smart enough to know what's the big deal. But it seems to be that one of the lessons of the story is when we disobey because we don't think it's going to matter, we should have the humility to recognize that I don't know the eventual outcome of my disobedience. I'm just not that smart, and neither are you.

And there's lots of times in life where I think we make a pragmatic decision because that rule seems stupid, and an oxcart would be far easier. But we're just not smart enough to know where this story's gonna go. Make sense? Yeah.

Helen: I'm kind of taken with this because how often have I tried to help God out and done something that really makes a lot of sense to me, but it's not following what the Lord has put in Scripture. And I do it all the time, right? Don't we all?

So Helen's confession here is anybody else want to get on Team Helen here? Anybody ever feel like, "Man, I just think it's a dumb rule, so I'm gonna do it the way I want to do it."

Okay, theologically, I understand the case that you're making, but this would be so much more efficient. We're going to prioritize one thing above another. And it might just be that you get away with it. Anybody ever get away with anything? I would guess that door had been propped open before, and I would further guess that there are hundreds of doors in public schools that were propped open last week. Don't you think?

And the problem is whenever we get away with something, then it's like, well, that's fine. And then we do it again. And then we do it again. And that's, I think, very often the way this plays out—we're just not smart enough to see the end from the means. We don't get there.

Why the Rules Existed

So the question: why did you have to carry the ark on your shoulder and not on a cart? My guess would be it is because of this. There are some things—lots of different reasons for different rules—but the reason I draw that illustration with the brown M&Ms in the cart is because some things are riskier than you realize. The consequence: I think God foresaw the likelihood or the risk that an ox cart could stumble because that happens. That's a normal thing. Things fall. No big deal. You paint over the scratches. But this thing is not to be scratched. This thing is not to be dropped. So therefore, carry this by hand.

There are just things—I have a nephew who works in Hawaii, and his job is to transport human tissue for surgeries or whatever. Gotta move a kidney or a skin graft or whatever it is. They don't screw around with that. Everything is packed in ice and foamed here. You do this because somebody's gonna die if you don't get this thing where it's supposed to go. Something bad is gonna happen. And so when we recognize that things are particularly important, we create a set of rules around them. Say, this—don't mess with this. Sign this one in ink. Get this right. But eventually we're like, what's the worst that can happen? And we slack off.

Lack of Knowledge Can Be Deadly

I think the point is a lack of knowledge can be deadly. And so whether David knew the rule and he was careless about it, or did he not know the rule—if he didn't know the rule, then I think that suggests that he was careless about knowing the rule. You've all been given things like, "Hey, here's the sexual molestation policies. Be sure to read it." And you're like, blah, blah, blah. Well, no, no, no. Maybe actually read it because it's not blah, blah, blah. These are real human beings.

David shows, in other instances, a remarkable level of insight and understanding of what was expected of him as king. I think there are lots of places where he knows, like, hey, we've got to deal with these people and this man. We've got to do these different things. So I think if he didn't know, he had the opportunity to know and the obligation to know. And either didn't know or didn't seem to think it mattered that much. Probably something in that space.

David wasn't being like, let's hate God by moving it. It wasn't being malicious. But I think there was a casualness or a carelessness or a lack of earnestness or seriousness that was really unfitting to the moment.

Something Is Missing

David loves the Lord. He really is a man after God's own heart, and that's just clear in a thousand different ways, and we see that he seeks him. But something clearly is missing here. Something is broken, and whether it's casualness or whatever.

And there's one other factor we haven't mentioned yet. I want to show you one other thing that might have been influencing David's thinking about this. There's a phenomenon that says, like, it's fine. Don't worry about the particulars. It's just everywhere all the time.

I don't know if you're following the news. Anybody know what's going on with the Southern Baptist Church right now? It's bad. You guys, it's really, really bad. It's rough. I would not be surprised if the Southern Baptist Church is about to have a very, very difficult year. It may not exist in a year. A report just came out that Russell Moore has been talking about for months and months and months. Russell Moore, who's kind of a former, very significant leader in the Southern Baptist Church, has been ranting for some time, and a report just came out that basically vindicated everything he says, namely that the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Church has known that there was sexual child abuse happening in the ranks, and they covered it up for the sake of the mission, basically.

When word gets out about this, it's going to be bad. It's going to dry up funding. It's going to impact international missions. We're not going to be able to do that, and so the thinking was, let's deal with it ourselves. Let's deal with it in house. Let's not let the sunshine in. You're not allowed to do that. You are simply not allowed to do that.

