39. eating and drinking] The feasting probably began with the sacrificial meal by which a covenant was usually ratified; compare Genesis xxxi. 46, 54.
⁴⁰Moreover they that were nigh unto them, even as far as Issachar and Zebulun and Naphtali, brought bread on asses, and on camels, and on mules, and on oxen, victual of meal, cakes of figs, and clusters of raisins, and wine, and oil, and oxen, and sheep in abundance: for there was joy in Israel.
40. they that were nigh unto them] The relatives of the assembled warriors cared for their needs.
as far as Issachar] Even those warriors who came from the northern districts were provisioned by their kinsfolk.
Chapter XIII.
1–14 (= 2 Samuel vi. 1–11).
Removal of the Ark from Kiriath-jearim to the House of Obed-edom. Death of Uzza.
In harmony with his conviction that the acts of David in promoting or instituting the religious ceremonial of Israel were the supremely important events of his reign, the Chronicler represents the removal of the Ark from Kiriath-jearim as being the first concern of the new monarch and his first action subsequent to the capture of Jerusalem. David’s building of a royal residence for himself and his family in Jerusalem, and his victories over the Philistines, which in 2 Samuel precede the removal of the Ark, are relegated to the second place in Chronicles (see chapter xiv.). The transposition of order is effected by means of the introductory verses 1–4, which are from the Chronicler’s own hand.
It is convenient to draw attention here to a matter of some importance in the narrative of Chronicles, viz. that the Chronicler believed the Tabernacle (Mishkān) of the Lord (Exodus xxxv.–xl.) “which Moses made in the wilderness” (1 Chronicles xxi. 29) to be in existence in David’s day and to be standing at Gibeon (see xvi. 39, and 2 Chronicles i. 3). Yet when the Ark was taken into the city of David it was placed not in the Mishkān but “in the tent (Ohel) which David pitched for it” (xvi. verse 1 = 2 Samuel vi. 17). Thus in Chronicles the two holy things, the Ark and the Tabernacle, are represented as separated, and a separate daily service has to be instituted for each; Asaph and his brethren being said to minister before the Ark in the city of David (1 Chronicles xvi. 37), and Zadok and his brethren before the Tabernacle at Gibeon (xvi. verse 39). The worship at Gibeon as well as Jerusalem entailed a manifest breach of the Deuteronomic law that at one sanctuary only must worship be offered. It is hard to say what the Chronicler thought of David’s strange disregard of a stringent law which (on the Chronicler’s theory) was well known to David, and which the Chronicler used as one of the criteria distinguishing the good from the evil kings from Solomon onwards. Doubtless David’s ecclesiastical arrangements were regarded as temporary, pending the building of the Temple, but surely the Mishkān could have been removed to Jerusalem almost as easily as the Ark. Why then does the perfect king fail in this duty? The Chronicler ignores the difficulty completely, probably because he was unable to see or conjecture any adequate explanation of David’s conduct. It goes without saying that in reality the Deuteronomic law of the one sanctuary was of much later origin than the time of David, and the difficulty is an unreal one.
¹And David consulted with the captains of thousands and of hundreds, even with every leader.