²³And Berechiah and Elkanah were doorkeepers for the ark.
23. were doorkeepers for the ark] The same statement is made in verse 24 concerning Obed-edom and Jehiah (= Jeiel)! On Curtis’ view, this verse was added by the same writer as verses 19–21, who, having taken Obed-edom and Jeiel as part of the list of singers in verse 18 no doubt thought that the names of the doorkeepers (the last word of verse 18) had somehow been omitted. He supplied therefore here the names Berechiah and Elkanah (taken perhaps from ix. 16). A still later writer has attempted to put matters straight by further adding at the conclusion of verse 24 “and Obed-edom and Jehiah (Jeiel) were doorkeepers for the ark.”
²⁴And Shebaniah, and Joshaphat, and Nethanel, and Amasai, and Zechariah, and Benaiah, and Eliezer, the priests, did blow with the trumpets before the ark of God: and Obed-edom and Jehiah were doorkeepers for the ark.
24. the priests] In Numbers x. 1–10 it is enjoined to make two silver trumpets to be blown by the priests on days of joy and on feast-days. This festal trumpet was different from the “cornet” (verse 28), properly a ram’s horn, which was freely used for secular purposes. See Driver, Amos, pp. 144 ff. (with illustrations).
25–XVI. 3 (compare 2 Samuel vi. 12–20).
The Bringing Home of the Ark. Michal despises David.
²⁵So David, and the elders of Israel, and the captains over thousands, went to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the house of Obed-edom with joy: ²⁶and it came to pass, when God helped the Levites that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, that they sacrificed seven bullocks and seven rams.
26. when God helped the Levites] In 2 Samuel vi. 13, when they that bare the ark of the Lord had gone six paces. The Chronicler interprets the safe start as a sign of Divine assistance.
seven bullocks and seven rams] In Samuel an ox and a fatling (so Revised Version, not, oxen and fatlings as Authorized Version). The smaller sacrifice of Samuel is represented as the king’s own offering, the larger sacrifice of Chronicles as that of the king and his elders combined.
²⁷And David was clothed with a robe of fine linen, and all the Levites that bare the ark, and the singers, and Chenaniah the master of the song[¹] with the singers: and David had upon him an ephod of linen.
[¹] Or, the carrying of the ark Hebrew the lifting up.