A report came out last week that basically exposed all of this, and it is a massive black eye for not just the Southern Baptist church, because people can't tell the difference. It's our church. It's the church. It's Christianity. Right? So a pragmatic decision was made. Hey, it's going to be better for missions if we just keep this in the shadows. Pragmatically, that's better. Good motive, right? Let's carry out the mission. Horrible, horrible decision. And now when it comes, it comes much worse.

There's just a million ways that we have a tendency to think, I think my solution is better than this solution. Let's do that. And you can pick your favorite theological issue. There are regulations for who can be an elder in each of those, and this can be very controversial. One of those, I believe, is that the role of presbyter is reserved to men. And many, many churches are like, Yeah, but not really. I mean, I think women could perform that role too.

And while I would certainly affirm to you that women are competent enough to do so, I also think oxcarts are competent vehicles for moving things. And I'm not smart enough to know the ultimate rules or why God has said what He said, but I kind of do know what He did say, and so I don't think we're going to do that.

This is something that the church struggles with terribly. Like, wow, that seems like a stupid rule. I don't like that rule. That doesn't feel very pragmatic. Let's open these doors up. And I'm like, well, I mean, you could. You could. But I think that God has actually said something about this. So you can either take what He said and disregard it, or you can take what He said and obey it even if you don't understand it or don't agree with it.

This phenomenon is alive and well. There's often reasons that we're like, I don't want to think about that, so I'm going to do what I want to do.

The Oxcart Precedent

Here's what I want you to think about. What is the most recent time prior to this event that the ark got moved? How did the ark get moved? Do you remember? The Philistines moved the ark. Anybody want to guess how the Philistines moved the ark? They put it on an oxcart.

And I've got to say, don't you think that when David was thinking about, hey, how do we get the ark from here to there, that his mind went to the last time the ark went from there to here? Does that make sense? It's a brand new one. The wheels are very rounded. Everything is great. So just watch that. It's very common.

The means that David chooses to move the ark from here to there is an imitation of how the pagans do it and a rejection of how the Lord has said to do it. Does that ever happen among us? Do we ever take our cues from a lost and dying world and say, well, that's how they do it, so why don't we do what they do? And I haven't bothered to check and to see.

This is ubiquitous. I'm saying there's a lot more going on in this little moment here than just Uzzah touching the ark, right?

And you can look at this and get all testy about it, but slow the thing down because there's an awful lot of times that we, that I, take my cues from the pagan world because it's easier, it's more obvious, it seems like a good idea, and I'm just too stupid to see the ultimate outcome of that. Right? They got away with it, and so will I. Has anybody ever thought in their mind they got away with it and so will I? Has anybody ever thought like just the way that the world functions and thought, let's just do that. That was a good idea. That's a common thing.

This is just kind of a silly thought, like, the ark on the ox cart. I mean, they have the poles? What happened to the poles? Did somebody else die in this process? I would assume that they picked it up with the poles. I would guess that they got it—I don't know, but it seems like they would have died if they touched it. So they probably used the poles to get it on there. That makes sense. These poles are very useful to get it on to the ox cart. That makes perfect sense to me. I get it. I like making things easy.

Exodus 25:15 says the poles are never moving. That's right. So they should have been in there. Never remove the poles, which is more clues of God being like, I'm serious about this. Don't touch this thing. Do this. And they're like, well, you know, it's fine. Okay? So be mindful there. Yeah. Check out where they're at.

Where what's that? Where are they when this happens? The threshing floor? Is that what you mean? Are you thinking of the threshing floor of Aruna? I looked that up. Are you talking about where the census happens and all that stuff? Okay. What's the significance of threshing floor that you're talking about? That's where they separate the wheat from the chaff. There's a couple of things that happen because I was taking you on a different trail. There's a couple of things that happen significantly at a threshing floor, where you're separating the wheat from the chaff. That is where ultimately I think that's a long whole story. There's a threshing floor of a guy named Aruna, and a whole bunch of things, strangely, over centuries of time, happen at the same spot. So this is a different threshing floor, but yes, it's a place where the separation takes place.

If you wanted to read about the last time the cart got moved, we're in 2 Samuel 6. The last time it happened was in 1 Samuel 6, if you just want to make a note. And you can see the pagans, the Philistines moving that thing on a cart.

So it happens. Uzzah reaches out, and he's dead. And as I said, there's a whole lot that happened before that moment. But once it happens, how does David feel? He's angry. He's angry. Now, what do you—the text isn't perfectly clear. We can get within a couple of guesses, I think. Who is he angry with? What is he angry about? Let's unpack David's emotional life from three thousand years away.

