=1.= _David consulted with the captains_, etc.] The Chronicler is fond of associating the people with the king in religious measures so as to minimise the appearance of arbitrary power which is suggested by the language of the books of Samuel and of Kings; compare verse 4 (_the assembly said that they would do so_), also 2 Chronicles xxx. 2, 4. Similarly in xxviii. 2 the king addresses the elders as _My brethren_. Doubtless the Chronicler had in mind Deuteronomy xvii. 20. ²And David said unto all the assembly of Israel, If it seem good unto you, and if it be of the LORD our God, let us send abroad every where unto our brethren that are left in all the land¹ of Israel, with² whom the priests and Levites are in their cities that have suburbs³, that they may gather themselves unto us: and let us bring again the ark of our God to us: ¹ Hebrew _lands_. ² Or, _and with them to the priests and Levites which are &c._ ³ Or, _pasture lands_. =2.= _let us send abroad every where_] The Hebrew phrase is peculiar; _let us spread, let us send_, i.e. let the invitation be sent far and wide throughout the land and not limited to the southern tribes. _the priests and Levites_] In Samuel no mention of the Levites is made in the account of the removal of the Ark. The Chronicler retells the story in accordance with the conviction that the complete Levitical ceremonial with which he was familiar was actually in operation in the days of David. _in their cities that have suburbs_] or, as margin, =... that have pasture lands=; i.e. following the provision that cities are to be assigned to the Levites with “suburbs for their cattle and for their substance, and for all their beasts” (Numbers xxxv. 2‒7; compare Joshua xiv. 4, xxi. 2). ³for we sought not unto it in the days of Saul. ⁴And all the assembly said that they would do so: for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people. =3.= _we sought not unto it_] The meaning is _to seek with care, to care for_. Compare xv. 13. ⁵So David assembled all Israel together, from Shihor _the brook_ of Egypt even unto the entering in of Hamath, to bring the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim. =5.= _from Shihor_ the brook _of Egypt_] _Shihor_ was the name of the brook (now _wady el-Arish_) which divided Palestine from Egypt (Joshua xiii. 3, xv. 4; Jeremiah ii. 18). _the entering in of Hamath_] _Hamath_ (now _Hama_) is on the Orontes, see note on xviii. 5. _The entering in of Hamath_ is to be identified with the Beḳā‘a, a broad valley between Lebanon and Anti-Libanus watered by the Orontes, Bädeker, _Palestine_⁵, p. 372. It is mentioned as on the northern frontier of Israel in Joshua xiii. 5; 1 Kings viii. 65, and elsewhere. ⁶And David went up, and all Israel, to Baalah, _that is_, to Kiriath-jearim, which belonged to Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of God, the LORD that sitteth¹ upon the cherubim, which² is called by the Name. ¹ Or, _dwelleth between_.