16. smote the host of the Philistines from Gibeon even to Gezer] This victory was decisive; the main army of the Philistines was routed.
Gezer] compare vi. 67, note.
Chapter XV.
1–24.
David’s Preparations for Bringing the Ark to Jerusalem.
There is no parallel in Samuel to this section.
In 2 Samuel vi. 12 the reason given for the renewal of David’s attempt to bring the Ark to Jerusalem is the report of the blessing which was said to have befallen Obed-edom, in whose house the Ark had been left. The Chronicler is not ignorant of this tradition since he refers to it incidentally in xiii. 14, but it would be very far from his sense of the fitness of things to adduce it as the motive for David’s action. On the contrary he declares in this section that David was prompted by a realisation that the ill-success of the first attempt was due to failure to observe the regulations of the Levitical Law. Full attention now being given to the prescribed ritual, David succeeds in his pious purpose.
¹And David made him houses in the city of David; and he prepared a place for the ark of God, and pitched for it a tent.
1. made him houses] Compare 2 Samuel v. 9.
a tent] a new tent, not the old tabernacle which the Chronicler believed to be at Gibeon (see xvi. 39).