You think he's angry with God and why? He thought God was being unfair. Yeah, perhaps. It's a very reasonable thing that he thinks that God is being unfair with Uzzah, perhaps. Right? Being angry with himself. Angry with himself for what? Because that showed him where he was off track with the Lord's rules. Yeah. I mean, I would think that would hit him right in the face. Yeah. That may have. If his own misjudgment has just resulted in the death of an otherwise innocent man who was seeking to help the thing, perhaps. So he gets angry enough because that's hard to face right there in front of you, the death of a person and it's your responsibility. Did you ever do something wrong and then get mad at somebody else? Okay, that happened. Does your spouse ever do something wrong and then get mad at somebody else? Does that ever happen? Okay.

Verse 9, David was afraid of the Lord. Whatever else he's got anger, he's got fear. David was afraid of the Lord that day. How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me? And he was not willing to take the ark of the Lord to be with him in the city of David. And instead he took it aside to the house of Obed Edom the Gittite.

So what did David just do here? He said, oh, you're gonna do that. Forget it then. Keep your stupid box. I don't want it. Have you ever done that? Like, you ever take your toys and go home? Like, there is a prescribed method, but at this moment at least, it's not available to David. He could be like, Alright, I got it. Pick it up. Shoulders, go. Instead he's like, I'm done. Keep the box. And the box goes away. And what happens to the people? Do you know what's gonna happen to the people who become the possessors of the ark? They get blessed beyond belief. Right?

That's amazing. Okay? So I don't exactly know how this works, but God's like, alright, fine. Isn't that so interesting? David's like, not interested. Keep it. Pound sand. Don't want it. And the box goes someplace else, and God's like, alright. That's fine. Where I am, where my presence is, there will be a blessing. And if it's not for you, it'll be for you. And he blesses this man's family. So interesting.

On the one hand, it makes me feel like the box is a genie or a token or a magic thing. Right? But I don't think it's that. I think, in fact, that God is communicating that his presence brings blessing, and if you reject it, it'll bypass you and go to somebody else. That's pretty gripping to me.

Chris? Make sure I'm going along with what you're teaching because I think I am. That with him killing Uzzah, it's a deeper understanding that David would have needed. And therefore, what the Lord is trying to teach us, that what the New Testament teaches, that fear the Lord with all heart, mind, and soul. Yes, of course you need to read the fine print. You need to do all these things and so on. When you don't listen exactly, someone's gonna die and repeat that sort of understanding. But then when you I wanna bless anyone that listens to me fully. And what David, what I read is that he was angry with the death of Uzzah, but then he lost trust with the Lord and leading to being afraid. And then he later on in the chapter just comes back to him and I imagine asked for a sign of like, I don't understand through his predecessors, and then ultimately gets the sign. Yeah, the blessing to this house. And he goes, that's okay. And now I get it. Yeah.

Okay. So let me try to recap some of this. So you're tracing through what's going on in people's hearts here. And so Uzzah, I think Uzzah's fundamental assumption is that it's better that he grab the ark than that the ark touch the ground. Right? Which is perhaps a presumptuous thought. Right? Maybe I am holier than the dirt. I think maybe he's not. It would have been a better thing to let the ark touch the ground, we'll deal with the oxcart thing. But instead, as he intervenes, he's thinking perhaps too highly of himself: Hey, it's better off to hit me than to have it touch the ground. So he's worrying about that.

David observes that, and he loses trust in the Lord. He's afraid, he's angry, and he doesn't trust him anymore, and so David needs a cooling off period. And while we can tease it that he's silly and he's going to miss the blessing, I also—you know this too, right? Sometimes you don't want the ark that day. You all need a cooling off period? You ever get angry? You ever get afraid? You ever decide, I don't want to play anymore? So David is working through that.

And I think that what we can look and see in David's life, whereas on the one hand David points to Christ as the perfect king, and he also points to us as human beings that are like, I don't know, we're messing this. So I can see in David's failings and in David's successes, I see what the Messiah will be like, and in David's failings, I see what I am like. That I have that same phenomena in me where I'm like, you know what? Let's talk next week, maybe in a month. I don't want to play right now. I think that's where David's at.

But as he does it, the blessing follows the ark. This doesn't specify what the blessing is, but if you look at the parallel account in Chronicles, this guy ends up having a million kids and grandchildren. So consistent with what we're talking about in church today, children are a gift. Children are a blessing. And probably the blessing on this household is lots and lots of babies.

Then, check it out, in verse 12:

Now King David was told, "The Lord has blessed the household of Obededom and everything he has because of the ark of God." So David went down and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obededom to the city of David with rejoicing. — 2 Samuel 6:12

Now check this out. David's going to swing the pendulum very far to the other side. When those who were carrying the ark of the Lord had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. Okay? So what's different now, first of all? People are actually carrying. They're carrying. There's no ox and no carts to be seen. So the text is curious—this is how you learn to read narrative.

