² Or, _where the Name is called on_. =6.= _to Baalah_, that is, _to Kiriath-jearim_] A Gibeonite city, probably _Ḳaryet el-‘Enab_ (“City of Grapes”) some 7 miles north-west of Jerusalem. Compare Joshua xv. 9; in Joshua xv. 60 _Kiriath-baal_. _sitteth upon the cherubim_] Compare Ezekiel i. 26. _which is called by the Name_] The God whose is the Ark is here distinguished from the gods of the nations as the God who bears the ineffable Name. ⁷And they carried the ark of God upon a new cart, _and brought it_ out of the house of Abinadab: and Uzza and Ahio drave the cart. =7.= _a new cart_] A new cart was chosen as one which had not been profaned by common work. So (Judges xvi. 11, 12) new ropes “wherewith no work hath been done” were used in the attempt to bind the consecrated man, Samson. So also (Mark xi. 2, 7) our Lord rode into Jerusalem on a colt “whereon no man ever yet sat.” _the house of Abinadab_] Compare 1 Samuel vii. 1, 2; also 2 Samuel vi. 3. Here the Ark had been since the Philistines restored it to Israelite territory. ⁸And David and all Israel played before God with all their might: even with songs, and with harps, and with psalteries, and with timbrels, and with cymbals, and with trumpets. =8.= _played_] The Hebrew word means _to sport, to dance_ (compare xv. 29). _with all their might: even with songs_] A better reading than that of 2 Samuel vi. 5, _with all manner of_ instruments made of _fir wood_. _psalteries_] The instrument here meant (Hebrew _nēbhel_) “is generally identified at the present day with an instrument called the _santir_ still in use among the Arabs. This consists of a long box with a flat bottom covered with a somewhat convex sounding-board over which the strings are stretched.” (Nowack, _Hebräische Archäologie_, I. 275.) The “harp” (Hebrew _kinnōr_) was a simpler instrument (like the Greek _Kithara_), a _lyre_ rather than a true harp. For a full discussion of _nēbhel_ and _kinnōr_ see Driver, _Amos_, p. 234, or the articles _Music_ in _Encyclopedia Biblia_ or Hastings’ _Dictionary of the Bible_. ⁹And when they came unto the threshing-floor of Chidon, Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark; for the oxen stumbled¹. ¹ Or, _were restive_ Or, _threw_ it _down_. =9.= _the threshing-floor of Chidon_] LXX. (B) omits _of Chidon_. In 2 Samuel vi. 6, _Nacon’s threshing-floor_. Nacon is probably a textual blunder. _to hold the ark_] The Chronicler from a feeling of reverence shrinks from saying, _and took hold of it_ (2 Samuel vi. 6). _stumbled_] margin _threw_ it _down_, but the meaning is perhaps rather, _let it go_, i.e. let the cart on which the Ark was slip backwards. The same Hebrew word is used 2 Kings ix. 33; there Jehu in his mocking humour says not, _Throw her down_, but, _Let her go_, an ambiguous command meant to throw as much responsibility as possible upon those who obeyed it.