The text never said, "Oh, PS, the problem was the oxcart. They were supposed to carry it." It never tells you that. It just tells you, put it on an oxcart, it fell, and everything goes all sideways. I'm bringing in some of that side information that's absolutely true. And then the narrator's like, and then they carried it and everything went fine. So when you read narrative, he doesn't give you the courtesy to be like, "Go read Numbers." They don't do that.

They just show you an ox cart, and then they show it to you carrying, and you're supposed to fill in the gap. You're supposed to be like, "Ah, I get it. The problem was the carrying. The problem was that they weren't being obedient to what God had said."

And so they carry it. Not only do they carry it, but when they go six steps, they sacrifice a fattened calf. Now, I can't tell from the NIV—do you get the impression that they did that for the first six steps or for every six steps? Every six steps. Is that clear in the ESV? No. And so I don't know if it's like we start this thing and then we're going to pause, or they do it every six steps. But do you know how long they're walking with this thing? Do you have a footnote on that? It's 10 miles. I don't know if it's every six steps they stop for 10 miles, but that would take a long time. Maybe—Bob, can you tell?

No, it says that's debated between interpretations—either the first six steps or every six steps. But either way, I don't know what it is. Whatever—I kinda hope it was only just the first six, because that would be tedious, right? And it's not required. But what David is showing, I think, is a supreme level of "we're gonna do it right." We're gonna carry the thing all 10 miles. We're gonna be cautious. We're gonna honor the Lord. "I want the ark. Let's move the ark to Jerusalem, but we're gonna get it right this time."

Kelly? It's also what—the Levites are very similar. Are you going to reference 1 Chronicles 15?

I have no idea what's going on in 1 Chronicles 15. Okay, so did you say it's 1 Chronicles 15? So I had not seen that. That's the gap, right? Like, we didn't figure out how to do it, so we did it wrong. But now we're going to read the contract, right?

Guys need to consecrate yourself. Be consecrated. Wash and consecrated it.

That's exactly right. And so what that all suggests, at least to me here, is that you may blow it. You may have already blown it, and you might need a moment to cool off because you're angry or you're afraid and you didn't do it right. But there's the opportunity to be like, "Okay, okay, okay. Now that I'm no longer mad and I can see straight, let me have the self-reflection to go: look at this. Where have I gotten this wrong? What am I supposed to do?" And as David gets back on track, we also can get back on track and say, "Okay, Lord, you are merciful and you're gracious. You're gonna give me the ball again, but this time I want to get it right."

Catherine? At first, I was thinking he was overcompensating, like overdoing, because it just seems so extravagant. But after all this discussion, I'm not so sure of that. But maybe out of his fears, like, he was still operating in his heels a little bit—"I'm gonna do this. I'm just gonna get it right."

Yeah, I'm really gonna show the Lord. That's right. I think we capture an adequate level that there's earnestness and seriousness, and he no longer has this attitude that's cavalier.

Okay, Jennifer—and then Dan—then we gotta stop.

Dan? I find it fascinating that the reason apparently that they bring it into Jerusalem then is because Obed-Edom is getting all these blessings that we should be saying, "Hey, wait. Look. He's getting all this great stuff happening to him," rather than, "Wait, this is the center of government. This is where the temple's going to be," you know? No argument like that. It's just "You're missing out, man."

Yep, and yet even that—it's a God that's so condescending to us that even when we seek him for the blessing, he can still give the blessing, right? And he uses that to woo him.

Okay, I've got to go greet, but let me just say this last thing. Michael—Michelle, whatever her name is—David's wife. She's not having any of this, okay? She hates this. This is the last time you're going to see her. Remember, we talked about her a couple weeks ago, and she's got a really weird on-again, off-again relationship with David. But I'll just mention briefly: if you read the rest of the chapter, David is rejoicing before the Lord. He disrobes and he's dancing around in his underwear, and she's like, "You look like an idiot." And he dances before the Lord, and then she has no children for the rest of her life. The end. Close curtain. Things end badly with her.

And I think that if we were following her and we saw some stuff a few weeks ago about her, her story ends badly. And the contrast that I think we're meant to get here is that David, though he screws up huge and lots of times, whenever he does, he repents and he comes back around, and he prioritizes the Lord. And this particular wife just never gets there.

She never repents. She never softens. She never acknowledges that. She just kind of has a hard heart, which gives me hope, right, that David, despite his many failings, he apologizes, when he repents, when he comes back to the Lord, the Lord walks him back over and over and over again. But Michal, she doesn't do that, and her story ends badly.

So I think we want to be a people that your life will always be sin and repentance, sin and repentance. So when you sin, don't forget the repentance, right? Come back. Don't have that hard heart.

Alright. I gotta run. Sorry. Gotta go. Thanks.